Marriage as Perfectly Human!

I come across some friends who keep on complaining about their imperfect marriage.  Then I stop for a moment and thing “why some of my friends are fixated about making their marriage perfect?”  Don’t they realized that holding the popular, but fundamental flawed belief that LIFE should be a certain way --- “our way” or “your way”, leads to unnecessary pain and anger?

 “If life isn’t going the way we think it should be going, we insist that it’s going wrong. Someone obviously made a mistake and should be blamed, criticized, and punished.”

Before you commit to someone, keep your eyes open, and don't fool yourself that you can change someone or that what you see as faults aren't really important.  Come to think of it, as the relationship go deeper, over time individual flaws, vulnerabilities, pet peeves, and differences will become more obvious.  So learn to deal with it and accept yourself and your relationship without demanding perfection and perfect control over the feelings of others.

Dr. Neil Fiore, in his article, How Can I Accept an Imperfect Marriage, says, “In a relationship, trying to be perfect can cause you to fail to appreciate the positives.  Consider ways of accepting yourself and your marriage as perfectly human.”

Here are some tips:

·         Work toward more realistic goal of improvement and excellence.  Refrain from striving for the impossible goal of perfection. Accept the truth: You are not perfect, you can't make your spouse perfect, and you are not in perfect control of what happens in the world or in your marriage.

·         Do not refuse to accept your human limitations.  This will help you stop struggling for perfection and obsessing over small “mistakes,” rather than enjoying the positive aspects of your marriage.

·         Stop! Say it to yourself, “I’ve let go of trying to be perfect.” Focus on being human. By accepting myself, my spouse will be happy to see that I’m no longer making my marriage a contest to prove that I can create the perfect marriage."

·         Keep handy the Serenity Prayer––Grant me the serenity to accept what I can't change (and can't control), the courage to work on what I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

Personally, I’m a believer that there is no such thing as a perfect couple or almost perfect marriage.  In real life, there is no “happily ever after” and no fairy godmothers to save the day.  It maybe hard to resist, but one must come to terms that there’s only yourself, your partner, and the relationship.  Contrary to what a lot of people perceive, perfection doesn’t just happen magically or grows overnight.  It actually takes work; “a lot of work”, to stay in a marriage.  Anything worth keeping in life always needs maintenance, and its one thing that a relationship must have, to keep it in tip-top shape.

I for one don’t have a perfect marriage!  The difference maybe is I knew it from the start!  I and my husband have many different expectations, emotional needs, values, dreams, weaknesses, and strengths, but we are two unique individuals who have decided to share a life together.  I never dreamed of a perfect marriage either, none of us is perfect anyway.  The moment I stepped-in into marriage, all I think of is to make our relationship grow and evolve.  Bring out the best of each other, fight and argue as often and as intense as we could, but at the end of the day, see to it that we compliment and compromise with each other.