Marital Struggles
Posted by Patrick Corkum on April 28, 2010
As I am flying the plane to Summit VI, I am lucky enough to be flying on a flight with internet access and I get to post what I have been thinking about for a while. People all around me seem to be struggling in their marriages. This breaks my heart. I have heard the D word come up more times than I would like to think.
This past weekend, I was particularly disturbed by an advertisement I saw in the men’s room at one of the golf courses that I played this past weekend. The advertisement was a picture of a young woman dressed in golfing attire smashing a golf club over the head of her presumed husband. Tiger Woods thoughts entered my head. The caption was something like: “Things not turn out as you planned?” The advertisement was for a so-called family-law legal firm trying to sell their divorce services. Now wait… did things not turn out as I planned? They sure didn’t! The criteria for divorce is that things are not working out as planned? WHAT?
Things are not going to work out as you planned; they NEVER do. Now, I am not going to say that divorce is never the right option. What I am going to say is that it is seldom the right option. I by no means have the marriage thing down pat, but I’m not doing so bad, either. The advice I am going to give is not something that I have come up with on my own or something that I think is the end-all-be-all of marriage advice. I do think it holds a lot of water, though.
I hear a common complaint from both men and women about their spouses. I hear, “he just…..”, or “she just…”, or “my needs …”, or “I’m not happy”, and many other things like this. The common reason for the complaints is that the spouse is not holding up their end of the bargain. When you get married, you do not have a “treaty”, so to speak. Rather, we make promises and the only condition assigned to them is being alive. We do not say, “I will love and honor you as long as you make me happy.” No, we simply make promises. However, we set the expectation in our heads that the other person will satisfy some set of needs that we have. When they don’t, people think that all bets are off.
I am not trying to get on a soap box. What I am trying to say is that marriage requires something of us that is difficult. What happens when expectations aren’t being met is that you will often end up shutting down and your spouse ends up with the same exact complaint about you. Here in-lies the problem. This situation is an endless cycle of nobody ever being happy. My suggestion is that instead of focusing on what you are not getting, dedicate yourself to making your spouse happy. I know, this sounds crazy, but try it anyway. Do it not because you hope that they will return the happiness to you, but do it because you promised to love them. Genuinely pursue their happiness with a passion. If you wait for your spouse to make you happy, you are never going to be happy. Find happiness in making your spouse happy and see the difference that it makes in your marriage.
Hi there. I follow your wife’s blog and I hopped over from hers to your post. I am very passionate about saving marriages and wanted to thank you for writing this post. And for being real with your thoughts. I am trying to put together a mission called A Mission for Marriage. It is about bringing awareness to hurting marriages that there is hope out there. I am looking at finding people to join and help spread the awareness about it. If you and your wife are interested please let me know.
Blessings to you.
Amen!