An Imperfect Marriage: Should We Put Our Spouse First?

This man. We’ve been together for almost six years. Looking back over the last six years amazes me. I can’t believe we have fit so much into such a small time. We’ve moved around and lived in two different states, had three beautiful sons, purchased a home, and are about to sell it so we can get something that fits our growing family better.

 

We’ve learned so much about each other and life. 

 

Marriage is hard work. We’ve told each other sorry hundreds of times, said I love you thousands of times, hurt each other, and made each other extremely happy. I don’t regret any of our hard times. Those hard times got us to the place we are now. My husband is my best friend. He’s taught me so much and loved me unconditionally. 

 

I recently realized something I should have known the day I said, I do. It probably would have saved us many hardships. My husband cannot be everything for me. He has to be second. God has to be first. 

 

My husband and I are two imperfect people with imperfect pasts. We’re sinners. We have sinned countless times and there are consequences to those sins. We can’t expect each other to fulfill every single thing we need. The only one that can do that is God. He is perfection. He won’t ever fail us, leave us, betray us, hurt us, or disappoint us. 

 

If we hold onto this truth, we can have grace for our spouse. We will stop expecting them to be perfect and we can fully depend on God. 

 

I want my children to see my marriage and learn something from it. Don’t we all want that? Don’t we all want to teach our children something valuable; something that can save them from hardships? 

 

Here are a few things I want to teach my children from my marriage. 

 

God has to be first.

 

It’s so easy to expect the impossible from our spouse. We want them to be perfect and never fail us. It’s not possible. Expecting this will only lead to problems in your marriage. It also takes away our reason to depend on Christ. If our spouse was perfect, we wouldn’t need a perfect God. 

 

Apologize.

 

You and your spouse will hurt each other. It’s inevitable because we’re all sinners. When it happens, you need to apologize. It’s never easy. My husband and I have had so many fights where we wait on the other to apologize first. My pride has gotten in the way so many times and my husband was often first. Or we would go to bed angry and forget about it by the next day. It seemed like a great idea. We’d wake up and our anger would have passed. However, we never ended up dealing with the things that caused us to fight. Apologize frequently, every time, and humbly. 

 

Fight openly.

 

Fighting brings out the worst in you. Being the incredibly “perfect” person I am, I tend to yell or say ridiculous things when I fight. Often times, people try to keep their fights to themselves. You will be mid fight, someone will come over, and you will act like everything is fine. Now, I’m not saying every fight is meant to happen in public. What I am saying is don’t put on a show for people. If someone is coming over and you’re mid fight, say I love you and agree to discuss it later. We also fight in front of our family and children sometimes. This holds us accountable to what we are saying and teaches us how to communicate. Not to mention, a few little boys to remind us when we’re being mean to each other. Liam has told Joel and I to be kind to each other many times. It always stops us dead in our tracks, prompts us to apologize to each other and Liam, and realize we’re constantly teaching our children with our actions. 

 

Marriage is tough work and such a blessing from God. As I’m learning to trust God fully, I’ve found myself falling more in love with my husband. 

 

What is the best advice you have received for your relationship? Share it with us in the comment section. 

How do you make an intercultural relationship work...

I’ve been getting emails from some of you lately on your struggles with the cultural differences in an intercultural relationship. Let’s be honest with each other. When you get into a relationship with anyone, expect cultural differences and all of the struggles that follow. Either way, you and your partner grew up in different families and different ways. Two different cultures if you may.It doesn’t matter what kind of relationship you are in, you will always deal with compromise and communication. If you want a perfectly easy relationship, stick to fiction. If you want a real relationship with anyone, remember there will be struggles, compromise, you will often not know what to do or who is right, you will challenge each other, grow together, and your relationship will reap all the blessings of your hard work.I love my husband more today than I did when we got married. Why you ask? I love him more now because we have worked hard for our relationship and always strive to make our marriage stronger. If you have ever been around us, you know that we fight, bicker, I’m always trying to convince him I’m right about everything, he thinks laughing while we fight is necessary, and we usually have no idea what we’re doing.We often come up to a crossroads in our marriage. Do we do what Indian culture says to do or do we do what Western culture says to do? There is no perfect answer to this question. It changes with every situation. I walked into my marriage with Joel knowing he’s Indian and I’m a whitey. We have to respect each other’s cultures, which means a lot of compromise. There are times when we do what Indian culture says to do and there are times when we do what Western culture says to do. We decide what works best for our little family.Give yourself a break. There is no perfect relationship. Try your best to listen to your partner, compromise, lovingly encourage one another when you don’t know what to do, be willing to hear their side, and remember just because you grew up doing it one way doesn’t mean it’s the only way.Love your partner for who they are, be proud of your marriage and all of it’s little imperfections, and know it’s all worth it.