(LifeSiteNews) — Joining me on this episode of The John Henry Westen Show is Tricia Nolan, a traditional Catholic speaker and homeschooling mother of 13 children who recently spoke at the third annual Restore Tradition Women’s Conference. She discusses her marriage story, the struggles she had to overcome, and the importance of Christ’s divine love in a Catholic marriage.

This is Part 1 of a two-part interview. Stay tuned for Part 2 later this week.

I began the episode by asking Nolan about her background. Tricia told me she grew up in a household of 10 children in a Catholic neighborhood in Spokane, Washington. She explained that her older brothers often bullied her and that her family didn’t accept her, which led to her believe she was not meant to be married.  

“I accepted the message my brothers told me: ‘You’re ugly, you have a lousy personality, and nobody’s ever going to marry you, face it.’ So, I grew up thinking marriage was out of the question. The truth of the matter is I was very beautiful, I had a very vibrant personality, and there were probably a ton of guys that would’ve been happy to marry me, only I had no clue,” Nolan said.

She then jumped forward to how she met her future husband, Bob Nolan, at a rehearsal for a prayer meeting after her older sister told her there would be a guy there who tuned guitars. “I just had to meet him; I knew that he was going to become important in my life,” she said. Nolan detailed how when they met, the pair were instantly drawn to each other, but she didn’t want to pursue a relationship at first because of her belief that she wasn’t called to be married, so she started to pray for him.

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Eventually, Bob asked her to attend Bishop Fulton Sheen’s final public talk. Nolan agreed but insisted that before the bishop’s talk, they stop at a perpetual adoration chapel in Spokane for a holy hour, during which she would discern if the Lord would approve of her entering into this relationship. “I had no sooner knelt down, and said, ‘Lord,’ [and] He said, ‘My daughter, I do not want you to discourage from a relationship with this man, for I will be using this man to bring to fulfillment my plans for your life.’”

Later in the episode, Nolan told me that, after they had gotten married, there were many struggles between her and Bob, namely constant fighting, and it seemed as though they were not a good match for each other. Nolan dove into how the disconnect had become so bad that she stopped feeling human love for her husband. One night, sitting at the kitchen table, feeling exhausted, she turned to the Lord and said: 

“‘Lord, I’m all done. I’m finished; my love for Bob is gone, I don’t feel anything anymore, I don’t even hate him anymore, I just want out, I just want to be done,’” she explained. “And I heard the voice of the Lord say, ‘Good.’ And I said, ‘What? Good? What do you mean ‘good’? What’s good about this?’ And He said, ‘I’m glad, I’ve been waiting for this day.’ I said, ‘What do you mean waiting for this day?’”

“And He said, ‘Human love is never enough to sustain a long-term relationship; you can’t live out marriage with just human love. More is needed; it will always expend itself. Human love is fickle; human love is changeable; it’s a product and a result of sin. And so, you will never be able to love in the way that’s needed to be able to make the marriage last; it requires divine love.’”

To hear more of Tricia Nolan’s story, watch or listen to the full interview, and stay tuned for Part 2.

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