I’m no relationship expert – I’m just a dude trying to be happily married. After almost 10 years of trying, I’m understanding some fundamental truths about marriage that bind our experiences together.
1. The truth about marriage is that it’s a general concept uniquely defined by the people in the situation. Everyone can tell you about about marriage, but absolutely no one can tell you about your marriage – or the marriage you wish to have. It’s yours to define. Unless your Ted Cruz – then you help define marriage for millions of others.
2 .The truth about marriage is, it’s a process of successes and failures. And both of you should be hoping to build on the successes and learn from the failures.
3. The truth about marriage is that they’re all defined by expectations spoken or unspoken. And unspoken expectations try to erode every marriage. Too many of us make permanent promises with temporary expectations.
4. The truth about marriage is we have far too few marriage mentors. Mainly because most of us spend our whole lives trying to figure it out for ourselves. It’s difficult to teach what you don’t know.
Marriage is not a game of scorekeeping.
Every good marriage is about service. Too few of us truly know how to voluntarily serve.
I know these are general terms, but far too many people in the age of the Internet are spending their time researching solutions rather than turning to their partner and implementing solutions. We treat our marriages like we treat our lives – doing the same things today while quietly wishing for something different tomorrow.
Life doesn’t work that way.
If you want to make your marriage better, you have to face your spouse and face each other’s expectations of one another and more importantly, of yourselves.
source BMWK
