“Where’s my medal?” Carlos Vázquez asked.
He and his wife, Magaly Borrero-Vázquez, laughed as Carlos joked that he deserves a medal after 30 years of marriage. The couple will celebrate their 30th wedding anniversary later this year.
While they know that the real medal – eternal life with Christ – is awaiting them in heaven, and their vocation to marriage is a staircase to that reward, they also recognize the trials and joys that come with living a vocation.
Carlos and Magaly married on Dec. 26, 1993 in Puerto Rico. They are both native to the island and met in college while studying civil engineering.
Five days after their wedding, the couple relocated to Ohio, as they planned to begin graduate school at Ohio State University. There, Magaly earned a master’s degree in city and regional planning .
The couple said that attending Mass together while they were dating was instrumental in discerning whether they were called to marry each other.
“Going to church was part of my life, so even when we were dating, we would go to church together,” Magaly said.
Thirty years later, the Catholic faith continues to be the foundation of the couple’s marriage. Magaly and Carlos, who were both raised Catholic, attribute their strong faith to their families.
“I come from a family that has huge faith,” Magaly said. “Like everybody else in life, we face challenges.
“I think that (faith) has been helpful in a marriage because you always push through, you always talk things out. We are very direct people. We are not the type of people that bury things under the rug. We talk it out.
“It’s the hope that always carries us through, and even when things are challenging, not just talking it out (together), but talking to family members, my sister in particular, who has big faith, (and) the people that you surround yourself with.”
Magaly and her two sisters were raised in San Juan, Puerto Rico, while Carlos came from a family of five children and grew up in the countryside.
Carlos said, like Magaly, he came from “a very Catholic family,” and he considers his faith-filled upbringing “positive” for his marriage.
Magaly and Carlos are parishioners at Columbus St. Cecilia Church, and they are the parents of three sons: Alex, 28; Danny, 22; and Jonathan, 20. The couple said that surrounding themselves with other Catholic families and remaining close to their families of origin is instrumental in a marriage.
“Someone said that you’re the average of the five people that you spend the most time with, and that is true,” Magaly said. “It’s being surrounded by other families that you see them pushing through things.
“It’s important that you surround yourself with people that have similar values, that have similar beliefs. The ones that are closer to you are going to have an impact on your life.”
Although they are many miles from Puerto Rico, Carlos said, he wants the couple’s sons to remain close to their extended family.
“Our kids growing up were not as close to their aunts and uncles and grandparents as we were when we grew up, but it makes us try to do better in terms of communicating that to them – that family is important,” he said.
“We travel to the island every few years to see family, see the grandmas and all my brothers and sisters, and we’ve tried to instill that in them. We encourage them to go by themselves as they grow into adults because they need to keep the family connection.”
Magaly, a benefits and payroll manager, and Carlos, a structural engineer, also seek for their home, as a domestic church, to be a reflection of the unconditional love of God. Just as Jesus desires that all of His people come to Him as they are, Carlos and Magaly remind their sons that they, too, are always welcome at the couple’s domestic church.
“You are accepted just the way you are,” Magaly said she told her sons. “We could get mad at you for whatever, but you will be forgiven, and this will always be a place for you to be safe.
“I would hope that it’s a similarity (to the Church) because we are all accepted. We are all children of Christ, and that’s something I don’t want any of my children to ever be afraid to share a troubling experience because they’re afraid of how they’re going to be perceived or how it is going to be taken.”
Magaly said the couple is close to families at their church and other families, who they consider “extended family.” They seek support from like-minded Catholic families and their family members “even in challenging times, because raising kids is challenging.”
“And sometimes, Carlos and I, we were kind of not in agreement, but the core values – what is our goal” – provide a firm foundation for their marriage.
Integrity, sincerity and honesty, Magaly said, are values that the couple live by in their marriage. They also value good communication, being of service to the other and being vulnerable with each other.
“I believe totally being vulnerable and saying what I mean, not hide my feelings,” she said.
Prior to getting married, the couple attended a premarital retreat in Puerto Rico, which, they said, profoundly shaped their marriage and continues to do so.
“I found that I still remember a lot of the things that we discussed,” Carlos said. “It was an all-day event, … and they talk about everything, and I still remember those things even though it was more than 30 years ago.”
Magaly encourages dating couples to have difficult conversations before they get to the altar.
“Make sure that you talk about the serious stuff,” she said. “Talk about finances, talk about how many kids, talk about how are we going to divide this, how are we going to do this. It’s important not to think that things are going to solve themselves.
“So, we had those real conversations, and I think that is important because when you’re raising kids, it’s not all flowers and roses, and life gets hard, and it gets in the way, but it’s having that foundation and that extended family that can help you, pull you through.”
Magaly and Carlos said it is important to recognize that spouses can love each other in different ways. It is also important to understand how a spouse loves the other, or their love language.
“Carlos is not one to say, ‘I love you,; I love you,; I love you,’ but I will tell you that I wake up, and he’ll have my cup of coffee ready without me even asking for it. So, he finds ways to say, ‘I love you,’ in his way.”
Carlos agreed that he and Magaly love each other in different ways, but good communication and shared values have helped to sort through differences.
“One of the biggest things that I have learned through all these years is the importance of communication, of talking out things,” Carlos said. “(Magaly’s) very open, and she wants to give you a message, so you have to be open as well.
“For me, sometimes it’s not that easy. I’m not a very talkative person, but you have to learn, you have to adapt to whatever challenges come day in and day out. So, having a good strong foundation of values, it’s very important that you use that as your guide as you go through your life, as you go through your marriage.”
Carlos also seeks to determine what is most important in his marriage and invest his energy there, while letting go of negative emotions.
“I have learned to put things into perspective,” he said. “Sometimes we would have differences on things, but at the end of the day, you realize that it’s not worth it for others. It’s not worth you being mad or being in a bad mood. You kind of change the perspective and realize that it’s not important, whatever it is.”
Carlos encouraged couples discerning marriage to remember that they are not only making a decision to marry, but their decision extends long after their wedding day, as spouses must continue to choose each other.
“As Magaly says, marriage is not just about two people, it’s about starting a family as well, so you need to be very conscious of what you’re getting into, and you need to consider all aspects of it. You also need to be open to change.
“You need to work to keep it, and I think that’s also very important. It’s not just a decision to get married. Once you make that decision, once you commit, you have to make sure that you work to keep that marriage.”
Magaly agreed that marriage requires work, but the rewards that come from working to grow a marriage outweigh the difficulties.
“While we talk about it’s challenging, it’s difficult, when it’s with the person that you love, it’s worth it. It really is. I can’t imagine myself being with anybody else, even if Carlos drives me crazy and I don’t agree with him sometimes.
“It’s challenging, but it’s fun if it’s with the right person, if you tackle it, if you work on yourself, put work in it, put work in the family unit. … If you work through the hard times, it is very fulfilling.”