Love Secret of Happily Married Couples


Want a better love life that goes beyond Valentine's Day romance? Prize your partner's happiness and well-being above your own, a new survey suggests.
Those feelings -- called altruistic love -- are at the heart of the survey, which included more than 1,300 people, 60% of whom were married. The findings:
• Married people with lots of altruistic love for their spouse had happier marriages.
• Married or not, altruistic love for a significant other was tied to higher levels of general happiness.
The survey was part of the General Social Survey, directed by Tom W. Smith, PhD, of the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago.
Rate Your Own Altruistic Love
Curious about your own level of altruistic love? Rate how strongly you agree or disagree with these statements:
• I would rather suffer myself than let the one I love suffer.
• I cannot be happy unless I place the one I love's happiness before my own.
• I am usually willing to sacrifice my own wishes to let the one I love achieve his/hers.
• I would endure all things for the sake of the one I love.
By a long shot, the majority of survey participants agreed or strongly agreed with those statements.
Nearly nine in 10 agreed or strongly agreed with the first statement. About seven in 10 agreed or strongly agreed with the second statement. About eight in 10 agreed or strongly agreed with the last two statements.
Happier in Marriage
Married people "that express a high sense of altruistic love toward their significant other turn out to have much happier marriages," Smith tells WebMD.
Altruism is usually defined as helping others without getting anything back, Smith notes. "In this case, it turns out there is a positive payback," he says.
Married people get a "significant increase" in marital happiness if they have "this kind of self-sacrificing, put-the-interest-of-the-other-before-my-own-interest perspective on their romantic and close relationships," says Smith.
Altruistic love can create a positive cycle in relationships, he adds.
"I'll say I put my wife's interests ahead of mine," Smith explains. "Well, she appreciates that and she does the same back to me, and it strengthens the relationship and it leads to a happier marriage. So, I think that's the mechanism."
More studies are needed to check that theory, Smith says.
Not Just for Married People
Married people were more likely to rank high in altruistic love than the unmarried. But altruistic love was a boon for everyone -- no wedding band required.
"Having feelings of altruistic love toward the significant other -- a spouse, co-habitating partner, a simple romantic interest, which hasn't gone as far as either of those relationships -- not only leads to greater marital happiness but general increase in general happiness in one's life," Smith says.
Humans are "both self-interested and self-sacrificing," he notes. "I think sometimes we think of us as only in competition and material benefit and whatnot, and there's clearly more to human psychology than that."
SOURCES: National Opinion Research Center, University of Chicago: "Altruism and Empathy in America: Trends and Correlates." Tom W. Smith, PhD, director, General Social Survey, National Opinion Research Center, University of Chicago. News release, University of Chicago.

Hello everybody,

After quite a long absence due to several reasons (problems with my computer ,holidays,not having computer in my downtown apartment,I am back.Lets hope we shall have the opportunity to communicate often from now on

The Ascetic of Love

The Abbess Gavriilia (Avrilia Pappoyianni) was born in Constantinople in 1897 and died in 1992 in her hermitage (hesychasterion) on Leros. She is perhaps best known for her work with lepers in India. Her biography, from which the texts on this page are translated, describes her life as "a journey into the heart of love over 94 years and 4 continents".

Few words, much love. To everybody. Regardless of who they are.

1. Joy, calm, love, the wish we give to everybody, if they are not accepted come back to us and to the Lord. In other words, just as we breathe, as our heart beats, without any act of will on our part and without us being able to stop it; in the same way rivers of love, of which He is the source, should flow out of us day and night and always... regardless of where they go. That is His concern.

2. So many years now the Lord has granted me to keep the first three days of Lent without opening my mouth for food or water. I have been able to do this because at the same time I also keep silence.

3. Just as I cannot stand praying out loud, so I cannot stand monologue, only dialogue.

4. At "Christ is risen" we leave futility behind with Him and pass, thanks to His love, into eternity.

5. There is something which is often called "spiritual pride". But where there is pride, there is no Spirit, in which case all that is left is a nothing - pride.

6. To a novice: Be careful about two things. Love, without discrimination, without condemnation... and humility, as if you are the slave of everybody.

7. Never expect anybody to understand you. Only God.

8. Forgive everybody and see only the light of Christ, which one day, by the prayer of the Mother of God and all the saints, we will encounter ourselves.

9. People tell us that which we inspire.

   ---

   The ministry of service should be constant. We should continually be "forgetting" ourselves. It is not a momentary action, it is life. It is the sign of the presence of Christ.

10. A person lives only when he loves. Otherwise he is a lifeless creature, with only organic powers.

11. The love which binds people together, is the greatest Divine Gift.

12. The life in God consists in "You, follow Me." Together, you continually feel a joy, a joy, with certainty of love and an equally continual "Thank you" for EVERYTHING, day and night.

13. Jerusalem, as it says in the hymn "Shine, shine [new Jerusalem]", enlightens us all. Whoever goes there at the right time, will get direction for his path.

14. He who is occupied with himself, whether bodily or emotionally, does not have time to occupy himself with anyone else and is not interested. He becomes egocentric.

15. Peace to all - in this way the spirit is at rest, the heart loves, the soul becomes calm, the world of the Earth becomes a paradise. The Kingdom of God inside us, and we inside His Kingdom.

16. Blessed are those who begin to feel that they have become a "shadow". This is the beginning of "non-existence".

17. Changes, great changes, inner journeys must continue. Woe betide him who stays still like stagnant water.

18. Heaven is the monastery of the angels and earth their priory (outpost).

19. We should live permanently in the joy of the resurrection.

20. What a beautiful song life is! And what blessing when after a journey of many years, I can say from 1937 to today, the invisible face of God has never departed from beside me and inside me.

21. Few words, much love... The powers of darkness are waiting for an opportunity. Let us not talk, so that we do not regret it.

22. Even in this life, Christ raised us too from the dead.

23. What a gift God gave to the world, in sending His Son Jesus Christ.

24. The resurrection of Lazarus is the symbol of the resurrection of our soul in the world.

25. Read one Father of the Church and only him.

26. He who does to another what he hates, is "sent". Watch him.

27. There are people who persist, of their own will, in destroying the bodily power that God gave them, creating a perpetual state of hyperactivity and overwork.

28. Evening readings do not go into the soul.

29. If we do not have boldness when the Lord calls us, we are lost.

30. I wish that God grant you His grace, His power and His love, so that you may be near to those who are in need and who seek Him.

31. Where there is attunement to the will of God, there there is prayer.

32. Don't let anything upset you; neither people, nor reverses, nor obstacles. Christ says to us once in a while, "I received this command from My Father," and proceeds with the certainty that He is fulfilling the will of His Father, however difficult and tough, and however much hatred He encounters.

33. Children are not black or white or red or yellow in the eyes of God. They are souls which God produced through His heart like drops of blood. Who can say which drop is worth the most?

34. When we want to help someone, half of ourself must be assimilated to them. The other half, even in the face of objections, will be able to find the right solution.

35. God works in eternity. Not in the hurry of our temporary life. Everything will happen as and when He wants.

36. I hope you are always in a position for God to use you in His work.

37. Love of neighbour according to God, joy, and calm, are acquired by continuous prayer.

38. What these days we call "down", does not happen to a person who is called faithful. Because he is united with the love of God.

39. Don't listen to what they say. Look at what they do.

40. At the end of the day, ask your guardian angel to take from your thought everybody you have seen, but also you from everybody's thoughts. Otherwise you cannot pray correctly. Say to him, "My guardian angel, bless them all and remove their thoughts from mine.

41. When we are conversing with a person, we are conversing with our guardian angel at the same time, and the silent and invisible listener is Christ. Never forget it.

42. I always remember what one of my Abbots once said to me: Your mind to God, your hand to the plough.

43. If we are asked, you or I or anybody, where we come from, we will say in reply, not Athenians, Constantinopolitans, whatever... but citizens of heaven! Even if we have't yet ever been up there. [They are auspicious words.]

44. Only when an Abbot or Abbess is at rest in their souls, can those under obedience find rest.

45. The greatest Christmas present we can give to Christ is ourselves.

46. How valuable are little and simple things.

47. The birds make a chain round the whole Earth. Wherever you go, they remind you of the same things. The cuckoo shouts to you, "Get up, get up!" The peacock reminds us, "Pilgrims, pilgrims", so that we don't forget that we are just passing pilgrims on His Earth. And the rook cries, "Pray, pray!".

48. The God-sent Mother of the Apostles, true Mother of God we magnify You.

49. Somebody said, "When you are conformed to the world, you are deformed. Only when you meet God are you transformed."

50. Just imagine if "volunteer" angels are hidden within incurable psychopathic patients... just to test our love...

51. You cannot be a Christian without loving everybody the same. Both those of your own and other faiths. Both of your own and other religions, and nationalities. We are not responsible for where we are born...

52. Thank God that I know the whole Gospel and can now carry it around in my mind and recite it all day... (two months before her death)

53. All this "mine" is for this world. In the other one there is only "Yours". "You, Lord", "You, All-good one", "You, Compassionate one", "You, Miracle-worker", "You, the Guide of our lives".

54. Christ is the Original.

55. The Apostles were all together. But when the Beloved left, they separated. The same with you; that is how it ought to be. To enlighten the world with the bits of light you get from Christ. And like them, to spread it that Christ is the resurrection of the living and the departed. (a few days before she departed)

56. The years go by, we too go by, and only a pure soul can remain in the hands of the angels who He will send to receive it.

57. Read Isaac the Syrian.

58. Don't be concerned what people will say to you or do to you.

59. Marriage is love, affection, friendship. It is not "sex". "Sex" is something anti-divine because it is "of this world". It has no relation to the soul.

60. Couples should not try to "attract" each other through jealousy. Jealousy is from Satan.

61. The sacrament of marriage is a sacrament like baptism. If you are not "born again" within the other's heart, and the other in your heart, it is as if God is absent. Of course He is present, but he sees you and sorrows. He cannot help you, because you have shut Him out, without knowing it.

62. But above all I thank Him that He directs everything, guides everything, loves everybody and everything and has sent into my life only angels...

63. Always obey your conscience. Your conscience is God.

64. Forget everything. Be united with Him in prayer. And then, you will be get messages and will know the way...

65. Together with Him we conquer all.

66. We should not be proud because we supposedly help people. We don't help anybody. He is the Helper, He is the Guide, if we adhere to Him and He guides us.

67. God does not want us split. Either we love Him, or the "world". We cannot have one foot in the "world" and the other in the Church.

68. At the "sound" of Him we should, like the Samaritan woman, leave the "pitcher". That is the only way God can help.

69. When our health gives us a knock, it is a message that we should stop something.

70. Beware of fame. It is not what God wants.

71. When it comes to health, a saying goes, "One doctor is advice, two doctors are confusion. Three doctors are... a graveyard." The same holds for spiritual matters. One spiritual father is from God. A second is confusion. A third, the loss of your soul!

72. Our purpose is to begin eternity here and now... for the Lady of All to receive us there above with the ranks of angels... and for us to live eternally in the light of Christ.

73. Just as the law of nature cannot endure a vacuum, so when we empty ourselves completely, the Holy Spirit rushes inside us, like a hurricane.

74. Don't associate with company among which you would not like God to see you.

75. There are some people who deprive us of solitude without offering us companionship.

76. Love the other without judging him, just as He presents him and as He loves him. Then God will help you and will overlook your own transgressions.

77. To a woman in mourning: Above all, give up all "material" recollections and expectations.

78. For somebody to love really and deeply, he must not allow his body to interfere. Love is never forgotten when it is elevated to that level.

79. Follow your path and don't let anything bother you. Keep your ears open and don't be impatient. Many years must pass and we must be tested before we can acquire patience.

80. Lord, I beg you, do not allow me ever to have my own will. Do Your own will in me. However difficult it may seem to me, it will be easy because it will be Yours!

81. God is free, and love dwells within freedom.

82. Love of money leads to hell, because the man who loves money steals.

83. He who loves can only do beautiful things.

84. I do not have to know you. I have to love you.

85. I am not "intellectual". I am simply happy to be alive and to love Him and everybody.

86. Photographs and graves are such sad and pitiable things when the generation that loved them has gone...

87. How do we dare to ignore and disobey the will of God and do what we consider human duty? Can't we see that our health is impaired? The words duty and obligation do not exist in the Gospel. We owe them only to God. Otherwise we become like the millions of dead in this world.

88. Do not ever get tied to anybody anywhere except Christ alone, and go wherever the Holy Spirit leads you, bringing His love to ALL, beyond frontiers and discrimination. Your destination is to love! That is what I was once told by my Abbot Fr Lev, and that is what I say to you.

89. Indulgence during Lent causes illness, and illness brings sluggishness.

90. Always forwards. Even at a tortoise's pace.

91. You feel freedom when the behaviour of others does not bother you and you forgive them.

92. Love does acrobatics in people's hearts.

93. The person has not yet been born who will make me upset...

94. We should not be interested in other people's response or what results we have. Our job is simply to try - the rest God will do.

95. It is pain that allows freedom.

96. Come and be silent...

Never say that it is too late, even if you have fallen very low...

1. We should always say "Thank God for our existence." Thank God for the existence of the other. This is the true thanksgiving God wants.

2. We must guard against the feeling of ownership.

3. Never let the other understand that he has hurt you.

4. When we have doubt about some stance that we ought to take, we should ask our conscience, not only ourselves. And always take the position of the other.

5. We must never betray the truth which we feel in ourselves. Not for anybody. Not for any situation. Perhaps that is why you see me here today and there tomorrow. But rather than betray the voice of God within me, I prefer to be homeless and a beggar.

6. Never leave anywhere of your own accord. No, no, no! If the other does not drive you away, don't leave.

7. If I had the possibility I would do special "caprices" to whoever doesn't have means... Not charity.

8. The other day a lady asked me what will happen after death with the toll houses. "I will tell them," I said, "that the light of Christ shines on all. But as for you, you are in the dark and I cannot see you."

9. The over-aged and the under age have the same problem in this world... As soon as you pass a certain age, they tell you: "Ah, now he will fall ill and what are we going to do - shall we treat him? Don't move, don't do this, don't do that." Just for their own sake, so that they don't have to treat you. Not for yours!

10. The best part of my prayer for many years now has been "Thank you". What else should I ask for? After all, I have everything.

11. It is not the Abbot's fault when he is strict. It is the fault of our own conscience. Because whatever fearful sin we may have committed, we have to tell it. On the other hand when the Ego in capital letters holds us back, the other gets strict.

12. He who honours somebody else, is essentially honouring Christ who is in him. That is how it works. And when we ourselves give others an honour or a position, we are really honouring the Lord who we have within us and who every person has.

13. Whatever you eat and whatever you drink after the Table, make the sign of the cross over it and say to yourself, "For healing of soul and body".

14. Even if personally we have no sorrow of our own, we see the sorrow in the world and sorrow over it. But if people do not have faith we cannot do anything.

15. God put the senses in the head. Why? Do you know? So that we cannot see ourselves. That's right. So that we can see only the other and love only the other. And so that we can see ourselves only through the eyes of the other.

16. You should have continual conversation with your guardian angel. About everything. Especially in difficulties and when you cannot get across to someone. He always helps.

    ---

    Two things are very important... "Love one another," and "Fear not, only believe."

17. Saint Paul himself says, "After one or two admonitions, give up." Finish! You have said what you ought, you have helped the person as much as you have been able. From that point on, you pray for him and sit quietly and look at your own wretchedness.

18. In the end we have been teaching the universe, while leaving ourselves as they are, to have fun!

19. If coal is not "beaten", can it become diamond?

20. Don't forget at the "Dynamis" in the Divine Liturgy to cross your head and your whole body... whatever you ask at that moment is heard. It is a very powerful moment.

21. In our lives, if we look carefully, we will see that we learn lessons both from positive things and negative. Whoever we find ourselves with, even within just a few moments.

22. "Bad temper" is egoism.

23. Looking after is one thing and love another.

24. Instead of asking "Does this person love me", it is better to say "I love this person". Then everything changes. The Apostle Paul put it so beautifully.

25. Hour after hour I think my heart is going to break from love.

26. Only people with an inferiority complex want to always be bossed around.

27. Love is always on the cross. Because Christ is on the cross.

28. When I want to feel sorry for somebody, do you know what cheers me up? I say, "I love him that much; God loves him ten thousand times more. He will be fine!"

29. True fasting is to cease from all badmouthing, self-interest, seeing the mote in the eye of our brother, judging another's servant...

30. When one is alone with God, the time passes unimaginably quickly. More quickly than when you have companionship... And yet even within the world one can remain united with God. How? When whatever he is doing he directs his thoughts to Him... when whatever good comes his way he gives Him glory... and whatever testing he meets, he gives Him thanks.

31. I find the faith of the centurion very moving.

32. This is our purpose on earth. To try and live in the Kingdom of God, here. For how can we come and leave without sensing paradise here? We have fallen from paradise, but if we do not return to it here, how will we win it there?

33. If someone really believes, he can never take part in the vices or illegal things that we see every day. For anybody who does them, has not believed in God, has not lived Him in their souls. But as soon as they believe in Him, they will watch his miracles every day.

34. Be careful of people who want to upset you and then to ask forgiveness. They take double satisfaction. They have upset you, and you have forgiven them.

35. That which the world calls co-incidences, I call meetings.

36. The world is even "smaller" for those who God intends to meet.

37. Here you have an earthly father and mother and you feel so beautiful. How much more when you know that the Omnipotent is protecting you!

38. All those who research and "see" the future, see everything badly, coldly and upside down. That is to say, can't they see anything good? Nothing? Well, then of course they suffer evil, They attract evil by their thought.

39. In the evenings, in my prayer I say to my angel, "Take my soul even tonight and put it at the feet of Christ to be perfected throughout the night, and in the morning may I find it better!"

40. Never accept anything from a rich person. From someone who struggles to make a living or a poor person yes, with much gratitude.

41. The truth is One and that is Christ.

42. Many troparia describe the Nativity of Christ in such a way that we could forget that the Virgin conceived supernaturally. How I like the Nativity in the Perivleptos monastery in Mystras and the painting of Gyzis...

43. You should think about and see only the light. Everything else is just parentheses, which should not leave so much as a trace on you.

44. We often hear, "I met this man, or this woman, and my life changed"... and we see that in the end nothing has changed. No life. Why?

45. We come to monasticism like those sharp rocks from a quarry which are all corners and protrusions. Gradually by the grace of God we become like the pebbles in a river or on the shore which are round and smooth.

46. To equalize our freedom and our autonomy and so that we may always have a sure conscience, the holy Apostles and the Fathers of our Church gave us a guide. And thank God for that... Because the moment you ask, whether in the middle of rocky ground, up on a mountain, in a street which you don't know, suddenly there you are... with two words he comes and gives you your answer and then you know that you are all right now.

47. I have simply been something for your preparatory steps. If you do not stick fast to Christ and the Church, then you will be lost, even if in your minds you think of a person. Woe betide him who instead of going to Christ goes to a person.

48. The hour when you make the step, either you do it alone or you are lost for the rest of your life.

49. Nobody can live in both this world and the next. Either he will fall ill periodically or he will die prematurely. You cannot live in two worlds. It is not possible.

50. I like it when we say "Bless the Lord my soul" and then afterwards the Beatitudes, instead of "Through the intercessions" and "Save us". That is how it used to be in Constantinople.

51. Those who see people in the world do not cease to be human. They keep their humanity...

52. You can not avoid pointless "chats" unless your thought is elsewhere. But this takes a lot of practice. Especially when the surroundings are friendly and dear to you.

53. Christ said, "Father forgive them, for they know not what they do". But, who is it that does not know what he is doing? A madman. You understand?

54. When it is in God's programme for you to go somewhere, you will go. That is why I am generally quiet in life. I have observed that even if a person does not want to, God moves him.

55. A woman who had been widowed said to me, "Why would God take away from me my family?" And I said to her, "Why don't you ask why He left him to you for so long?" "Well OK, but there are so many who live." "But also, how many who die as soon as they get married. Have you ever asked that question? You should give yourself to some kind of work now, to forget."

56. When God wants to help someone, He can create "children of Abraham" from these very stones. If it wasn't you, it would be somebody else. You were the impersonal delegate of God. Woe betide you if you think one day that this someone should owe gratitude to you! If he comes and thanks you, say that you ought to thank God, because He would undoubtedly have sent somebody anyway to help them. He sent you, consequently you ought to thank him, and be grateful to God for sending you.

57. Nobody "exists" unless he wants to exist.

58. Some people want to go to the resurrection without passing through Golgotha.

59. As Christians couldn't put the Gospel into practice while living in the world, they left it. That is how the first monks came into being.

60. Only people of God, who don't make compromises, recognize each other.

61. My wishes: may the grace of our Christ, the love of the omnipotent Father and the inspiration of the Holy Spirit be with you! May your example be the life of the Mother of God, who will lead you at every step with her archangels and angels as your heavenly mother; that you love your mother who brought you into life and brought you up, and may you give love and joy first to her, and then to all who come near you.

62. True prayer always reaches heaven. The angels carry it to the right place and the answer comes. Its basis is Truth, and "Not My will, but that of the Father Who sent me."

63. Egoism is self-protection. A Christian's security should be divine protection.

64. We all help ourselves in helping others. Some indirectly, some directly.

65. The Lord said, "Forgive your enemies." It is incomprehensible for us not to forgive our brothers, so He didn't mention it. What right has a person not to forgive a person? If he doesn't, he is inhuman.

66. Love is not taught. It is given from above when we ask with recocognition of our egoism, which we want to shatter.

67. Do you want everything to happen as you want it? Accept everything and everybody either as His will, or as His concession.

68. To remember the other is an expression of love.

69. And so the passer-by and traveller that the love of God has granted me to be, continues on the way towards what is unknown to people but known to the Lord...

70. To a novice: Be simple. Talk to everybody. Let your spirituality be seen in your simplicity.

71. No saint ever knew that he was a saint.

72. If you do not get rid of "No" and "Tomorrow" from your life, you will never get to where the Lord wants you, Who grants you everything. He will give you the bodily strength when you answer "Yes" and "Now". The prophets, the angels and the saints all said, "Behold here I am... Let it be according to Your word."

73. Not as you knew, but as you found.

74. Every person is sent.

75. Our influence, whether for good or for ill, takes the other person away from the destination that God has for him. He has to realize it by himself. This is why we have to be very careful.

76. The gifts of the Spirit are of course individual achievements...

77. What we don't see, doesn't mean that it doesn't exist. And what we don't hear, doesn't mean that it does not speak.

78. As one of the ancients said, "."

79. Truth and light are synonymous.

80. The sermon on the mount and the epistle of Saint James. Every day! What a pity that we do not hear them more often...

81. When you follow the truth you are in the light, you are with Christ. He himself said, "The truth will make you free". But from who? From your own self! From passion. And then, no power will be able to enslave you because God Himself will help with His power.

82. Our souls are divine breath. Our bodies His creation. In our entirety, we are the image of God.

83. I am under obedience to HIM. I live and exist for Him.

84. Before the Lord prayed... "Lifting up His eyes to heaven..."

85. Do not darken your mind with the various heresies and para-religions and masonries. All these are in the "Basket of Vanity".

86. The Lord allows those who love Him to be tested, first, so that their faith in Him may grow stronger, and second, to set an example for those around.

87. Don't forget in Church to always light a candle "for the sick and for travellers".

88. Say prayer-ropes also just with "Thank you".

89. Have a Cross in the door and window of your cell. It should be wooden like the one we wear.

90. We can recognize a person who has spiritual experiences only by the way he lives and behaves. For these experiences direct his life.

91. No not fear any person.

92. It is easier to sacrifice youself for those you love than to live with them.

93. Love means to respect the freedom of the other.

94. You only feel free when you are locked up.

95. Two things: care, and prayer.

96. Mildness and meekness are the weapons and the marks of a spiritually strong person. He "understands" everything and forgives everything.

97. We should not become Judases, nor give the Holy Things to the dogs... I mean the supernatural mysteries that happen within the sanctuary. It says in the hymn, "Not to your enemies..."

98. The angels always come.

99. We can all give joy. One by coming, and another by leaving.

100. When we are passing through a dark tunnel, we never imagine that the other end will take us to the light. We fall into despair, and see everything black and dark. The same in life. The light of Christ is waiting for us at the other end. And saying to us, as He said to Saint Peter, "You of little faith, why are you fainthearted?"

101. Whenever we are in great pain, we should not forget the great honour that the Lord is doing us in letting us share in His crown of thorns.

102. All idiocy begins with "i(f)".

103. The fridge of the faithful should be almost empty.

104. However much one works in a spiritual way, one's body cannot get tired. Tiredness only comes when the spirit gets involved. When the spirit is continually at its "Lord Jesus Christ have mercy on us", no amount of work can easily make us tired.