When did a week go by, my dear friend and dear friends, on Atheata Perasmata? How time flies! A whole week has passed, and here we are together again on Piraiki Ekklisia, at 91.2 FM, the station that speaks to our souls, Piraiki Ekklisia. With me is Vasilis Chatzinikolaou, the musician and sound engineer for our program, with his lovely CDs, old and new. You are right to seek them out; they are beautiful. You can find his latest one online. It has wonderful music. It is not meant for use in church during worship, but it is lovely for children, young people, and teenagers, who can enjoy a blend of contemporary music familiar to their own world,

and through it they can receive the meaning and message of Orthodox faith and life without being handed something overtly traditional or austere right away. Vasilis, thank you so much for being with us again today. Phoebe is answering your calls and writing down your messages. Thank you so much for your love. The program is also rebroadcast. And, as I said, it has been a week since we were last together.

I know you listen to Atheata Perasmata several times during the week. You record the programs on CDs, share them and make copies, and you find them online, where every episode is stored. All the programs are there, from when the show began in 2006 until today. You can listen if you want to pass a little time

and fall asleep! A woman once told me something she thought would flatter me. She said, “I listen to you and I fall asleep. Your program is wonderful. I put it on at night and drift off.” I said, “Do you consider that a compliment?” “No, no,” she said. “Don’t misunderstand me, Father. I don’t mean that you hypnotize me, that you start talking and I fall asleep. I mean that I feel peaceful.” I told her, “Don’t worry. I’ve heard worse from other people.”

So I understand. One man put it plainly: “I play your programs for my children, and they fall asleep.” Well, even so, let them sleep. And you can sleep too. Just don’t fall asleep yet, if you’re listening now. Though I think today’s subject may keep you awake. It might even make you anxious or upset. But first I want to thank you again for all your love, for the phone calls that support Piraiki Ekklisia and the people who work here, each doing the best they can. Thank you for your gifts and letters. I read them, bring them before God in prayer, and, as you may have noticed, draw on them in what I say. I take little things from you and speak about them; I simply leave out your name. Even so, some people call afterward and ask, “Were you talking about me today?” And I say, “Yes, you, but also many others who are too embarrassed to speak about these things, or simply aren’t used to it. Yet they all live with problems and pain.” Thank you for your kind words about our two new books. The latest, Love Forever, contains eight episodes of Atheata Perasmata put into written form.

So people can read them. You might give the book to a relative or a friend, and it also comes with a CD of those eight programs. You’ve written to tell me that you bought the first book and gave copies as gifts too. Its proceeds help build a church, as the book explains, and I thank you very much. The first volume is called Strengthen Your Soul, and the second is Love Forever. Some of you have asked whether I received your messages about the books, so I wanted to thank you and answer that question. Now I’ll tell you something that will wake you up, in case you’re feeling sleepy today. I went to give a talk at a school for parents somewhere in Athens, and the priest who invited me asked, “What’s the title?” I thought, “What title should I give it?” Then I said, “Perhaps…”

I thought for a moment and said, “Do You Regret Getting Married?” “Ah,” he said, “that’s an interesting title: ‘Do You Regret Getting Married?’” I chose it, and just as I expected, the church hall filled up. I thought a title like that would bring people in. I didn’t know what I would say, or whether it would be any good, but the title had to be strong! Many people came. Even before the talk, people were sending me messages: “Yes, yes. The answer is yes. Definitely yes.” Older people called, younger people called, and unmarried people too. “I’m coming to hear this,” one said. I wondered why it stirred so much interest. “Do you regret getting married?” Many told me, “Yes, I do, but don’t tell my wife.” I said, “I won’t.” And to myself I thought, “But I won’t

tell you what your wife said about you, either. She told me the very same thing: ‘Don’t tell him, Father, but I regret it.’” He regretted it, and so did she. They both came to listen. I told the audience, “Most of you are older, though there are some young people here too. Actually, quite a few. But the older people always take the front seats in church and feel right at home. By older, I mean people in their sixties, seventies and eighties. And they keep asking, ‘Why don’t young people come to church?’ I said to one man, ‘How can they feel welcome? Even when they do come, you treat them like tourists, like guests, like strangers. You take the front seats. You’re first to speak to the priest and first to go up for antidoron, the blessed bread distributed after Liturgy. Make some room for someone else…’”

“You may be older, but shouldn’t a young person feel at home in church too? Let him sit nearer the front. He isn’t doing it out of pride. He sits there out of joy, glad to be where he can see and hear, feel that these matters concern him, and connect with the speaker.” All the grandmothers and grandfathers had taken the front row. I said, “What have you come here for? Whatever you regret, that part of your life has passed. The train has left the station and is nearly at its destination. If you’re eighty, madam, what can I do now about your regret? What can I tell you to change? What’s done is done. What matters is reaching people at twenty, twenty-five or thirty before they come to regret it. So let them sit closer to the front.” That is how things are. People looked on and listened, while I was speaking from a safe distance and someone else was out there struggling in the waves,

being tossed about and suffering. Do you regret getting married?

Still, it is a great thing that in our time we can talk about this openly. I don’t mean marriage alone. There are things in life we regret doing. We say, “Oh, what I did was a mistake.” Today, people often have the courage and honesty to say, “Yes, I admit it. I regret something.” Some people keep saying that everything was wonderful in the old days. It wasn’t. Many lived with a hidden, ongoing torment. Of course, through their trials, pain and patient endurance, they might have become Saints. But they too would have wanted somewhere to speak, at least to tell someone the thought weighing on them: “I need to say somewhere that this

person wasn’t right for me. All right, I’ll stay with him, but I want to talk about it with someone.” Instead, they carried their deepest secret hidden in their hearts, and many withered under its weight until they died. Others did not wither. They flourished and became Saints through life with difficult people, through trials and blows, growing mature amid life’s hardships. But I consider it real progress that today we don’t have to appear happy and certain all the time. “Am I afraid of making a fool of myself? No,” people say. “What matters most is speaking the truth in my soul. And the truth is, I regret my choice of profession,

my life, the path I’ve taken, my relationship, my family.” We can talk about it. I may be mistaken. I may reach the wrong conclusion. Perhaps I need to persevere. Yes, but let me say it, so it doesn’t eat me up inside. Let me stop putting on an act. A person says, “I’m tired of pretending. I’m tired of going out into the neighborhood smiling while people ask, ‘How are you? Everything all right? How’s your husband?’ And I answer, ‘We’re fine.’ Fine? We’re fighting all the time. We can’t manage emotionally, as a family, as husband and wife, financially, or with our relatives. Yet I go out and play the part of a happy person.” There comes a point when you can’t bear it. You feel as though you’re suffocating.

That is what matters: as people of God and of the Church, people of Christ and His truth, we too must tell the truth. The truth can be that I am happy with what I do, yet sometimes I feel troubled by it: pressured, bothered, as though I can’t breathe. I might wish to change it, do something else, have married a different woman or man, have fewer children or more. I might dislike my work or struggle with my boss. Being able to tell someone matters greatly. It means sharing what I carry within me and speaking about it. I remember a woman from our neighborhood who saw me after I became a priest and said,

“I envy you, and I admire you for choosing this path.” She was married and had children who were already grown by then. I asked, “Why do you say that? If you could turn back time and begin your life again, what would you do?” “I certainly wouldn’t marry,” she told me. “I would do what you did. I would live on my own and dedicate myself to God. You made the best choice.” “Why?” I asked. “Peace and quiet. No one making demands on you. No worries about anybody else.” I told her, “Believe me, many people make demands on me, even though I live alone. And I can see there will be more in the future.” After all these years, I know that is true. When you live alone for God, you come to know many people.

You receive their pain and carry their sighs and tears within you. You are not alone. But I told her, “Thank you for telling me how you feel. I’m sorry you’re suffering. Since you and your family are still together, you need to find a way to make that life as good as it can be. You haven’t divorced, have you? Then don’t let even an hour of your life pass in unhappiness if you can do something about it. Don’t let that unhappiness keep flowing through you, like poison dripping inside you. Do something to change it. Don’t simply say, ‘Another month will pass in sorrow, depression and disappointment.’ No. Don’t let it. Stop that flow of

despair today. Say, ‘Enough. I’ll find a way to live so that I can say: It is good to be alive. I like getting up, going to the bakery, the supermarket and the market, cooking, going to work, paying the bills, visiting the bank and taking the car to be repaired. I can find joy in the things I do.’” Otherwise, you poison your life and live unhappily. Our earthly life is short. It is not worth giving ourselves over to a sense of failure, as though we have surrendered and settled for defeat. An elderly monk on the Holy Mountain once told me something. I’ve visited all the monasteries there, so I’m keeping the place vague; even those of you who know me won’t know which one I mean.

This elderly monk said to me, “I don’t feel well here. I wish I could go somewhere else, to another monastery.” I asked, “Why don’t you go, Father?” His soul was worn down by sorrow. “Where could I go at my age?” he said. “Who would take me in? How would I go and ask them? And how can I leave when I’m already here?” “So what do you do?” I asked. “Nothing,” he said. “I endure. For however long God gives me, I’ll live this way.” Do you see the difference? For that monk, it is understandable that through this he may grow mature, be sanctified,

pray, draw near to God and learn not to be ruled by his surroundings, because he is on his own. But you live with your wife or husband, your children, your work and your home. You cannot say, “I’ll stay here and waste away until I die.” For one thing, you are young. The monk I spoke of was elderly. So you need to do something. Your happiness and joy matter. They are gifts God wants to give you. Happiness is not something you can seize in a selfish way, saying, “I deserve to be happy because I’m so important.” No. But God does want joy for you.

He made you for happiness and joy. God did not tell you to marry so you could waste away in sorrow. Yes, there will be pain: “In pain you shall bring forth children,” and “By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread.” You will labor for your food and raise your children. But through it all, joy can bloom in your heart. A smile will come, and you will find yourself saying, “It’s worth it. Life is good.” If you do not feel that, ask yourself why. Why did that woman, who was forty at the time, say, “If I could turn back time, I would not do what I did at twenty. I would not marry again”? No, I would want you to marry again and make your marriage beautiful, to shape your life into one that answers what you long for. What is it you long for? Search for it. Why does everyone answer yes when I ask, “Do you regret getting married?” Why do you regret it? That is why I ask the question.

I raise the question to make you think, not to tell you that you are right to regret it. First, do not panic or become anxious if you feel this way, now or at some point in the future. Human beings are contradictory, difficult, tragic creatures. That is how we are: one way today, another tomorrow. People say, “Never say never.” Never tell yourself with certainty, “I know I will always feel this way.” We do not know how our lives or our souls will change.

“My soul is like the sea,” someone told me. “At first it is calm, smooth as oil. Then storms come, whirlwinds blow, the water turns dark and swallows everything. Then it all begins again.” That is human life. Nothing stays the same. Things may change for you too, and that calls for great patient endurance. Life calls for a great deal of it. Be open to whatever comes, ready for whatever comes, and keep a clear head. Say, “Lord, enlighten me and help me not to make bold claims.” I feel well today, and I hope I will tomorrow, but I cannot be certain. I say this because some people are afraid to say how they feel. They fear the reaction of those around them. Some people look at you as you begin to speak and already have your answer prepared. They frighten you into giving it. “Surely you haven’t regretted it? I can’t believe that. I don’t want to hear it.” “No, no, of course I haven’t. I’m fine.” Ask someone that way and they will never tell you the truth.

Let the other person speak and tell you how they feel. Then they will tell you, whether the answer is yes or no, what is truly in their heart. It means a great deal to have people beside you who will listen when you speak honestly about your feelings. Perhaps you really do feel that way; perhaps you are confused. Many people have regretted things they did in life. I once read a book about a woman who was tonsured a nun one evening. The next morning she woke up without faith. Everything had vanished from within her. She did not know why she was there or why she was wearing her monastic clothes. She felt nothing. Her mind felt empty of faith in God, and she could no longer feel His presence.

Only a short while before, she had been saying, “Yes, I believe. I am going forward. I am beginning this life, steadfast and determined to the end.” But she had not reached the end. One day she could no longer live as she had been living. Her mind became blocked and her heart went dry. I tell you this so you understand that such things happen. They concern many paths and many questions in life, not just marriage. That is why I said that a human being is contradictory and tragic: one way at one moment, another way at the next, yet still the same person.

Have you ever looked at your wife or husband and thought, “I have an angel beside me. What a wonderful person”? And at another time, looking at that very same person, thought, “Oh, I could strangle you! I cannot stand you. Why did I ever get involved with you?” The same person brings out such different feelings in you. But look at it another way: perhaps there are so many different feelings within you toward that person. Your spouse may change, but you may change too. Each time you see them, you bring a different mood, a different desire, a different aversion, a different state of mind. Love and hatred. You can love and hate at the same time. Often you hate the person you love. And you love the person you sometimes hate.

You are still the same person, divided and confused. Another acquaintance of mine, a priest, realized some time after his ordination what path he had taken, and it overwhelmed him. He was sitting alone in his living room, holding the doorframe and thinking about it. Tears began to run down his face. “What have I done? What have I entered into? What path have I chosen? How will I live? How will I reach the end of this road? This is not for a day or two. It is for a lifetime.” It is the same with marriage. You did not marry for two months; you married for life. Is that easy? Not at all. Before he had told an elder on the Holy Mountain any of this, the elder said to him, “On the path you have chosen, look only ahead. Do not look back. Keep your eyes ahead. There is no going back.”

“Go forward. Keep walking, grow stronger, and make the path beautiful. You can find a way to stand on your own feet.” My acquaintance felt relief and comfort. Someone had understood him, had acknowledged what he was going through, and had not reacted with shock. The elder had spoken plainly: “I understand that you want to go back.”

Do not go back. Going back is not the answer. We are confused and full of contradictions, so even if you go back, you will find yourself confused again. Suppose you do go back. You regret marrying and you separate. Then you may regret separating. Do you see? You will be more confused than before, and you will have left behind a person, perhaps children, family matters, relatives and friends. The confusion will be greater still. Running away, the easy answer, is not the way. The way is to struggle courageously.

If you are a woman, have a courageous spirit. What do I mean by that? The courage to stand on your own feet and admit where you are at fault and where you are not. Forgive yourself for what you can forgive, and say about the rest, “I will work on it. I will look into myself and see what is going on and what is troubling me. I will grow. I will call on the strength of Christ and continue the life I have begun.” Leaving whenever a problem arises is no answer. What would happen then? Where would that lead? So, have you regretted getting married, or regretted the path you have taken? Perhaps you have. “The thought crosses my mind,” someone says. But that is life. All sorts of things will happen to us, and thoughts like these will come. What does that mean?

Once I was sitting with an elderly priest in the sanctuary. A couple in that parish was having trouble, and I asked him, “Father, why is it like this with couples?” He said, “My dear Father, even our own insides cannot always live together in harmony and settle down. How can you expect two people to love each other perfectly? Until yesterday they were strangers. Do you expect perfection from two strangers? They have different characters and habits, different genes and relatives, and different upbringings. Even our own insides,” he said, “cannot always settle down within us. They churn and cause us pain.” It is difficult. Each human being is a mixture of many things.

Cunning and simplicity can live in the same person. At one moment someone is straightforward; at another you wonder, “Where did all that cunning come from?” Then, at another moment, they seem to understand nothing at all, like a small, innocent child. It is the same person, crafty at times and good at others.

Pure, cleanhearted, sincere, full of light. Then pleasure seeking and dark. Sometimes full of kindness and courtesy, and at other times full of malice. Somewhere a character in Dostoevsky says, “I was a scoundrel, and yet I loved God.” Good and evil lived within him side by side in a monstrous way. That can happen within the very same person: “I may be a bad man, but I love God too.” That is how it is.

The person you married, that wife or husband, and the path we choose contain all these things. When you understand that, it brings you down to earth and lifts you up. Coming down to earth helps you calm down. It brings us back to my first piece of advice: do not panic.

Calm down. There is nothing wrong with speaking about your thoughts or discussing them. No one will cut your head off for saying them. Unless you have a very strict father who says, “If you dare say it, or even think it, you are finished.” All right, do not go to him with it. Speak to someone you can talk with. Here is my second piece of advice: look carefully at what went wrong with this recipe for happiness. Find the root of it. Your happiness cannot have disappeared and your heart filled with regret all at once without something happening. Something has happened.

It began somewhere. Unless, of course, you simply woke up one morning feeling this way; that can happen too. Some people say, “I don’t know what has come over me.” Once a very good, sincere, well intentioned man came to me and said, “I don’t know what has happened to me. I no longer feel at ease with my wife.” “Has she done something to you?” I asked. “No, nothing at all. I don’t know. Something has happened to me.” If something has happened, it is good that you admit it and talk about it. But get help. Find someone who understands family matters, the psychological difficulties spouses face, spiritual concerns and marital problems. Let that person support you. This can happen: you grow cold and unsettled without knowing why. “Something has happened inside me. Something has come over me.” Let us look at it together.

Let us get help so that this family can stay together, especially if there are young children. It is painful to say, “Something has come over me, so I am leaving, or we are separating, because I regret marrying.” For those whose feelings did not change so suddenly, we need to find out what happened. Someone might say, “Lately my husband has stopped speaking kindly to me. Something is bothering him, and he speaks sharply. Since then, I have begun to grow cold and to regret marrying him.” Or something else has happened: your spouse becomes ill, and you find yourself thinking, “What have I got myself into?” Be honest enough to say, “Since this health problem began, I have started wondering what I got myself into.” What matters is finding the thread you can follow.

Find the end of that thread and see where your soul first began to lose heart and feel disappointed with the path you chose. It does not happen all at once. There is a starting point. Find it, so you can discuss it. Someone might then ask, “Did you expect your husband’s life never to have any difficulties?” Or someone says, “I see the years passing, and I regret this because there are other things I want to do with my life. My spouse holds me back. I want to go out and enjoy a beautiful, active social life. I have an energetic nature, but he wants to do nothing. Nothing interests him.” There you have it: you have found a reason for your regret. Try to talk about it.

Look for healing where the wound began. Something has gone wrong in this relationship, and you cannot deal with it because you have not identified a particular problem to work on. Instead you feel a vague panic: “I cannot cope. I am lost, upset, beside myself.” Yes, but something is happening. Why do you regret marrying? What is it? Find out. This matters greatly. You need to be able to tell someone the whole truth. “I regret it because I am facing another temptation now.” Someone said to me, “At work I have become attracted to another person. My mind is all caught up in it. I no longer want to be with my family. I want to be there—”

“I want to talk to that person.” You need to discuss this and admit it. Of course, do not discuss it with your own people; that can cause a great deal of turmoil and misunderstanding. But seek help: from a priest who can understand and support you, from a trusted relative, or from a specialist. Asking for help matters greatly, and sadly we are not used to doing it. Sometimes we seem to think we know everything: “Why should anyone else tell me what to do?” To me, it is a sign of great wisdom to sit beside someone and ask, “Can you help me?” That is a wise step. Someone who does this is mature, neither foolish nor incapable.

Anyone who goes to another person and says, “Please, can you help me?” is making a wise choice. I admire that.

A young woman once told me, “I was so confused that I went to a family counselor for help.” I said, “Well done. I’m glad you did.” “I didn’t come to you,” she said. “You can come to me, and I can say a few words to you. But the problems you’re dealing with are outside my expertise.”

When you broke your leg, you went to a doctor who put a splint and a cast on it. You didn’t come to me with a broken leg, did you? I don’t know how to put a cast on someone’s leg. It’s the same with these delicate matters between spouses and within a family: talk them through with a specialist. Have you done that? I mean someone who can help you work through the situation, beyond talking over coffee or gossiping with a friend or acquaintance and getting nowhere. Find someone you can tell what is happening. Ask, “How do you see the situation? Please help me. What is troubling me?” Ask that last question too: “What is troubling me?”

Something may be troubling you. Your spouse may be a fine person, while you have problems of your own. Remember something I think Einstein said: the mind that creates a problem cannot solve that same problem by itself. Your nous, your spiritual mind, is troubled, and things look strange to you. Then you say, “I’ll solve the problem in my life.” But with what mind? With your own, when your own mind is troubled? A clouded nous, full of confusion and turmoil, does not see some things clearly. My own nous often fails to see clearly too. I get confused and cannot see the way ahead. What do I do then? I turn to another person’s judgment.

I turn to someone with a clearer mind than mine: perhaps another spiritual father, or anyone I can see is calm and clearheaded. That is what I mean by enlightened. This person is outside my agitation, my passions, my nerves and my panic, and can look at things more calmly. I can say, “Please tell me how you see this. How do you see me, as someone looking on from the outside? Say something to me. Help me find a way forward.” There are spiritual fathers today, priests who have studied. There are also spiritual fathers whose holiness enables them to support you. But an ordinary conversation is not always enough. The person may need special inspiration from God, and not all of us have that. If you find someone who does, I hope you are blessed with that help.

If it were so easy to go anywhere and find help, then by all means go. But sadly, we have all heard complaints from people who went somewhere for help expecting an inspired answer, only to see harm done to homes, families, marriages, and relationships between children and parents.

Each difficulty calls for someone who knows how to support you, the right book, or the right setting. Why are there schools for parents? Why do specialists come to speak at these schools in our Metropolitan dioceses, throughout Greece, and across the Christian world? They speak about what they know. So when it comes to family matters, turn to someone who knows that field. There is nothing wrong with doing so. Do it.

Why do you sit there sinking deeper on your own? You talk to yourself about it, you create these problems on your own, you make them worse on your own, and then try to solve them on your own all over again. You won’t solve the problem that way. Go and ask for help. Not from me, of course; I’m not a specialist in these matters. There are others who know this field, who have studied it and have experience. Ask them: “Is my marriage on shaky ground? Is my relationship on shaky ground? Do I regret having come this far? What should I do? How should I act? Why am I like this? What mistakes are being made?” Be ready to see those mistakes, admit them, and work through them. And here is another piece of advice: when you regret the path you’ve taken, don’t rush into a decision. Take your time. Don’t rush. Say to yourself:

“We’ll work through this problem, but little by little. We won’t rush.” Don’t say, “I was shaken today, I regret it, so tomorrow I’ll separate.” Tell yourself, “All right, if we do separate, it can be a year from now. I’ll think about it until then.” If you say, “I will never separate,” you may feel trapped and overwhelmed. Instead say, “Even if I do separate, I won’t do it tomorrow. Even if I leave, I won’t leave tomorrow. We’ll see.” Those words, “we’ll see,” can help you relax. You loosen your tie, so to speak, and say, “All right, perhaps I’ll leave someday, but certainly not tomorrow.” You calm down. Three or four days later, you may see another way forward besides leaving, sending her away, or getting a divorce. Calm down. Give yourself time.

Here is another piece of advice: at a moment like that, when you feel regret, don’t let harsh words slip out. Don’t say harsh things to the other person that you’ll soon regret. Watch what comes out of your mouth. When we feel that kind of regret, a lot of poison can come out in our words, and the other person remembers them. We may have forgotten what we said, apologized, and regretted it, asking ourselves, “Why did I say all that?” But the other person remembers, and those words are hard to forget.

When you face problems like these, be careful not to focus on them so completely that everything else disappears. You start saying, “I’m falling apart. What I’m going through is terrible. I’m losing my mind.” Take a breath. You’re still living, and there are other things in your life. Set this aside for a little while and do something else. What might that be?

Get some exercise. Young people do that all the time. Go out with friends, sit down for a drink, and talk. Watch a good film with people you know. Visit a relative or a friend.

Let off some steam. Relax, calm down, read a book. Take a walk. Get out of the house. Don’t sit there in the middle of temptation and tension, saying, “I regret this. I can’t stand the situation I’ve got myself into.” You won’t reach a calm decision that way. Don’t make the problem bigger than it is. Some couples do this because they expect far too much from each other. A man says, “Now that I’m married, my wife must be everything to me. She must solve every problem and be the source of my complete happiness.” His wife says the same about him. And they forget the rest of life.

They forget their own lives, personal growth, spiritual life, friendships, and time out with others. Instead, it becomes, “I exist for you, and you exist for me.” That is exhausting, and neither person can meet every need. I alone cannot make you happy. Life has variety and richness. You did not marry to impoverish yourself. You did not marry to attach yourself to one person and forget yourself in them. You can lean on your spouse and still develop your other gifts. Your personality can flourish in other parts of life too. A young couple understood this very well. When they married, with all the excitement and love of a new beginning, it was natural for each to feel entirely devoted to the other.

After a while, though, ordinary life resumes. Perhaps a year later, you settle into a routine and begin to realize that your spouse alone cannot make you happy. You too need to look within, grow in maturity, draw near to God, and cultivate yourself. Read literature, watch a good film, have conversations. Tend the garden of your own heart. Even in marriage, you still have an inner life that is yours alone. Yes, you are married and have companionship. But there are parts of yourself that only you can tend, understand, and work through. When you cling to your spouse and expect them to be everything, disappointment follows. That unhealthy fascination turns into disappointment when you say:

“I expect everything from you.” But I cannot give you everything. Lean on God too, on your own gifts, on the richness of life, and on your friends. Then we can love each other more and enjoy each other’s company. We won’t regret meeting, because each of us can offer the other comfort and freedom, good news and unity, while respecting what makes the other person distinct. We can be deeply united and still be at ease with each other finding joy in separate moments. “Do you want to visit your mother? Of course you should go. You’ll enjoy seeing her.” “Won’t you be jealous?” “No. If you come home happy, you’ll bring more joy to me as well.”

You’ll come back more grateful because I didn’t keep you from seeing your mother. Little things like that matter. You may think that giving someone freedom means letting them drift away, but they return to you in love. They can breathe. They don’t feel stifled or pressured. That is essential, and it takes care and growth. There are other signs to look for too, of course. But problems aren’t solved through radio programs.

They are worked through in the give and take of daily life, even through disagreements. Don’t be afraid of an argument. A home is alive; it isn’t a cemetery. A cemetery is perfectly quiet, and no one argues there. You could put two enemies side by side, and they would be quiet. But this is a home. Some couples say, “We have never argued.” That may be fine, but if you had argued, I would not think you any less holy. An argument is not necessarily a bad thing. I once went to the funeral of an elderly woman who, in my view, was a saint. I call her holy because she was a real, ordinary human being. She had a spiritual life, but she could also be forceful, impulsive, and irritable. Don’t we all have those things in us? Sometimes they come out with the people we love. We argued, then made up. I spoke sharply, then asked your forgiveness.

And we kissed, and the kiss was sweeter for it. If anyone can, with genuine integrity of character, always be at what we call the peak of perfection and holiness, let that person pray for us. We look up to them and bow. But it does not trouble me to see a couple argue or go through difficult moments, misunderstandings, and tension. We are shaped through these things. That is who you are, my dear. What do you mean, never argue? If I have a temper, where am I supposed to put it? Lock it in a cupboard? It would break the cupboard open and burst out. The woman whose funeral I attended was holy in my eyes because she had a different kind of holiness: the holiness of being an ordinary human being. She was an ordinary woman, close to God and the Church and devoted to prayer. But when she got upset, she would speak her mind too.

She might make a pointed remark, then ask forgiveness. All of that was part of her, because that is what a human being is like. So keep that in mind. Our time is up. I had one more thought, but in any case, have you regretted getting married? As for me, I don’t regret making this program today.

I know you don’t regret getting married either. You haven’t regretted it; you’re simply having a hard time. If you discover how good life can be with the person beside you, you’ll say, “What foolish thoughts I had, saying all that time that I regretted it.” “I don’t regret it. I’m just unhappy right now, and I’m looking for a reason.” There is a way to make your life beautiful where you are, with the person you’re with, with your wife and your children. We’ll find those little secrets and find the way forward. We’ll talk about it another time.

So, patient endurance. And if you cannot endure patiently, you will argue again. Do as you think best. What can I do? I cannot change you by force. You will argue, ask forgiveness, soften, and struggle through it. Think of food simmering on the stove: it boils and boils, and in the end it becomes something sweet, with a lovely sauce. That is how life is. I pray that one day you, too, will discover its secrets. Forgive me for stepping into your family life. I hope you know I mean well. Vasilis, thank you very much. I really enjoyed your latest CD, the blues in a plagal mode. It was beautiful. I have recommended it to many people, and many of them...

...said they were delighted with it. They will tell you themselves in a personal email. The program’s email address is atheata.perasmata@yahoo.gr. The station’s phone numbers are 4118602 and 4118640. We have been together on Unseen Passages, on Piraiki Ekklisia, the station that speaks to our souls. And today you spoke to my soul. You, too, spoke to my soul, because once again you shared your pain, bitterness, and disappointment. But somewhere deep down, let me see, I can make out a little hope. I hold on to that hope, and with that hope we will continue next time. Be well. May you be blessed on the path God has given you to walk, so that you may find happiness and grow in holiness.