Ep78 Dating Well Before - And After - the Wedding w/ Dr. Mario Sacasa

"Love should be seen as something which in a sense never ‘is’ but is always only ‘becoming’, and what it becomes depends upon the contribution of both persons and the depth of their commitment.”
~ St. John Paul II

In episode 78 of This Whole Life, hosts Kenna and Pat Millea welcome Dr. Mario Sacasa, a seasoned marriage and family therapist and host of the Always Hope podcast, for an honest and hope-filled conversation about dating well—both before and after marriage. Together, they explore the true purpose of dating, how couples can continue to date within marriage, and the vital role of curiosity, play, and intentional communication as relationships evolve. Dr. Sacasa shares real-world wisdom on navigating the current dating landscape, avoiding common pitfalls, and building healthy relational patterns that last. The hosts also get personal about the challenges and joys in their own families, offering a blend of practical advice and relatable stories. Don’t miss the candid post-show chat, where more authentic, practical insights emerge about integrating faith, mental health, and investing in love for the long haul.

Mario Sacasa, Ph.D. is a licensed marriage and family therapist and has been in practice for over 15 years. Dr. Sacasa is the host of Always Hope, a podcast providing solutions to life’s challenges that are grounded in faith and psychology. He travels the country offering lectures on dating, marriage, sexuality, and the misunderstood virtue of hope. He is the creator of two online courses: Dating Well, which helps young adults navigate the modern dating scene, and Overcoming Stress and Anxiety, which offers clear guidance for beating stress in life. Dr. Sacasa is married to his wife of 22 years, Kristin, with whom he shares the joy parenting their four sons.  

Episode 78 Show Notes

Chapters:

0:00: Introduction and Highs & Hards
15:57: What's the point of dating?
27:10: The common mistakes of dating
40:04: Mentally healthy dating
50:32: Warning signs for departing from dating
59:15: Challenge By Choice
1:05:42: The after-show!

Reflection Questions:

1. What is one specific thing that stuck with you from this conversation?
2. What has your experience been with dating? What are the blessings and challenges you've known?
3. How is dating different today than it was 20 years ago? What are the specific hardships and opportunities right now?
4. What makes dating difficult after a couple is married? How can they overcome those difficulties?
5. What do you need to focus on in your dating life right now? What changes will you make?

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction and Highs & Hards
• 15:57 What's the point of dating?
• 27:10 The common mistakes of dating
• 40:04 Mentally healthy dating
• 50:32 Warning signs for departing from dating
• 59:15 Challenge By Choice
• 1:05:42 The after-show!

Transcript

Pat Millea [00:00:00]:
Hey, friends, before we get into this episode, just a couple of quick details about this particular conversation. Because of some scheduling demands in our family, Kenna was not able to be on site during recording. So the quality of her audio does not match the beauty of her voice this time around. So apologies in advance, but I promise you the conversation is well worth it regardless. And second of all, just a little look behind the curtains of this whole life. Many times when we record with great guests, like in this episode with Dr. Mario Sacasa, oftentimes some of the best conversation unfortunately happens after we hit stop and we just have like a normal kind of human conversation. Oftentimes we leave that out.

Pat Millea [00:00:38]:
But this conversation in particular, the post episode chat, was just so good that I said, you know what? Forget it. We're just gonna leave it in so you'll hear the episode kind of wrap up toward the end. But I would encourage you, if you've got the time, don't hit stop. Because some really good stuff, some really honest, I think practical stuff comes after that. So with all that in mind, friends, here's episode 78. Enjoy.

Dr. Mario Sacasa [00:01:01]:
Even in the context of marriage, what we're saying is that the purpose of dating is to discover the individual. And so when couples are married, when they stop dating, that's a red flag in the relationship, and they stop seeing the eternal mystery that's there within the person.

Kenna Millea [00:01:26]:
Welcome to This Whole Life, a podcast for all of us, seeking sanity and sanctity and a place to find joy and meaning through the integration of faith and mental health. I'm Kenna Millea, a licensed marriage and family therapist, and I'm happy to bring you this podcast. Along with my husband, Pat Millea, a Catholic speaker, musician, and leader, we invite you to our kitchen table. Okay, not literally, but you're definitely invited into the conversations that we seem to keep having. Once the kids have scattered off to play and we're left doing the dishes. We're excited to share this podcast for educational purposes. It's not intended as therapy or as a substitute for mental health care. So let's get talking about This Whole Life.

Kenna Millea [00:02:17]:
Welcome back to This Whole Life. It is so good to be with you all again. And we are particularly grateful for our guest today, Dr. Mario Sacasa. Welcome, Mario.

Dr. Mario Sacasa [00:02:27]:
Thanks, Kenna. I am so delighted to be here with you guys on the podcast. Just a great, great time that I know we're gonna have today. So thanks so much for the invitation.

Kenna Millea [00:02:35]:
Yeah, absolutely. And Pat, my love, it is always good to be with you. Even though we are in different locations, as life would have it.

Pat Millea [00:02:42]:
Different places. I don't like being apart from you, but I'll take it. It's a necessary evil. It's okay.

Dr. Mario Sacasa [00:02:48]:
So sweet. So sweet.

Kenna Millea [00:02:50]:
And Mario, we actually got connected through Dr. Julia Sadusky, who was on our podcast earlier this year. And after she'd known your work and our work, she was like, hey, you guys should get together. And sure enough, we had a great conversation and thought, my goodness, it would be awesome for our listeners to get to benefit from your work as a clinician and as a speaker and as a program creator. So for those who aren't familiar with Dr. Mario Sacasa, he is a licensed marriage and family therapist in practice for over 15 years and does the incredible work of integrating our Catholic faith with his counseling practice. He is the host of another podcast, Always Hope, which we'll link up in our show Notes, a podcast providing solutions to life's challenges and that are grounded in faith and psychology. And he travels around the US offering lectures on dating, marriage, sexuality, and the misunderstood virtue of hope.

Kenna Millea [00:03:49]:
You can also check out Mario's work through his online courses. One is Dating Well and the other is Overcoming Stress and Anxiety. And outside of all of that, Mario, I imagine your greatest joy is your marriage to your wife Kristin, and 22 years of marriage and four sons, one of whom we heard.

Dr. Mario Sacasa [00:04:09]:
One of them just. Yeah, he's 21 now, so you can. I can drink with my son. It's strange.

Pat Millea [00:04:15]:
Beautiful.

Dr. Mario Sacasa [00:04:16]:
So, yeah, yeah, yeah. Legally, at least we could now, so.

Pat Millea [00:04:19]:
Right.

Dr. Mario Sacasa [00:04:21]:
It's wild. I don't know what's crazier. It's weird. I don't know if it's weird to think that he's 21 or that his birth was 21 years ago. And isn't that. That sounds weird, right?

Pat Millea [00:04:30]:
Yeah.

Dr. Mario Sacasa [00:04:31]:
But it's like, like remembering the event of his birthday, like, as a single, as a separate event from like his life. It's just, it's. It's weird.

Pat Millea [00:04:39]:
Time is.

Kenna Millea [00:04:39]:
Or that you're old enough to have a 21 year old.

Dr. Mario Sacasa [00:04:43]:
Yeah. I mean, listen, these gray hairs that you see on the beard, they are all well earned. All well earned. There by accident. Yep, exactly. They're not there by accident. So 21 years of parenthood will. Will give you a few, that's for sure.

Dr. Mario Sacasa [00:04:57]:
Oh, goodness. Yeah.

Pat Millea [00:04:58]:
But it's worth it for an old Fashioned with the boy. That's great.

Dr. Mario Sacasa [00:05:01]:
It is worth it for an old Fashioned with the boy that. That Is that is exactly right. That's all he it on his birthday. So I was happy to oblige.

Kenna Millea [00:05:09]:
Well, Mario, we start our episodes just stepping back into.

Kenna Millea [00:05:13]:
Yeah.

Kenna Millea [00:05:14]:
Getting connected and hearing about what's going on in each other's lives lately with a high and hard. So as our guest, if you would go first and just share a peek into what life has offered you.

Dr. Mario Sacasa [00:05:26]:
Yeah. So a recent high would be my son's 21st birthday, for example. It's, he's, he's, he's just an amazing young man. I'm so proud of him and it's just awesome to be able to celebrate his life and be able to celebrate him and the young person he is and the man he's becoming and he's on a verge. You know, he's about to graduate college and about to start taking next steps in his life. And so it's just great to be part of that journey with him. Also, my in laws celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary recently and we were all together in Florida celebrating both events within a couple days of each other. And that's just, I mean, a testament there.

Dr. Mario Sacasa [00:06:03]:
My in laws are amazing. There's still legacy that they've had in their life and through their children, through the parish community that they've served for 40 years. It's. It really, they are just humble witnesses of the gospel and so just, just grateful, grateful for them. I'm just honored to be part of the family, honestly. So it was great to celebrate, celebrate them. And then a hard, I would say, you know, this work that I think you guys are involved in also this entrepreneurship, running your practice, having a podcast, doing these type of endeavors, they have their ebbs and flows, don't they? And they're moments where you feel like you're riding a wave up high and you're like, let's go, let's go. Nothing's going to stop me.

Dr. Mario Sacasa [00:06:45]:
And then all of a sudden the wind just stops and, and you feel stuck in the tracks for a little bit and it's like, okay, Lord, what are we doing? Like, is this, is this where to go? Where'd all, where'd all that go? And so I would say the last month or so has kind of been in, in one of those, one of those periods the last few days, been able to turn the corner a little bit. But, but a little bit of a period of discouragement here is trying to just feel like we're trying to get some momentum and keeping this, this thing afloat and keeping this thing moving forward. So. So I would say that would be the hard of recent memory.

Pat Millea [00:07:18]:
If anyone appreciates that. Up and down the peaks and valleys, you're talking to two of them, for sure.

Dr. Mario Sacasa [00:07:26]:
Yeah, it is. It is. It's like, all right, Lord, we discerned this. I know this was supposed to be. And you feel like, yeah, we're supposed to keep going. So I just continue on in faith. That's for sure.

Pat Millea [00:07:41]:
My love. You want to go next?

Kenna Millea [00:07:43]:
Yeah, I can. I'll start with my hard. I think. Mario, before we jumped on air here, Pat was sharing that we are preparing to move out of our family home. Closer to school, closer to work. And the hard would be. There's a lot of hard math, but moving nine people is not for the faint of heart, but it's that our kids are really sad and really struggling. They love our physical house, they love the neighborhood, they love the backyard.

Kenna Millea [00:08:17]:
And we agree. And also, there are. There are things that are even higher priorities than that for our family right now. And so the hardest, just as a parent, when you have to make an unpopular decision in the family and you have to, like, as you said, like, discern well and hold to it. And, um. And so I think for me, Pat, I didn't even tell you this, but on the way home from Mass, Pat and I drove separately because I'm scheduling things yesterday. And so I had the girls and he had the boys in the car. And our six year old, one of our twins said, mommy, yesterday, sister and I got to break a wishbone together.

Kenna Millea [00:08:53]:
And I was like, oh, that's awesome. And she's like, yeah. And my wish was that we don't move.

Dr. Mario Sacasa [00:08:57]:
And she just like. And I was like, break my heart. Come on.

Kenna Millea [00:09:05]:
I was like, what do I do with that? And I look over at our teen daughter who's in the passenger seat next to me as, like, like, help a mom out. And she's got, like, tears in her eyes. And I'm like, oh, my gosh, they've got me surrounded. Yeah, so it's just. It's hard to make those unpopular decisions as a parent, but. So that is a hard. I'd say the high is. You know.

Kenna Millea [00:09:33]:
This podcast is produced under a parent organization called the Martin Center for Integration, and that has a clinic, a mental health clinic with two offices. And I liken it to, you know, maybe when you're preparing to welcome a second child into the family, and you have that question of, like, is my heart big enough, like, to love two children? And I've felt that about opening two offices where, you know, they pretty much operate independent of each other. And so two groups of clinicians, like, is my heart big enough? Is my mind big enough to manage, like, double the amount of clinicians and clients and what have you and care for them? And like, yeah, like, God is so good. And it's been such a joyful season to welcome in these new folks and to just get to know more incredible clinicians in the field. So feeling really grateful, feeling really blessed to be in this position of leadership and feeling like he really heard my prayers, I was like, I don't know.

Kenna Millea [00:10:29]:
If I can do this on my own.

Kenna Millea [00:10:31]:
So very grateful for that.

Dr. Mario Sacasa [00:10:34]:
That's great. Can I. Can I respond to the hard real quick? Can I. Can I share a story? So we, We. We moved from New Orleans, Louisiana, to Charlotte, North Carolina, in the summer of 2002, which is a lot bigger move than. Than what you guys are about to do with your kids, which I know is only like 20 minutes into the city. But. But this was a. This was a bigger move and certainly we laid out.

Dr. Mario Sacasa [00:10:54]:
We know we had mixed feelings about it, but the boys were by and large on. On. On board, although it was. It was difficult. And so that first year being in the Carolinas, everybody kind of had at their own pace, different. Different places where they were as they were adjusting to the new digs, to the new scenery, to the new, new space, being away from their. Their friends and their community in. In Louisiana.

Dr. Mario Sacasa [00:11:18]:
So that first year, August of 23, we did like a. We did a big family sit down, and everybody was. Was home. Gabriel was home from college, and. And we just had a nice dinner and then was able to ask everybody, all right, tell us one thing that was good about the year, one thing that was hard about the year, and one thing that we're looking forward to, that we have hope about this upcoming year. And so everybody had an opportunity to share. And when we got to, of course it was hard. Lots of tears were being shared as they were expressing how difficult it was.

Dr. Mario Sacasa [00:11:50]:
But when we got to like what we're hopeful for the year, the story started to change. And what was really neat about it was particularly the youngest who was having one of the hardest times. You could see that he had just finally started to turn the corner. And what I told him at dinner that evening was I said, listen, bud, the gift of family is that we can do hard things together. And that's the lesson that I want you to learn, is that no matter how hard life is, when you have Family, when we have security that we have here, you're going to be able to get through anything. And so regardless of how hard it is, we're going to get through it as a family. And. And that is a lesson definitively that I'm happy that my boys learned as hard as the experience was, I'm not.

Dr. Mario Sacasa [00:12:36]:
I'm not minimizing it, but I know that they got that lesson pretty, pretty well ingrained. And so I'm grateful in the end. I'm grateful for. For everything in the way that it's played out.

Pat Millea [00:12:47]:
Yeah. Yeah. That hardship definitely has meaning. Yeah. Yeah. And if it's any glimpse into our family, by the way, that wishbone that they pulled was absolutely the wishbone from Thanksgiving back at the end of November. That's been sitting on our counter for whatever that is, nine months. And now is the time to break it because it's either.

Pat Millea [00:13:03]:
We're going to throw it away anyway.

Dr. Mario Sacasa [00:13:05]:
So it's not getting packed up into the new house. So it needs to be a. It needs to be discarded one way or the other.

Pat Millea [00:13:12]:
Do not need to make the trip. So we had a pretty unceremonious wishbone breaking when our children wish that we didn't move at all. So there you go.

Dr. Mario Sacasa [00:13:19]:
That's great.

Pat Millea [00:13:21]:
Oh, goodness. Yeah, my hard is definitely just prepping to move. I. I just. I fully accept and appreciate that this is the right decision for our family and that it's going to be better for us to just be able to be a little bit closer to support networks and friends and work and school and church and all the things that we do. We're going to be closer to it post move. We don't know where the new house is going to be yet, but it'll be within a certain radius, you know, so I. I know that it's the right thing, but I am just a weak and sometimes whiny person and the physical and mental demands of moving are things that I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy.

Pat Millea [00:14:08]:
So I just.

Dr. Mario Sacasa [00:14:09]:
Moving stinks.

Pat Millea [00:14:09]:
Moving stinks. I mean, I went to bed at 1am last night and I'm bracing myself for many, many more nights like that in the next month. So, yeah, so my hard is just like the tangible demands of moving. And yeah, get back to me in a month and maybe I'll be in a better place. But right now I'm staring down the barrel of a tough three and a half weeks, so that's going to be a little dicey. I think my high has been that we've just had a lot of really joyful moments this summer with our family in particular. Like you were talking about, Mario, just like the, the, the beauty of family. And for all the, the foibles and the difficulties that come with family life and a household of sinners, there's so much beauty and so much joy that can come from a family that's really invested in each other.

Pat Millea [00:15:01]:
And yeah, we've just had a lot of really beautiful glimpses of, like, kids playing baseball and T ball, so we get to all go to games together and kids are off playing on the playground, but we're hanging out on the grass and watching baseball. Or time with extended family at the cabin and on the lake and doing jet skis and stuff like that, and just lots of other time just doing nothing really remarkable at all and stuff that's not going to be some. We didn't take pictures of it, but just like family moments at home watching movies or around the kitchen island, just fun conversations. It's been a, it's been a fun time period as our oldest kids are becoming teenagers and high schoolers, and our youngest kids are becoming. Not toddlers anymore, but like kids with opinions and feelings and contributions. It's. It's been, it's been a really fun process this summer to kind of watch that unfold.

Dr. Mario Sacasa [00:15:51]:
So that sounds, that sounds awesome. Yeah, it sounds really great.

Pat Millea [00:15:54]:
It's a huge blessing. It's a huge blessing, man. Well, Mario, we're really excited to have you with us for many reasons. One of them is just to geek out about the beauties of family life and what it means to be Catholic entrepreneurs in the modern age. So thanks for doing that with us. But more importantly for your expertise and for your, your background, we wanted to talk about dating today. You know, we told you that by and large, the audience of this whole life tends to be people who are kind of have. Are leaving the typical young adult ages.

Pat Millea [00:16:28]:
I know it's, it's kind of. It can be a little funny how different parishes and dioceses define young adult. You know, some people like 18 to 40, which is a hilarious collection of like, three different life stages that don't have a lot in common in that step, you know, and I know in the work you do, you see a lot of differences and similarities between those stages. But, you know, a lot of our folks are newly married, maybe with young kids, or they're certainly maybe in the final stages of discerning marriage with one person in particular. And without telling a whole story, I remember one conversation I had when I was doing parish youth ministry years ago with a guy who was a senior in high school, and he was having, like, a really significant relationship struggle with the girl that he was dating at the time. And the Holy Spirit intervened. And I just asked this guy point blank, hey, what's the point of dating at all? Like, why, why, why do you do this? You know, is it just because other people do? Do you think there's something that you get out of it? What's the point of it? And without getting into his response, which I actually thought was a really good one, maybe that's where we can start. Mario, is whether someone is married or not.

Pat Millea [00:17:38]:
And even for, especially for our purposes folks who are married, what's the purpose of dating? What's the point of it, in your perspective?

Dr. Mario Sacasa [00:17:47]:
Yeah, to hook up as often as possible. Right.

Pat Millea [00:17:53]:
And that's been our episode.

Dr. Mario Sacasa [00:17:55]:
That's it. That's the episode. I'm so happy I could join you guys. It was great. Thanks. Radio silence. What just happened? Hold on a second. That's great.

Dr. Mario Sacasa [00:18:03]:
Yeah, no, it's a great question. As Catholics, we always love to ask the question, like, what's the meaning behind this? What's the telos? What's the direction? Like, what's the intention? Why does this exist? Why are we here? You know, it's a. It's a very Western mind type of question, but it's the right question to ask because we do need to make sure that we're on the same page. And so the program that I have, dating. Well, we, we step into this question by first just describing that, listen, there. There are progressions in relationships. And, and every relationship is moving towards something. And so friendship, you know, casual dating or more kind of exploratory dating.

Dr. Mario Sacasa [00:18:40]:
And then get into serious dating where you're actually committed to one person, then engagement and then marriage. If we look at the life course or the this, like a romantic relationship in this span or this continuum, what we would say is that the stage, the next stage assumes the stage before. And so you don't stop being friends when you're. When you're dating, and you don't stop dating when you're married. Right. And so, so it's an important distinction that we have to make because often we think of, we look at these segments as. As isolated entities, or it's like, I'm doing this and this and this, or just it's a free for all. I'm doing whatever I want, whenever I want.

Dr. Mario Sacasa [00:19:21]:
But if we can look at these stages of a relationship as Something that builds on the next one, then we can see, okay, the purpose of dating is ultimately to find a spouse. That's why you date, is that you're discerning marriage with a person. But even in the context of marriage, if we want to be even more broad in the definition and what we're saying is that the purpose of dating is to discover the individual. And so when couples are married, when they stop dating, that's a red flag in the relationship. They've stopped pursuing each other, they've taken each other for granted. They think that they have each other figured out and they stop seeing the eternal mystery that's there within the person. So again, back to what does our faith teach us about the individual, where we're both body, soul. That means there's something unique and unrepeatable to every single person.

Dr. Mario Sacasa [00:20:10]:
There's an eternal mystery inside of every single person. And marriage is a commitment to saying, I'm going to dedicate my life to exploring this mystery. My focus will be on exploring this mystery and with the hope that by doing so, by committing myself to this person and that the demands of love will transform me and will transform her, and together we will become the saints that God's called us to be. But that somehow this union is just a pre figurement of what heaven is going to be, which is glaring into the eternal mystery of God himself. And so marriage is a precursor for that. So if, if we're talking about dating, then what I'm saying is that dating in the context outside of marriage is to try to discern and understand a person so that you can make a decision and see if this is who God's calling you to commit to. But then dating within the context of marriage is pointing towards that eternal mystery of saying that no matter how long I've been together with this individual, there's still something new here. There's still something worth discovering.

Dr. Mario Sacasa [00:21:08]:
There's still something new that I can fall in love with. There's still something new that I can choose to see. And it's that disposition of the heart that we want to make sure is always active in the context of married life.

Pat Millea [00:21:22]:
And that, that senior in high school said almost exactly what you just said, Mario. It was slightly less eloquent, I'll admit that, but he gave a really good answer. And I love what you're saying, that this, this beautiful process of discovery of a person, of appreciation, of their dignity, of desiring connection with them and that there's a. There's an end to that, you know, if you're dating, the end is discernment of marriage to this individual. And if you're already married, the end is journeying with that person toward the ultimate discovery in heaven. You know, And I. Something you said struck me as well, that the end of dating in a marriage is kind of a red flag. And I can't tell you how many conversations.

Pat Millea [00:22:06]:
I mean, you know, Kenna can't ethically get into clinical conversations, but I know that she and I have had so many conversations with married couples over the years, and one, just maybe a month or two ago, specifically jumps out at me where, you know, if someone tells me that their marriage is in a place that they are sad about, upset about, angry about, they feel disconnected. They feel like the other person isn't invested in them anymore. Every time I ask those people, do you guys go on dates? The answer is essentially always no. And it's a tricky chicken egg thing, I think, because, you know what I would propose is, how about you guys go on dates? And they might come back and say, you want me to spend more time with the person that I find most difficult in my life right now? And yes. You know, that people have even asked me, well, are you saying that we're in a tough place in our marriage? We're suffering in our marriage because we don't go on dates? Because I'm telling you that we don't go on dates because we're suffering in our marriage. And what I hear you saying is that those things are kind of inexorably tied together, that dating in your marriage, dating your spouse is no protection from the sufferings of marriage by any means, but it gives you the kind of connection to weather the storms and to will the good of your spouse, even when there's disagreement and suffering.

Dr. Mario Sacasa [00:23:27]:
Yeah, well, see, it's not enough for us to be parenting colleagues, right. Or parenting co workers. It's not enough for us to be good roommates. Right? Like those things we can achieve with just about anybody else. There's spousal love. The spousal dimension of a relationship is something unique to only two people. And so there. There.

Dr. Mario Sacasa [00:23:48]:
There's a. There is a demand for something more for us to grow, for us to be intimate in a full sense of. Of that word. And so one of the things that I do, as a point of intervention when I'm working with couples that come in with a story like you just described, and I do this almost universally when couples, when. When they come in, as I say, let's just start the session by Just tell me how you guys connected, how you fell in love. Just getting them to share the story of their relationship is telling because we remember things a certain way. Memory, we know, is subject to our, to our current state of emotion. And so why we remember, how we remember what we remember, all those things are of supreme importance.

Dr. Mario Sacasa [00:24:30]:
And, and so I, I, but what I want is couples in that moment because they're coming in, you know, when they come to the marriage counselor, obviously they're in a difficult place, and I recognize and understand that. But I want them to at least reconnect with why they chose each other, that they made a decision out of complete free will, that they fell in love with this person, that there was something about them that they were discovering, there was some decision that they made that they were attracted to. There's something about this individual that lit a spark in them. There was something here that was real. And we want to reconnect with what that was because if it happened once, then, then we can do it again. And sometimes what couples need is just the ability to reconnect with that because of years of hardship, years of despondency, years of being taken for granted, years of, of a lack of intimacy, that it starts drying up. And when it starts drying up, we get, we get cynical or we get defensive, or we start putting walls up again, rightfully so we don't want to get hurt. And so we start putting these barriers up.

Dr. Mario Sacasa [00:25:32]:
But the barriers only reinforce that withdrawal. They reinforce that avoidance, they avoid, they reinforce that moving away disposition or action. And so if we could just stop and just get them to share your story. Tell me again why it is that you fell in love with. And this is something that I would encourage any of the listeners that may be in a difficult situation. It's just reconnect with that. Like, how old are you? What was going on? Why did you choose this person? See if you can find those things again and somehow just like bring them back into your imagination, then we have something to work with. Now we have some emotion.

Dr. Mario Sacasa [00:26:11]:
Now we have something that we can say, all right, let's, let's work on trying to reclaim that and not that we're going to go back. And I'm not, I'm not at all in favor of nostalgia. That's not what I'm saying. Don't, don't confuse me. But just trying to reconnect with those emotions in a way that we can utilize them in the here and now and say if it, whatever it was that worked, then we want to Try to recreate some of that in. In the present context.

Pat Millea [00:26:33]:
Sounds like asking a couple to kind of go back to their Galilee moment a little bit. You know, Jesus, after his resurrection, tells his apostles, go back to Galilee and I'll meet you there. You know, like, go back to the place where you met me first. We've got more work to do, but I want to re. Encounter you in this original place of encounter. That's a beautiful way of thinking about it, I think. And, you know, in your work, Mario, in, you know, creating your course, dating. Well, I can imagine that you have heard many, many stories of people who want to recover a sense of love and connection in their marriage.

Pat Millea [00:27:06]:
They want to get back to this kind of discovery of the other person. What are. What are some of the most common mistakes that you see people make around dating? You know, we've established that maybe not dating at all is probably one of the mistakes. Beyond that, what are some common kind of missteps that people make?

Dr. Mario Sacasa [00:27:24]:
Yeah, so dating right now is just, man. I mean, like, it. It's a lot harder than when you and I were dating. Right. Is all I have to say. It's a completely, completely different animal. And for folks who have been married for over 10 years, they just don't understand this reality. This is a.

Dr. Mario Sacasa [00:27:42]:
This is a real issue that the Church, quite honestly, has to have more attention to. Single people outnumber married people for the first time in American history. And so this changes the dynamics of how we think of relationships. And so the fact that average age of marriage now for men is 29. First marriage, average age for women is 28. This is a lot later than what it was 10, 15, 20 years ago. And so dating has just become this, this. This.

Dr. Mario Sacasa [00:28:10]:
This ent. This challenge, this thing that it isn't, like I said, what it used to be. Now we're introducing apps and. And people relocate. People don't know how to talk in person anymore. People feel suspect to individuals coming up to them. So the challenges of dating are. Are many.

Dr. Mario Sacasa [00:28:26]:
All right, so if we can just kind of break it up maybe into two. Will you say the most? I would say two buckets here. All right, so let's kind of talk about the casual dating. When I say casual dating, I mean exploratory. I'm not, of course, encouraging chastity. I'm just saying when you're going on dates with people, going on apps, you know, getting to know people, you haven't really committed to anything. There's particular challenges there. But then there's Also particular challenges when you've committed and now in more kind of a boyfriend, girlfriend, commitment, committed stage.

Dr. Mario Sacasa [00:28:51]:
So what are the things that I hear the most? Well, in that first, that first bucket, I would say the challenges are one, just knowing how to present yourself, knowing how it's really, it's like marketing. You got to know how to be able to present yourself. You got to know how to be able to interact. You got to know how to be able to talk for guys. We have to reclaim a sense of wooing somebody. We have to reclaim an ability, being able to see her, understand her. We live in such a technological age that we have forgotten what romance is. We've forgotten how to pursue somebody, how to bring flowers, how to do things that may seem old fashioned, but these gestures used to work because they, they speak and communicate to a woman so beautifully.

Dr. Mario Sacasa [00:29:26]:
And so I think there's, there's an element of that that we have to reclaim. Women, certainly there can be times where despondency can kind of fill into the void. So we want to be caution our heart, we want to make sure our hearts are open, have hope. Certainly as we're engaging in the dating space. And again, I'm saying all this within the context of Chastity. I want to be abundantly clear. You know, I made my joke at the beginning of this, of the podcast, but of course I'm, I, I am of course encouraging, you know, Chastity in, in this context.

Pat Millea [00:29:56]:
And despite my joke, I did receive that as a joke from you.

Dr. Mario Sacasa [00:29:59]:
Yeah, yeah, great, great, great. Yeah, yeah. And so, and so also that means that, that we just want to allow the Holy Spirit to work with us as we're dating. We don't have to go into every first date with the expectation or asking the question, is this person going to be my spouse? That's not the question we need to answer at the first date. All we need to know is, am I going to have a second date? Right. So again, just reducing some of the pressure, maintaining a disposition of openness, reclaiming some things that were, that have been lost. This is the work that we have to do. This is the work that we have to encourage our young people again to teach them the skills that they need to be taught to learn how to date again.

Dr. Mario Sacasa [00:30:34]:
All right. And then when it comes into kind of getting into a serious relationship, some of the challenges are, are, I would say one again pressure. Sometimes there's so much pressure to have to know. To have to know, to have to know, especially if I'm in my 30s. Am I wasting this person's time like I like how long is too long? Just letting go a little bit of the pressure, just giving space again for the Lord to guide, working through whatever real challenges are there, but not trying to rush things along. I think communication is a lost art. I think negotiation is a lost art. I think patience is a lost art.

Dr. Mario Sacasa [00:31:12]:
I think these are skills that we need to re establish. All right, and why is that important when it comes to discernment of a relationship? Well, as we've already been hinting at, dating is leading towards something. It's leading towards marriage. And there's a phrase in seminary formation that we say as the seminary and so goes to priest. And I think that applies also when it comes to dating. As the dating couple so goes to marriage that sometimes we think oh well just the sacrament is going to be this magic trick and it's going to change things. No, like the patterns of the relationship that are being formed at the ground level in the dating relationship are what's going to be brought into the marriage. Now often when I see couples, we're working those patterns, we're trying to re establish, rebuild that foundation, break some of those patterns that have been ingrained for many, many years.

Dr. Mario Sacasa [00:32:03]:
But again in my course, dating. Well, one of the things I'm trying to accomplish is knowing what patterns are that happen downstream. I think we can help couples just become a little bit more aware to, to what bad patterns are and how to establish healthy ones. So you know, looking at this in two buckets, I reiterate, you know, the challenges are, are, are mixed depending on, on where you're at.

Kenna Millea [00:32:28]:
Well, and I am really just being drawn in, Mario, about how it seems to me you, you've set this whole topic on this foundation of mystery. And when you say, you know that, that men need to, you know, remember how to woo and kind of bring back these old fashioned practices. Just that idea that you know, that a man would look upon a woman with this sense of wonder and awe and mystery journey of like I want to spend my whole life getting to know you. I, I trust that you are, you are so uniquely wonderful and, and, and like beautiful that, that even in three years of dating I, I don't, I haven't exhausted all there is to know about you. And so I'm just drawn in of like, yeah, that, that, that's like a dozen roses right there. Just to, to speak about the reality of how we look at each other and the story we tell ourselves about the other. And I think you're absolutely right that when I think about personally or professionally couples that I've encountered, where they are in a place, in a desert, in terms of intimacy and connection, I do wonder, do they believe that there is anything to be known they don't already know, you know, about the other? So I'm. I'm really just struck by that and want to name that again.

Kenna Millea [00:33:53]:
And I'm intrigued as you're talking about. Okay, what are these. Did you call them patterns, Mario, like addressing, like, unhelpful ones and helping in your course learn healthy patterns.

Dr. Mario Sacasa [00:34:07]:
Patterns. Patterns of interaction.

Pat Millea [00:34:09]:
Yeah.

Kenna Millea [00:34:09]:
Say a bit more about that or what you're moving couples toward when you're helping them.

Dr. Mario Sacasa [00:34:14]:
Yeah. Well, let me speak to just what you said about seeing each other. I think that's. That's an important piece. There's something lost in that. How we notice, how we see, how we really gaze into. Into each other. About a month or so ago, one of my dear friends got married.

Dr. Mario Sacasa [00:34:33]:
And my favorite part of. Of the wedding ceremony is looking at the groom as he's staring at his bride coming down the aisle for the first time. And so, no, everybody's. Everybody's attention usually goes towards the bride. She's the main event. I get it. You know, she's the star of the show. But I might.

Dr. Mario Sacasa [00:34:50]:
I'm. I'm like, I'm going this way. You know, I'm staring at the altar because I want to see the groom and what he's experiencing as he's laying eyes on his wife for the first time. It's a. It's a great tradition that we have of the husband's not being able to see the bride until the doors open there at the. At the start of the. The wedding ceremony. I think it's a beautiful tradition because it preserves what we've been speaking about, this notion of mystery, that there's something that's.

Dr. Mario Sacasa [00:35:14]:
That's worth withholding until a particular moment. Right. And so even when it comes to, like, dating, let's backtrack that. Right? What. What woman doesn't want to be noticed that way? Right. You know what. What woman doesn't want to be seen with those eyes? The problem in our day and age is that we don't. We don't know how to see each other in this sense anymore, that we.

Dr. Mario Sacasa [00:35:35]:
We've fallen into a sense of utility or a sense of. Of usury or we've been jaded and we don't know how to view actions anymore with openness or with hope. There's a learned Helplessness that, that emerges at times in, in dating as well. And again, I understand why those things happen. All I'm saying is that when they happen, there is a cost. And we're trying to, to re. Establish a sense of, of hope, a sense of mystery, a sense of seeing, a sense of pursuit, a sense of understanding of the other person. Okay.

Dr. Mario Sacasa [00:36:08]:
And so I think that that needs to be established and that's there, you know, all the way through. So when I speak about patterns, I'm speaking about the interactions that we fall into. You know, by the time couples come to me from marriage counseling, it's almost like a well ingrained algorithm that they know what the other person's gonna say before they even say it. And they already know what the response is that they're going to give to the thing that they think that the other person's going to say. And it's already, it's like, it's like an algorithm. It's like you say this, I say this, you say this, I say this, and bam, bam, bam, bam, bam. And then we end up in, in a spot, right? And this is what Sue Johnson refers to as the demon dialogues. And Sue Johnson, the founder of, you know, EFT, refers to it as like a dance.

Dr. Mario Sacasa [00:36:57]:
You know, it's like this, this bad dance that we fall into these, these demon dialogues. We just get into this rut. Well, the reason is, well, why, why do we get into this rut? Well, if we take a disposition of, of, of kind of, I guess, openness, what we can see is that oftentimes it's, it's poor repair attempts or people are trying their best to understand. People don't have the right language to be able to communicate what they're experiencing. And so it comes out sideways. People don't know how to process that. So the work of therapy is trying to put language to things that we're experiencing. And when we can put language to those things now, we can start making changes.

Dr. Mario Sacasa [00:37:33]:
Now the next time that the thing is said, I can respond differently because I know that what you actually are trying to say is something other than what you just said. So I'm gonna do my best to sidestep that and actually work on what the thing is that you're trying to communicate. But that takes some effort and some energy to be able to recorrect and course correct. What I'm trying to do in the dating phase is you're not obviously at that level of the relationship, but at least just trying to learn how to converse, how to Negotiate how, how to have appropriate boundaries, knowing how this art of discernment is beginning, how to be able to make decisions together. Is one forcing the other person is one too passive? Right. Just so that from the beginning you're establishing a level of healthy communication, a healthy sense of knowing where my agency ends and where the Lord makes up the gap. Right. So that you're able to begin the foundation of a process.

Dr. Mario Sacasa [00:38:36]:
And that process is what you're going to build on, you know, as you move forward in marriage. Does that make sense?

Kenna Millea [00:38:45]:
Yeah. No, it does, it does. And I love, I think and love Sue Johnson's work and use it with a lot of clients and her book Hold Me Tight. You know, I say to folks who, for whatever reason maybe can't come to couples therapy, I say, like, second best choice would be to read that book and to practice those scripts. And exactly as you said, she helps you post, put language and understand how to communicate in a way that keeps defenses low. So you don't step back into the pattern.

Dr. Mario Sacasa [00:39:14]:
Right.

Kenna Millea [00:39:15]:
You don't step back into the demon dialogue that drove you apart to begin with. So, you know, kind of with that, Mario, I'm thinking about what we each bring to the relationship that whether again, we're in that, you know, serious dating or married and still wanting to pursue each other, recognizing that we're not just going to coast and be on autopilot for this marriage. Like to really live out the sacrament, we need to be intentional. We need to be actively engaged and thinking about what each of us bring and how we can, I guess, be responsible for being our most healthy self, our most well integrated self. Self. So that we can date well, you know, both in the single years and in marriage. So what do you recommend in terms of mind, body, soul, like to help people be in a place to engage in this process? Well, because it is one that requires a lot of ourselves. What does it look like to be mentally healthy while dating?

Dr. Mario Sacasa [00:40:23]:
That's a great question. Well, it first, I mean, it starts by having a prayer life. I mean, we need to, we need to be making sure that that prayer is of foundational element, you know, is a foundational element in our lives. We have to be able to know and hear and understand how God operates within our lives. I mean, that's a, that's a, that's a highly individual question. Right. How does God operate within my life? Again, we have the church, obviously. I don't want to sound too postmodern with that statement, but the truth is that God loves each of us individually, and he communicates and operates within us.

Dr. Mario Sacasa [00:40:57]:
And so the gift of the church having so many different devotions, for example, is because the church recognizes that there's a universality of people within her ranks. And so different devotions are different pathways that are going to lead us towards the Lord. And so knowing, understanding, how does God speak to me? How have I made big decisions in the past? How have I come to peace about those decisions? Right? Having some type of foundation, some type of groundwork of knowing how God operates within my life. I think is. Is a key here because it's gonna, it's gonna play out when it comes to dating. Not even in marriage, but just in dating, where you're like, is things going, is this going well? Is it something. Am I, am I, is it not going well? What do I need to be paying attention to? How much time can I give it? Right? Knowing how to be able to have a sense of the Lord and how the Lord operates within our life. So I would stay there.

Dr. Mario Sacasa [00:41:48]:
In terms of a mental capacity, I mean, I think one, the ability to reflect we've been speaking about and the willingness to be able to grow and to learn in the context of this relationship, that's going to be foundational also in terms of how we approach this dating process. Am I willing to grow? Am I willing to learn? Am I willing to, to. To see and understand what God is up to, to see and understand this person? That, that openness, I think, is, Is essential as well. Again, with parameters, with boundaries, or part of that isn't. When I say openness, I'm not saying let's just be a floor mat or let's be acquiescing or people pleaser. I'm, I'm not saying that at all. I'm just saying openness to growth. See, if, if marriage is the path to holiness for the three of us in this conversation and probably for many of your listeners, then it's the process of actualizing that, that, that.

Dr. Mario Sacasa [00:42:46]:
That life that you're going to become a saint. So again, you're not a saint on the day of your wedding, but you, you hope that you're a saint by the end of it. Right? There's, there's the journey always that we want to make sure that, that we're appealing to. So I would say those two things right there are going to help you out tremendously. Now when it comes to dating, and there's all sorts of practicalities that we can get into in terms of how to meet people, how to approach people. Where's a good place? Where. Not good places. If someone's approaching you, how to respond, how to not respond.

Dr. Mario Sacasa [00:43:19]:
Like, we can get into the. We can go into that, you know, kind of area if you want. But I think for the audience that we're speaking about, it's mostly in the context of. With marriage. And so if we're saying reclaiming a sense of foundation, right? What's the foundation or foundational notion of, of prayer? Foundational notion of openness. A foundational notion of mystery, of willingness to explore. Again, just. Just making it open.

Dr. Mario Sacasa [00:43:41]:
Making it open. Making. Making that open again. Where, where. Where do we begin? I think one of the things that, in addition to, as we said, like helping couples to reclaim or remember why they got married, another element that I think has been lost, and maybe this is another way of saying what we've been communicating is that it's wonderful just to encourage couples to play together, right? Like we, we have to. We have to reclaim a sense of play in marriage. And again, that's not being childish. I'm not saying that, that, that.

Dr. Mario Sacasa [00:44:13]:
But. But we have lost a sense of play. So dating is both that exploration that we've been speaking about, but dating is also a sense of play, like. And so how do we play as spouses? How do we. How do we interact? Play is, is the, the language of childhood. It's the way that children discover the world. Play is of supreme importance for children. It's the way that, that they understand rules, that the way they understand how the world works, that they understand negotiation, that they understand hierarchy, that they understand all those things.

Dr. Mario Sacasa [00:44:47]:
And we lose sight of that in marriage when we become adults. And so I strongly encourage couples that even if they can't communicate, if they can't talk, then maybe there's a place where they can start by reclaiming a sense of play. How can you play together as spouses? How can we reintroduce that language into marriage? And then maybe if we can do that, then again, we're starting to break down some of the defenses that allow us to re. See this individual as my spouse, reclaim that as an idea, and then potentially even be able to open up then spaces where we can start having some of those more hard, difficult conversations.

Pat Millea [00:45:25]:
And what I love about that, that idea of prioritizing play, Mario, is the idea of, you know, philosophers who are much smarter than me have talked a lot about play over the generations. And one of the definitions that I love is that play is the kind of activity that is good for its own sake.

Dr. Mario Sacasa [00:45:42]:
Yeah, that's good.

Pat Millea [00:45:43]:
It's not a means to an end. It is good merely because we are doing it right. And you can put all kinds of things in that category of playing golf or a board game or the arts or these things that don't have like economic, technological value of any kind. Right. But that is actually a really good connection to something you said earlier, that there's a temptation, especially in marriage, to, to see my spouse as just a co parent or a business partner or someone that I'm managing a household with. Right. That those connections are good, but those have an end beyond the spouses. Right? That's right.

Pat Millea [00:46:25]:
The children. It's so that we get the menu set. It's so that we're ready for the in laws to visit for Christmas, whatever it is. But just restoring that value of play seems like it, it brings the focus back where it should be. That there are things that we do as spouses merely because they are good for us to do together. That no one gets anything out of it other than us restoring a connection and sharing an experience together. I love that, that kind of mentality.

Dr. Mario Sacasa [00:46:52]:
That's it. Because there's. The demands of life are real and I get it. Like we all fall into it. It's. It's like sometimes we don't even have the conversation where we just take the tasks and the things that have to happen and we divvy it up. It's like, all right, you got your list, I got my list. As long as you take care of your five things, I take care of my five things.

Dr. Mario Sacasa [00:47:10]:
Like, we're square away, we're good. Okay, great. Like, let's keep going. Break. All right, team huddle over. Let's keep going. Right? And so like I, I get it, I get it. Like the demands of life are, are, are taxing.

Dr. Mario Sacasa [00:47:21]:
They're absolutely taxing. But if, if the, if those tasks become the final means or the final judgment or the final definition of the relationship, that's when it becomes problematic. It's like an inversion happens. Now the main thing no longer is the main thing. The spouse is no longer the spouse. Now there are all these other lesser relational qualities that we can put to it. Right? And so that's why it's in conversations like this are so important for spouses to listen because we want to reclaim that. It's not that we're saying that those tax donate, of course they need to happen.

Dr. Mario Sacasa [00:47:57]:
Like, like Pat, like you said, you have to be up at 1 o' clock in the morning because you got to move like, that's just not going to. Not like that. That you have to do that. Right. Like, you just have to do it. Right.

Pat Millea [00:48:08]:
If I don't do that, our marriage suffers for many different reasons.

Dr. Mario Sacasa [00:48:11]:
Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. Like, see, so. So things like that have to happen. But it's not that that's the end. That's. That that's the sole purpose of the union.

Dr. Mario Sacasa [00:48:20]:
There's something more, and it's that something more that we always want to remind ourselves of because we lose sight of it. The negativity bias is real. It. We put our focus on the things that are the most threatening, that are the most present, that are the most before us. Okay? And it's important, and I get it, we have to do that. But every so often we have to reclaim this sense of wonder. We have to. We have to open up to these positive emotions again and being able to have our eyes be uplifted and so that we're seeing the forest for the trees.

Dr. Mario Sacasa [00:48:54]:
So we're seeing just. Even the sun that's shining on the forest in the midst of the trees. Right. We have to. We have to reclaim that. And so often in relationships, we see everything through this technical quid pro quo, you know, mentality that. That we. That we forget.

Dr. Mario Sacasa [00:49:11]:
And. And as I've been saying all along, forgetting, we forget to our peril.

Pat Millea [00:49:15]:
Yeah, yeah, it's. I want to ask about, you know, other pitfalls that. That a marriage might encounter that would pull them out of this kind of dating mentality. And I think a good jumping off point is something that you brought up earlier, related to folks dating before they're married, which is something that I feel like Kenna and I have both kind of identified increasingly over the past 15 years or so, which is just the. You. You talked about the intense pressure around dating. And like you said, I get it. Like, people have dreams for their life.

Pat Millea [00:49:45]:
They think that. That the Lord has called them to marriage and they would like to fulfill that goal today, please. You know, so I. I get the pressure. And there's lots of, you know, social and cultural reasons for that kind of pressure too, and I totally get it. But. But I always am sad to hear stories of people who go on first dates and they get run through basically a job interview almost. There's no real sense of discovery of the person.

Pat Millea [00:50:12]:
It's like matching them up against kind of an imaginary ideal candidate and seeing if they fit well enough that I can go on a second date with you. And there's almost like a utilitarian view of that kind, that approach to dating, you know, you know, more in, in the marriage scope, though, what are some like, maybe habits, ruts that you've seen couples get into that might be like warning signs that they're not, that they're maybe moving away from this kind of discovery of the other person? What are things for husbands and wives to pay attention to as maybe yellow flags of like, oh, we may not be in a dating mentality anymore before things get too far down the road?

Dr. Mario Sacasa [00:50:58]:
Yeah. So another book that's quite popular with, with marriage counseling in the literature is the five Love Languages. All right? And so we could debate the validity of it or not. Okay, fine. But at least the concept exists. And the concept, I think has some merit, which is that everybody has their own way of receiving and giving love. Okay. And so in Gary Chapman's book, he talks about words of affirmation, physical touch, quality time, material gifts and acts of service as being these five domains or ways.

Dr. Mario Sacasa [00:51:32]:
Right. That, you know, people receive or receive and give love. Okay. It's not about getting into particulars of those five domains, but to answer the question you're asking, Pat, is this, what would be a yellow flag is that when was the last time you loved your spouse the way that they feel loved? Right? So if you know that they're a quality time person, when was the last time you actually just spent a little quality time with them? Right? If you know that they're material gifts person, when was the last time you actually, you know, were intentional about buying them something that you think would be of great benefit to them? If they're a physical touch person, when was the last time you just held their hand? Right. Physical touch isn't just sexual. Right. We're just talking about non sexual contact here. If, if you know that, when was the last time you did that? Right.

Dr. Mario Sacasa [00:52:17]:
That's a question that I would ask. And if you don't know that, well, then there's a question that's worth asking, right?

Pat Millea [00:52:22]:
Yeah.

Dr. Mario Sacasa [00:52:23]:
If you don't actually even know what your spouse's love language or you don't know, again, whether it fits in those five domains doesn't matter specifically. But if you don't know how your spouse receives love or gives love, well, then we got, we got some work to do. Right? And that, that's is where John Gottman's language of the love maps is so important in terms of understanding, like what's the map to your spouse's heart? Right. And that, that may sound cheesy as a, as a concept but it's actually quite profound, you know, do we actually know what those little things are? What are the. Who is she? Who is he? And. And how do you actually get to him? And if you don't know how to get to him and how are you asking, like, are you asking those questions? And if you do know, but you haven't been incorporating those things for some time, again, it doesn't even have to be any judgment. It's like, life's busy life. I get it.

Dr. Mario Sacasa [00:53:10]:
You know, things happen, all that stuff. But if it's been a little bit since you've actually met them on their turf, well, then I would say that's a yellow flag, and that's something that's worth spending some time, you know, attending to and asking and saying, oh, okay, well, then what can I do to actually give them what they're looking for and love them and meet them where they're at?

Kenna Millea [00:53:32]:
I love that. And. And I think what is helpful about the love languages is that they're very concrete. They're. They're really easy to understand. It's. It's not. Yeah.

Kenna Millea [00:53:44]:
It's meant for the layman and laywoman to read. And so if that's not something you're familiar with, like, absolutely. Just. It's a quick quiz online, even, you know, just to get a sense of. To locate yourself. I'm thinking about, you know, and Mario. I imagine you and Kristen have been there. Like, you're.

Kenna Millea [00:54:03]:
You're in those trench year rules.

Dr. Mario Sacasa [00:54:06]:
I'm a marriage therapist. My marriage is perfect. I don't know what you're talking about. I don't even know what the question is. I don't know what the question is you're about to ask.

Pat Millea [00:54:14]:
Kenna's marriage is also perfect. Mine.

Dr. Mario Sacasa [00:54:16]:
Yeah, that's exactly right. Yours is not. Yeah, but Kenna's is great. Kenna's is great. Great. No, no, no.

Dr. Mario Sacasa [00:54:22]:
The. The worst part about being a marriage therapist is that I'd know better. Right? Like, that's. That's the only difference is that, like, when the words come out of my mouth or I say the dumb thing, that it's like, I. I have a PhD in this. I have no excuse. I can't plead ignorance. Like, I, I.

Dr. Mario Sacasa [00:54:36]:
I'm sorry. I'm sorry, you know, that I'm. I'm an obtuse idiot sometimes.

Kenna Millea [00:54:43]:
But what I'm thinking about is, like, when I'm speaking to couples who are, you know, they've got three under five years old, and they're both working, and, you know, they're just Making ends meet. And they're trying to live the faithful, you know, Catholic. Like just all the things. Right. Like, what do you say to them to help them get in the boat? That dating is worth it. Right. To acknowledge that it is a sacrifice of time and effort and usually money. And it's also worth it.

Kenna Millea [00:55:17]:
Like, what wisdom do you part.

Dr. Mario Sacasa [00:55:20]:
Yeah. It doesn't have to be a big extravagant expense. It's not. It doesn't have to be the trip to Cancun. I mean, if you want to do the trip to Cancun, hey, that's fine. You know, I'm happy to join you guys. You know, like, it would be great too. Right.

Dr. Mario Sacasa [00:55:33]:
But. But it doesn't, it doesn't have to be that, like, it's. I get it. We, we've times in our relationships, obviously, like, finances have been tight. Listen, Chris and I, we. We got married right out of college and our first two years of marriage, we. We did missionary work where we each received a stipend of $150 a month. All of our living expenses were covered.

Dr. Mario Sacasa [00:55:53]:
But then we, we got. Each. Got $150 a month of a living. Of a living expense that. And 150 of those 300 had to go to the card note that I was paying at the time. So we had 150 bucks a month that we could use between us. That included all groceries, gas, going out money, anything. Right.

Dr. Mario Sacasa [00:56:12]:
So, I mean, it was, it was tight. I mean, we would, we would go out to the coffee shops where we can get a $50 coffee, and it had free refills and we would just split the cup. Like that's, that's those, those were dates, Right. This is, you know, 22 years ago, wherever it was. And so I just want to tell people it's not so much about, like, the expense of it. It's really about carving out the time. And that's in the. And being intentional about that.

Dr. Mario Sacasa [00:56:40]:
So, yes, the scenario you spoke about, kind of a couple that has three kids under five. Yeah. Time is going to be very, very limited. Maybe in those first six months when the child is born and they don't know what. When's daylight, when's nighttime, they don't know up from down yet. Obviously, like all hands on deck. That's a hard time. You're going to be happy just to sneak a minute in with your spouse.

Dr. Mario Sacasa [00:57:04]:
Like, I get it. Right. But once things settle a little bit and there's a sleeping rhythm, that happens, even if it's in those two hours from 8 to 10, where everybody is sound asleep and you know that one hasn't woken up yet because they don't need to be nursed. What do you do in that time? Is that the time where you can just sit and watch a. Watch a show? You don't have to watch a movie, but maybe you guys can agree to watching a TV show together. It can be something like the Chosen, if you want to watch something religious specifically. Or there's plenty of great TV shows on Netflix, on Hulu, on hbo, Max. Right.

Dr. Mario Sacasa [00:57:39]:
On Prime Video. Ask your friends. There's a lot of nonsense out there, but ask your friends about what. What's good and what's quality and give yourself something that you can actually just watch. All the old TV shows are back on. You can watch the Cosby Show. You can watch Full House. You can watch.

Dr. Mario Sacasa [00:57:56]:
If you don't want anything that's modern, you can. All the stuff that we watch growing up is all available. Just doing something again that gives you some space to just unwind and to be together. Playing a board game, learning how to play Remy 500 rugby. 500. Right. Any of these things are ideas that don't require a lot of time or a lot of investment. And then even with the kids, when you have them, taking them on the walk and seeing if they fall asleep, letting them play a little bit, giving them space in the playground where maybe you can have some of those conversations where you know there's going to be interruptions.

Dr. Mario Sacasa [00:58:30]:
But. But you take what you can when you can take it, knowing that this is a busy season in life and this busy season will end for sure. But you just want to make sure that even in the busyness, that there's still these little touch points that, that are happening along the way, and you haven't completely lost that notion of. Of this person being my spouse.

Kenna Millea [00:58:54]:
Beautiful. Beautiful. I. I think if I'm right, Pat, we are almost out of time. Am I getting okay?

Pat Millea [00:59:03]:
That's probably about right. Yep. Mario's got stuff to do.

Dr. Mario Sacasa [00:59:05]:
Yeah, I mean, I. We could do this all day. You know, to quote Steve Rogers, I.

Kenna Millea [00:59:10]:
Just have a lot of concrete questions I want to ask you and Kristen personally, but I will say goes. So. So, Mario, what would be, if you wrap up here, here, A challenge by choice. Something concrete that. That our listeners could. Yeah. Take into real life to help live out some of what you shared with us today.

Dr. Mario Sacasa [00:59:31]:
Yeah. I think the first thing is, I mean, I've said a lot in terms of practical skills, but sincerely, like, if somebody is in A rough situation, and they're really struggling. The first thing I would tell somebody to do is to. To pray for your spouse, right? Pray for your marriage, Pray for your spouse. Pray for your marriage and bring that before the Lord. Often we look at prayer as kind of like a last resort, or we think it's some magic trick or some. I don't even know, something. Just something ethereal that we lose sight of the practical reality that prayer is.

Dr. Mario Sacasa [01:00:06]:
And there's power in bringing our struggles before the Lord. I mean, this is the. The priestly nature of our baptism, when we have the capacity to. To intercede, that we can bring forth what we're experiencing in life. And so I. I would say that as a challenge to pray for your spouse. And what prayer will do is that it'll. It'll start, hopefully, if it's working, starting to soften your heart, start opening up, start giving space for God to intervene and for God to find ways to be able to have some of these conversations.

Dr. Mario Sacasa [01:00:40]:
And then if things do open up or opportunities present themselves, then have the courage to pursue them. Right? So I would say. I wouldn't. I would say that would be. The challenge is. Is to pray for your spouse. And even if you're in a healthy marriage and everything's great and everything's going wonderful, sometimes spousal prayer is. Is.

Dr. Mario Sacasa [01:00:57]:
Is a lost art that. That needs to be reclaimed. And so, just in general, I would encourage Father folks who are listening to take a few minutes to really pray for your spouse, pray for your marriage, and in praying, to see God's grace operating within the midst of your union.

Pat Millea [01:01:16]:
Love it.

Kenna Millea [01:01:17]:
Pat, are you taking us home?

Pat Millea [01:01:21]:
I thought you were going to pray. Lady, I am happy to pray. You know what? Nope. I'm inspired. It's happening. I'm praying for you because Mario told me to. And the rest of you listeners can just be a part of this prayer if you want to, but I'm praying for my bride. Just kidding.

Pat Millea [01:01:34]:
I will lead us all in a prayer for the good of dating and engagements and marriages all over the world. Let's pray. Name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen. God, you are the Lord of love, the Lord of life, and God, we know that you love when your children share in your love. So we ask for your blessing on each of us today, Lord, that in whatever life stage we all find ourselves in, that we can live within your love and that we can find freedom and joy in that love. Lord, I pray for all those who are discerning their vocation that they are discerning your plan for their life and their path of holiness. I pray for all those, especially who are in the process of dating and are in the initial stages of discernment around who they might be called to marry.

Pat Millea [01:02:28]:
I pray for clarity and for wisdom for them. Lord, I pray for those who are more seriously dating, those who are engaged, those who are thinking that they may have an understanding of the individual that you have called them to share this life with. And I pray for the courage and the humility that they need to step with joy into that vocation. Lord, I pray for all of those who are married, for those who are living out this vocation of holiness, this vocation of love with you and with one another. And Lord, I pray in particular for those who are finding marriage difficult right now, for those who know separation and division and frustration in their marriage. And Lord, I pray for mercy, for forgiveness, for restoration and for healing in all of us who are married so that we can love you better and in the ways that we love our spouse. Lord, we ask for the prayers of St. Louis and Zellie, of all your married saints throughout the generations.

Pat Millea [01:03:33]:
And we entrust all these prayers to you, Lord. Amen.

Dr. Mario Sacasa [01:03:37]:
Amen.

Pat Millea [01:03:37]:
In the name of the Father, Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Dr. Mario Sacasa what a joy, brother. Thanks so much for being with us. Where can people learn more about you and your work and your courses after this episode here?

Dr. Mario Sacasa [01:03:50]:
Yeah. Encourage people, please to head on over to my website, drmariosacasa.com Dr. Mario sacasa.com that'd be the, the easiest way or certainly find me on YouTube. Check out the podcast. Always hope you can find it at any podcast app that you like. If you like the video, then it's there for you on YouTube and on Spotify. I've been doing the show since 2018, have over 180 episodes and it's been a great gift of a ministry to be able to offer it to people. So if you've enjoyed this conversation that we've had, then please, please, please head on over and subscribe and check out all the amazing episodes that I have with such talented people.

Dr. Mario Sacasa [01:04:26]:
And the two of you will be on a future episode. So we're gonna, we're gonna get you guys on soon. So we're excited for that.

Pat Millea [01:04:32]:
That's right. That's right. Yeah, we're looking forward to it. Man. That's. I, I would be sad if this was the only time that we had scheduled to talk. So I'm glad that We've got another time to connect. That'll be good.

Dr. Mario Sacasa [01:04:39]:
Absolutely.

Pat Millea [01:04:41]:
We'll put all those links in the show, show notes for folks and in the episode description so they can follow along with the good work that you're doing. So thank you again, Mario, for taking the time for all your work and ministry in building up individuals and families around the country. Thanks for that. Friends, we would love for you to rate and review this whole life on whatever podcast player you've discovered. You can let us know what struck you most, the questions that you have for Dr. Sacasa that we could maybe pass along to him and, you know, post some replies on Instagram. You can follow us on Instagram and that's the way you would find those answers @thiswholelifepodcast. Also on Facebook @thiswholelifepodcast.

Pat Millea [01:05:18]:
And you can check out our website, ThisWholeLifePodcast.com on behalf of my beloved bride, who I'm going to pay attention to her love languages in a particular way this evening and in the weeks to come. And with More gratitude to Dr. Mario Sacasa. Thank you for listening and we will see you next time. Cut.

Dr. Mario Sacasa [01:05:41]:
Cut.

Pat Millea [01:05:42]:
That was so great and fun. That was awesome, man.

Kenna Millea [01:05:46]:
Thanks, Mario.

Dr. Mario Sacasa [01:05:48]:
You're welcome. You're welcome, guys.

Pat Millea [01:05:49]:
Half the time.

Kenna Millea [01:05:50]:
Thank you Holy Spirit.

Pat Millea [01:05:51]:
Why were you in. Oh, go ahead.

Kenna Millea [01:05:53]:
Well, I got a low battery warning in my AirPods and I was like, oh, no. Oh, no. I think we're good.

Dr. Mario Sacasa [01:06:00]:
I think we're good. It worked out. It worked out like Hanukkah. A miracle of. No.

Pat Millea [01:06:09]:
I kept thinking, like, where were you in 2003, man? Like, you could have saved me a lot of heartache and a lot of issues in 2003. There is such a fun.

Dr. Mario Sacasa [01:06:17]:
I've.

Pat Millea [01:06:17]:
I've never. I guess I've said it to a couple people, but that whole pressure thing you were talking about, there is this, like, this funny pendulum. I feel like we're like, in the early 2000s, I think we. We didn't. We were not intentional enough, by and large, about dating and discernment and things like that. And there were mistakes that a lot of us made because of that. But I feel like the pendulum has totally gone the other way where it's become just this, like, mechanical process and there's no consistent sense of, like, freedom and exploration and, like, maybe we don't get married, but how about we just, like, hang out and have a good time? It's okay.

Dr. Mario Sacasa [01:06:56]:
It just. Okay. It's okay. Dating. Dating can be just that. It's okay. Like, it's it's. Okay.

Dr. Mario Sacasa [01:07:02]:
I think it. And I don't know why it happened in the. So, okay, so. So you say for us in the early 2000s, maybe in the Catholic context, but in the Protestant context, the I Kissed Dating Goodbye book came out in the late 90s.

Pat Millea [01:07:14]:
That's right.

Dr. Mario Sacasa [01:07:14]:
So. So that was kind of the prime when all of that was happening. And that. That just wrecked. Wrecked people. Wrecked people. That was. You know, Joshua Harris has since recanted the book.

Dr. Mario Sacasa [01:07:29]:
The book is off the market. Him and his wife are divorced. Tragically, he's lost his faith. Tragically. I mean, he's not even a practicing Christian anymore. And so. So it's. It's.

Dr. Mario Sacasa [01:07:38]:
It's. It's an awful scenario that. That played itself out. Well, that's the fruit, unfortunately, of that level of rigidity surrounding this.

Pat Millea [01:07:48]:
Yes.

Dr. Mario Sacasa [01:07:49]:
And. And I don't know why. In Catholic circles, this experiment has already been played out in the evangelical Protestant world. Like, it's. It's. It's already been played out and it's failed miserably. We don't need to be. We don't need to be reconstructing what was already played out with disastrous ramifications.

Pat Millea [01:08:08]:
Seriously.

Dr. Mario Sacasa [01:08:09]:
So. So folks like, like, just relax. And. And I. And I don't. I don't. I don't know why. I don't know why it's.

Pat Millea [01:08:15]:
It's.

Dr. Mario Sacasa [01:08:16]:
It's come to this. I have speculations on it. Well. But it is. Yeah.

Kenna Millea [01:08:22]:
Oh, sorry. I just delayed. Feedback thing. What concerns me is, to your point, Mario was like, and if this is.

Dr. Mario Sacasa [01:08:31]:
How you dated, if this is how you. What's your marriage gonna be like. Exactly. That's exactly right. Holy buckets. That's exactly right. I mean, that's exactly right.

Kenna Millea [01:08:43]:
Know how to have a good time together. Like, that was like.

Dr. Mario Sacasa [01:08:45]:
Yes.

Kenna Millea [01:08:45]:
The benefit of meeting in a bar.

Dr. Mario Sacasa [01:08:47]:
Like, is we know how to. Like, we date really well. Okay. Yes. Yes.

Kenna Millea [01:08:54]:
Figure out. But like.

Pat Millea [01:08:58]:
To your first kiss being in a bar, one of them is that you can't tell your kids about your first kiss until a certain age. Right?

Dr. Mario Sacasa [01:09:04]:
Yeah. Yeah. Once they're old enough, you can tell them.

Pat Millea [01:09:06]:
But there is a definite way that. That has served us well in our marriage.

Kenna Millea [01:09:09]:
Right.

Dr. Mario Sacasa [01:09:10]:
If you can.

Pat Millea [01:09:10]:
If you can absolutely angle that. That energy in the right direction, you can go a long way in a good, you know.

Dr. Mario Sacasa [01:09:17]:
Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. No, I mean, I had. I listen, I. I travel and I do dating talks on college campuses to young adults. And there was one woman, she. This was at a college campus.

Dr. Mario Sacasa [01:09:28]:
And she was, she wasn't one of the students, okay. She was one of the, the volunteers or one of the campus ministers or focus. I can't remember where she was. Right. But she was, she was one of the leaders in the group. And she asked, she says in a first date, she goes, is it, don't you think it's appropriate in a first date for a guy to disclose his pornography use?

Kenna Millea [01:09:50]:
Right.

Dr. Mario Sacasa [01:09:50]:
No, that happens all the time. I said, I said, absolutely not. Are you out of your mind? I was like, what guy is going to freaking come into a first date with that on the agenda?

Pat Millea [01:10:01]:
Like, you know, why doesn't he just put it on his profile?

Dr. Mario Sacasa [01:10:04]:
Yeah, put it on his profile. Exactly.

Pat Millea [01:10:07]:
Yeah.

Dr. Mario Sacasa [01:10:07]:
Yeah. Like she, and, and I understand, right, from her disposition, it's like history. Like you were saying, well, well, from her disposition, it's like back to the checklist or the job interview that it's like, well, you better come out real quick so we're not wasting anybody's time, buddy. You know what I mean? It's like, well, that just takes away the mystery, the exploration, the sense of trust. Do I even trust you? I got to trust you enough to be able to disclose that.

Pat Millea [01:10:34]:
Yeah.

Dr. Mario Sacasa [01:10:34]:
Like that's not something that's going to come out in the first day. And even if it comes out in six months later, well then you discern what you're supposed to like. Like these are conversations that have to happen gradually and that's part of what has been lost. That's kind of what I was saying earlier in terms of like this gradual progression of relationships is just non existent anymore.

Pat Millea [01:10:51]:
Yeah.

Dr. Mario Sacasa [01:10:52]:
And, and I think, I think we need to reclaim some of that to give people space to that. Just like, hey, chill out, you know, seriously.

Pat Millea [01:10:59]:
And just like the lack of hope there is for like healing and restoration. Like, yeah, let's say some guy does have some like deep seated pornography addiction. By all means, that's a red flag. But that does not mean that he is damaged goods and he or she is damaged goods and can never be a faithful spouse. You know what I mean? Yeah, that's. Man, that's so, that's so tough.

Dr. Mario Sacasa [01:11:25]:
Yeah. So like some of the practicalities of that, I mean, and I know Kenny said he had a lot of practical questions, but like some of it is even just thinking through how you, or how you orchestrate a first date. So if, if your first date is just getting coffee and sitting across the table from each other, that feels a little bit more like an interview. If you can grab the coffee and actually go on a walk in the park. Well, now you've changed the dynamics where you're walking, you're engaging in something social, you're outside. There's other things that kind of draw your attention. You can talk to each other without having to be like, you know, right in each other's grill, like. Or, you know, like there's space for.

Dr. Mario Sacasa [01:12:03]:
For, For. For more casual interactions to occur. Those are just small, simple things that, like, I just. We. We want to help people. We. I. I believe in marriage.

Dr. Mario Sacasa [01:12:15]:
You know, that's why I care about it. It's like, I want people to get married. Like, I want that to happen.

Pat Millea [01:12:22]:
We went on. We went on many, many dates before we were married that were just like normal dinners, face to face, whatever. But I never would have thought until you said that that the dates that I remember the most and definitely the conversations that I remember the most during dates were always the ones that were like, side by side, like.

Dr. Mario Sacasa [01:12:41]:
Yep.

Pat Millea [01:12:42]:
Going for a walk many, many nights. Eating shave ice in Broad Ripple in Indianapolis. You know what I mean? Like, those kinds of. That's really fascinating and really significant to me.

Dr. Mario Sacasa [01:12:55]:
Yeah. And especially for men, we. Our brains work a little better when we're actually doing stuff. Yeah. You know, and so, so that's why guys. Male. The classic male bonding trip is what, fishing with your dad? Right. There's a reason why that stereotype exists.

Dr. Mario Sacasa [01:13:12]:
Those are. Those are moments when we're doing stuff. And so even just a simple walk together I think plays to. To our advantage.

Pat Millea [01:13:21]:
It's no guarantee that my brain works well, but it's my shot.

Dr. Mario Sacasa [01:13:25]:
I said better. I said better. I said better. Better. Better was the word that I use. Right. I said better.

Pat Millea [01:13:31]:
Incremental.

Dr. Mario Sacasa [01:13:32]:
That doesn't. That doesn't mean stellar. It just means it's better than what it is in a regular state.

Pat Millea [01:13:37]:
I'd rather give Kenna a B minus than a C minus.

Dr. Mario Sacasa [01:13:39]:
It's okay.

Pat Millea [01:13:50]:
This Whole Life is a production of the Martin Center for Integration. Visit us online at thiswholelifepodcast.com.

Dr. Mario Sacasa [01:14:01]:
Alone. And I promise I'm paying attention.

Pat Millea [01:14:10]:
Totally. Yep. Not just. Yeah. Looking at YouTube on the side.

Dr. Mario Sacasa [01:14:13]:
Yeah. Not just. Look at what A conversation. See what. See what happened here in the world.

Pat Millea [01:14:17]:
Catching up in your notifications.

Dr. Mario Sacasa [01:14:19]:
Yeah, exactly. Checking emails in the middle of the podcast.