I Asked a Psychic for Marriage Advice
"I don't like dairy for you," MaryAnn DiMarco said to me with the utmost seriousness. "I don't think it's good for you."
"Really?" I asked with dismay. That's what my doctor said, and my yoga instructor, and the guy at Trader Joe's, but I'm not quitting cheese.
DiMarco sighed. "I'm a psychic medium. Not a doctor. Take it with a grain of salt."
I didn't call DiMarco to talk about my diet. I got in touch with the medium to talk about marriage — specifically my marriage. I've spent the better part of the last year, the first year of my marriage, collecting marriage advice from around the world — from polygamist tribes in Africa, Parisian ladies who lunch, Dutch prostitutes and Orthodox Jewish women in Jerusalem, all for my new book How to Be Married.
Now we're entering year two and I still need help. After surviving year one with flying colors, we decided to take the regular stresses of married life to the next level by trying to make a baby. Sure, things were fine between the two of us — but what would happen when we brought a third person into the mix?
"Ask my psychic!" my friend Emily suggested.
"Ehhhhhh."
"Seriously. You got all the advice on Earth. Why not get it from the other side?"
That's how I ended up on the phone with DiMarco, a psychic medium who lives in Long Island.
DiMarco, the author of the best-selling book Believe Ask Act: Divine Steps to Raising Your Intuition, comes from a long line of women who were adept at communicating with the "other side." Her grandmother died when she was a teenager, then began visiting her in her dreams. Around that time the now-famous medium John Edward, who lived near MaryAnn, told her mom that MaryAnn was a medium who hadn't yet learned to use her abilities. After dealing with health issues, marriage problems, and the death of her father-in-law in her late thirties, she sank into a dark depression that pushed her to explore her abilities. She's been honing them ever since.
"I'm just going to tune into the energy around you," DiMarco said me on the phone. She apologized for talking so quickly. I liked her soft Long Island accent. "I talk to your guides and angels and they give me information based on your life and what they want to convey to you." The guides and angels, as I understood it, can be anyone at all — dead friends, relatives, or even acquaintances that just decided they want to meddle in life instead of relaxing into whatever happens on the other side. DiMarco said she can get readings from these guides just by talking to a person and tuning into their energy; she made talking to the dead sound like the most reasonable thing in the world.
"You just got married and that's all I know about you," she continued. "Here we go. The guides often show me the foundation of a relationship. Yours is my favorite kind. It's cracked and mortared because it's a relationship that does the work. One that puts in the time. In the year prior to your marriage, you two learned a tremendous amount about communication and how to communicate in a way your spouse understands."
That was true. We got engaged in three months and married in less than a year, all while living on opposite coasts. If we hadn't figured out how to communicate, our relationship would have been over well before it began.
"So what comes next?" I asked impatiently.
"There's a female on your mother's side of the family. Your grandmother. She wants to do the talking. She wants you to rip off the rearview mirror and leave the past in the past."
Good advice. I'm the worst about bringing up old arguments and grievances and rehashing irritations long since resolved. I have a hard time not harping about his annoying ex-girlfriends, how he insists on booking airline tickets based on our frequent flier program, and the fact that he won't let our big gross dog sleep in the bed.
"She also says you're going to be an extraordinary mother. If you're in the process of trying."
"We are," I groaned. "It's sooooo hard!"
"Your grandmother is saying to 'try harder.' Well, I feel like it's happening sooner rather than later."
That was exactly what I wanted to hear.
DiMarco went on to tell me that she loves the idea of us spending time around the water in the next year. She said it would help to relax my hectic nature, which validated my desire to book a trip to Hawaii in January.
"Your husband's very outdoorsy isn't he?"
"He even wears hiking sandals."
"Make sure to spend time with him outdoors. It will be good for both of you."
Then we went back, way back. "I will say that in your past lives together, I can see you mothering him, but that's over," DiMarco said. Thank god. "Now I like the things he is doing for you. He makes you laugh, even when you're frustrated. Let him do that."
"I will."
Before we hung up, DiMarco had one last bit of advice.
"Your husband should always have animals around him. I like what it does for his intimacy and what it does for him feeling unconditional love. I like that it's outside of his comfort zone," she said.
I thanked her, said goodbye to my grandma, took some notes, and went about my day.
"So what marriage advice did the psychic give you?" my husband asked me later that night.
I thought about it. What should I tell him? That a psychic medium told me we're damn close to having babies? That we need to buy those tickets to Hawaii? That we complement each other in ways we didn't expect to? The truth is, so much of what she'd said had validated things I already knew, which was nice. DiMarco gave me a sense of peace that we were on the right track. That just as we were about to make things ten times more difficult, we had a good foundation, no matter how cracked and mortared.
But, I was sleepy and that was a lot to say.
"It's important for you to be around animals. I think we need to let the dog sleep in the bed."
Jo Piazza is the author of the forthcoming book How to Be Married.
You Might Also Like
