Why I Don’t Want a Perfect Marriage

Posted on May 19, 2015March 6, 2024 by stilllearning2b

I became a bit incredulous yesterday when a woman on Twitter proclaimed that her marriage was “perfect” once she found a compatible partner. You see, not only do I not believe in perfection (except in the obvious exception of the first sip of hot coffee on a cold morning), I don’t trust it.

Sometimes perfection is a cover.

In many ways, my first marriage was perfect: we rarely disagreed, we shared many views and ideas and we worked together seamlessly. But underneath that facade was a husband who was playing a role and a wife too afraid to turn on the stage lights.

Sometimes perfection is a phase.

In the early stages of a relationship, it is completely normal to place your partner on a pedestal and to casually whitewash over any red flags (or even areas of discord). It’s easy to be perfect when reality hasn’t had time to intrude upon fantasy.

Sometimes perfection is boring.

There’s a reason that artists add a jarring element to their work and writers give their protagonists a flaw. Perfection isn’t interesting. It doesn’t hold our attention or stimulate our thoughts. It demands nothing of us and offers little contrast to prompt gratitude and attention.

And sometimes perfection is protection.

It’s scary to truly accept your partner as an individual with his or her own views, perceptions and decisions. It’s terrifying to see that no marriage, no matter how seemingly perfect, is infallible. It’s much nicer to see your vessel as sink-proof rather than acknowledge the weakness inherent in its construction.

Perfection is illusion.

None of us are perfect in our own right. And when you join two together in a day-to-day venture with long-reaching goals? That imperfection can easily be amplified. Marriage is not a fairy tale. Happily ever after is not a conclusion; it is a choice.

Relationships are not easy.

But that doesn’t mean that they should be a source of constant struggle or endless fear.

There is a wide span between dysfunctional and perfect.

A world between bad and flawless.

Aim to be there.

Finding a compatible (and healthy) partner is important.

But that’s not the end game.

It’s just the beginning of a relationship that requires intention, attention and adaptation.

I don’t want a perfect marriage.

I want a marriage that encourages two imperfect people to become better.

I don’t want a husband that always agrees with me.

Sure, it’s nice to hear that you’re right. It’s validating to have somebody echo your perspectives and pat you on the back for your insight. But it’s also limiting. If you surround yourself with “yes men,” you will never have your assumptions challenged or be forced to confront your own incorrect beliefs and conclusions.

I want to be called out on my B.S. Not because it feels good, but because it forces me to face it. I want to have to defend my thoughts. Not because I always seek debate, but because it requires that I think about a topic rationally and thoroughly. I want to hear other perspectives. Not because I always agree, but because seeing all sides of a thing adds to understanding.

I want a husband that always believes in me.

Although I don’t want a husband that is a sycophantic parrot who agrees with my every utterance, I do want a spouse that believes in me. That sees my potential even when he disagrees with my approach. That trusts that my intentions are sound even when my tactics may be less than ideal. That sees past the noise of the moment and sees the person beneath.

I want a husband that believes in me even though I am far from perfect and that believes in our marriage even when that marriage requires work.

I don’t want a partner to complete me.

I am whole on my own, thank you very much. One of the ironies of a good relationship is that it starts when neither partner needs the other. I’ve lived the life where I experienced a constant fear of losing my spouse. And I don’t want to ever live that again.

I don’t want a person that molds to my every weakness, filling in the areas where I lack. I don’t want somebody that always takes over when I am lacking, shifting all of the burden onto his shoulders. I don’t want dependence. I want interdependence.

I want a partner that complements me.

I want a partner who shares a life vision and philosophy with me. Who has the same overall goals even when the approach may differ. I want my husband to model ways of improving my weaknesses and act as a cheerleader and coach to help me strengthen those areas. I want to do the same for my spouse, not enabling but encouraging.

I want a partner that does the jobs I don’t enjoy or that don’t match my skills. But I also want my partner to teach me how to do them. Even if I never excel, at least I know that I am capable.

I don’t want a relationship that always makes me feel comfortable.

It’s nice to be comfortable. There’s a reason most of us live in conditioned spaces furnished with upholstered pieces. It’s relaxing. But it’s also limiting. Because when you are too comfortable, you become afraid of change.

And change is inevitable.

Growth is optional.

Our adult relationships are often the place where we play out and hopefully resolve the wounds of our childhoods. Common themes of abandonment, codependency and addiction often follow us into our marriages, forcing us to confront uncomfortable truths.

We don’t learn when we’re comfortable. But we also don’t learn when we’re panicked.

I want a relationship that makes me feel safe.

I want a relationship where I feel safe. Not just physically, but emotionally. Where I feel like I won’t be shunned for stating my feelings and I feel able to express my emotions. Where it is understood that a disagreement does not mark the end and that a different view does not represent a different intention.

I want a relationship that may not always be the upholstered chair but that is always a sanctuary to return to. Where I know I’m okay even though I may be a little uncomfortable.

I don’t want a partnership where I never have to compromise my choices.

It’s unrealistic to believe that two people can coexist without some compromise. Whether it be the color on the walls or the number of children, there will be times when one or both partners have to adjust their desires. When the good of the marriage is more important than the good of the individual.

I want a partnership where sometimes my spouse caves in to my desires. And when sometimes I have to subdue mine for his sake. Part of playing nicely is learning how to share.

I want a partnership where I never compromise my core self and values.

But I also want a partnership where I feel at peace and connected to myself. Where I hold true to my values and basic beliefs. Where I am not lost under the weight of the marriage, but serve as one of the foundations of it.

I don’t want a marriage that is perfect.

I don’t want a perfect marriage. A perfect marriage doesn’t have the ability to grow and change as life changes around it. It doesn’t serve to challenge its participants and teach them how to improve. A perfect marriage is a risky marriage; there is no practice in facing adversity from within. When a perfect marriage fails to be perfect, it fails.

I want a marriage that accepts imperfections and grows and adapts. And that encourages me to do the same.

I want a marriage that accepts me as I am. I want a marriage that challenges me. I want a marriage that is exciting and a little uncertain. I want a marriage that requires attention to grow. I want a marriage that looks different in ten years than it does today. I want a marriage that adapts and keeps me on my toes.

I want a marriage that is real.

And real is rarely perfect.

As for the woman on Twitter with the perfect marriage?

I ended the conversation by saying that I am happy for her.

And I am.

I just hope that she doesn’t get cut too deeply if that perfections shatters.

Three Lies We All Tell Ourselves

Posted on May 17, 2015March 6, 2024 by stilllearning2b

“I Would Never Do That”

“If you were in a survival situation, you would not only eat meat, you would crave it,” declared my husband in a conversation about choices made in life-or-death circumstances.

Intellectually, I knew he was right. The body’s drive for survival easily overrides any normal aversion I have towards animal flesh. Yet even though I know my instincts would temper my usual loathing for meat, I still struggle with the idea of willingly eating something that I view with disgust. But of course, I’m trying to imagine survival when both my stomach and pantry are full.

Just because we have trouble imagining something, does not mean that it cannot happen.

From a safe distance, it’s easy to judge. To think in terms of absolutes, always and nevers. It’s easier to declare something is impossible than to take the uncomfortable mental road of contemplating precursors that may lead to you doing the seemingly impossible.

So what’s the problem with these black-and-white declarations?

When we think in terms of absolutes, we both judge others and leave ourselves vulnerable to sliding into bad decisions.

Consider the common proclamation of, “I could never cheat on my spouse.” It’s an easy statement to make and an agreeable position to believe in.

Yet in taking that headstrong stance, you inevitably judge others that commit adultery. You view them as somehow weak or lacking in character. You take the moral high ground and shove them into a cesspool occupied by those who fail to live up to your standards. Instead of listening to and learning from the mistakes that led to their downfall, you judge their choices while insisting that you could not make the same miscalculations regardless of the circumstances.

I am by no means defending those who have chosen to be unfaithful. I find the behavior reprehensible and unbelievably damaging to everybody in its path. Yet I also see it as part of human fallibility. Not inevitable, but not entirely avoidable on a societal level.

But even though I can’t imagine ever committing adultery, I will not claim that I could never do it. From my current perspective, it is as unfathomable to me as choosing to eat meat. Yet, I cannot claim that a change in situation would not lead to a change in perspective.

If I believed that I could never stray, I would be more likely to slide into infidelity, unaware and unwilling to recognize warning signs and precursors.

So rather than say that, “I would never,” I find it more honest to say, “I never want to” and then make sure that my choices align with that intention.

“I Can’t Help the Way I Feel”

I shake my head every time I read about the every-increasing trigger warnings added to college syllabi and work presentations. On the one hand, I do think it is considerate to prepare somebody ahead of time for something that they may find difficult (I’m thinking of NPR’s habit of a brief warning for parents before broadcasting a story with language or content that may be inappropriate for children). On the other hand, the expectation of trigger warnings sends the message to the triggered that the responsibility for their well-being and mental comfort lies with others.

And that’s where I disagree.

We all have a right to our emotional reactions. We have a right to feel the way we feel and to respond to external stimulus as we choose. But we don’t have a right to demand that other people act in a certain way in order to regulate our emotions.

That’s an inside job.

If somebody does or says something that upsets you, you ultimately have two choices: learn to adjust your response or decide to avoid the person.

And that’s not easy.

It’s something I face on an ongoing basis with my fear of abandonment. There are so many innocuous things that my husband can do or say that can trigger this fear in me. My first instinct is always to shift that responsibility on him, to request that he refrain from the words or actions that make me respond in this way. I want to declare that my reactions are a direct response to his actions and that my fear is an inevitable response.

But that’s not true and that’s not fair.

Because I can help the way I feel.

Not easily and not all at once.

But the only way that I’ll learn to temper my fear of abandonment is by addressing it, not by asking others to protect me from it.

“I’m Right; You’re Wrong”

“Most people do not listen with the intent to understand; they listen with the intent to reply.” Stephen Covey

Most of us enter into discussions and encounters with the assumption that we are right and we require substantial evidence and persuasion in order to change our minds. We lead with the belief that our perspective is the correct one, our moral code is the superior one and our understanding is the penultimate one.

It’s a limiting view as confirmation bias simply feeds the perspective that we carry rather than challenging us to see something new.

When you enter a conversation with the conviction that you are right, your energy is expended on defending your position. Rather than listen, you grow defensive. Rather than question, you attack alternative viewpoints. Rather than engage in conversation, you end up participating in a debate, complete with scoring.

I know I have a tendency to feel threatened when my views are criticized. My inclination is to respond defensively, enumerating the reasons that my thoughts are right. I can easily interpret an attack on my beliefs as an attack on me.

And maybe you are right. But that doesn’t necessarily mean the other person is wrong. Perhaps they have a different perspective born of different experiences. Maybe they are just at a different point of understanding and they need more time to gain clarity.

And maybe you are wrong. And by allowing the acceptance of that, you can begin to see another perspective.

Because after all, we are all human. Imperfect and messy.

No matter what we tell ourselves.

Lessons From an Adult Child of Divorce

Posted on May 13, 2015May 12, 2015 by stilllearning2b

I love serendipity. And, at least today, it must love me back. Just as I was feeling completely overwhelmed with updating the blog, I received an email from Liz with a request to send a guest post. Once she told me the topic, I was sold.

There is no shortage of information and discussion about the effect of divorce on children. But adult children? Not so much. It’s as though we think they are grown and launched and the split does not (or should not) impact them (Just think of how many couples wait to divorce until the children are gone).

But it does.

Liz shares her experience with us to help provide understanding of what it is like when your parents divorce once you are grown.

Lessons From an Adult Child of Divorce

It was the summer of 2013, I was 28 years old and just starting a new career in marketing – and my parents were in the midst of a divorce. Their marriage of thirty years had been slowly dissolving before my eyes for quite some time, but I still couldn’t believe it was actually happening.

Growing up, I had considered myself lucky to live in a two parent home while watching as my friends’ single mothers struggled to balance work, home, and the rigors of parenting. Now I was just another child of divorce – even though I was no longer an actual child.

To make matters even more difficult, I – like many Millennials – was living at home as I couldn’t afford to make ends meet on my own. Helping my mother move out of her home of 20 years and into a small apartment was one of the most heartbreaking moments of my life. However, it was nothing compared to watching her fall prey to crippling grief.

I Don’t Know How to Feel

It’s hard to truly explain what it feels like to be caught between two parents on opposite ends of the emotional spectrum. Dad had been bottling his negative emotions for years, and the divorce had in essence freed him to pursue happiness. Mom had been blind-sided, thinking that they were just experiencing a rough patch. She still loved my father as much as she ever had and the divorce sent her spiraling into depression.

On one hand, I was happy to see my dad smiling again. He was cheerful and full of life – something that had been missing for so long that I had almost forgotten what it looked like. On the other hand, I was trying to keep my mom from losing herself to hopelessness and sorrow.

The swinging emotions were taking their toll on me – and so were the conversations both parents insisted on dragging me into.

Part of You, Part of Me

Dad told me how he’d grown unhappy ten years into their marriage and had essentially been a prisoner to his sense of honor. He refused to abandon his children and my mother – even if her wild emotions and poor decision making made him crazy.

Mom sobbed on my shoulder, bemoaning the fact that my father had never expressed his feelings and had refused to seek marriage counseling on numerous occasions. In her eyes, he was an emotional tight ass and the whole thing was his fault.

There’s a multitude of resources for parents of small children going through a divorce. I’ve read many of them, and the parallels between the feelings of both young and adult children before, during, and after a divorce are numerous.

Attorney Cheri Hobbs reminds parents, “remember that a child is half of each of you and therefore when you disparage the other parent the child then believes that one-half of them is bad or wrong or negative.”

Listening to my parents complain about each other was like being stuck with a hot poker repeatedly. Much like my mom, I can be overbearing and spend money unwisely. Do my friends feel the same way about me that my father feels about my mother? Do they just not say anything?

I’m a lot like my father in many ways – both good and bad – but I definitely bottle my emotions. Does my mother hate me for this?

To hear them tear each other down was to hear them tear parts of me down. And the worst part of it was that I didn’t do anything to stop it from happening.

Stuck in the Middle

I remember taking a stand pretty early, telling both of them to discuss what business they had with each other and leave me out of it. They agreed, but I don’t think it lasted for more than a couple of weeks. They needed me, and I reneged on my own ultimatum.

“There are few needs more compelling than those of our parents. And parents going through divorce are just like other people going through divorce: they are a bundle of need with little or no regard for boundaries or decorum,” says Lee Borden of DivorceInfo.com.

My father is pretty good at not dragging me into the middle of it, but my mother uses me as a go between, even going so far as to CC me in all emails to my dad. It’s absolutely maddening – like being slapped in the face every time I open my inbox.

The Lessons I’ve Learned

There are lessons to be learned here – on both sides – but as I’ve only experienced divorce from this side of the aisle, I’ll advise those who are like me:

If you have siblings, lean on them. I didn’t speak to my older brother much during the divorce process. I felt like he was so far away from the situation that he wouldn’t be much comfort. I regret that now. He was hurting just as much as I was.
Tell your parents to leave you out of the fight and stick to it! It will be hard, I know, but your emotional well-being depends on it.
Encourage your parents to seek counseling. My mother still has a tough time with the end of her marriage, but speaking to a psychiatrist has helped her immensely.
Get support! Talk to your friends, your siblings, your significant other, a psychiatrist, or others in the same situation you are.

It’s been two years since my parents divorced and a lot of things have changed. It’s the summer of 2015, I’m 30 years old, and I’ve settled into my career in marketing. My dad still lives in my childhood home and is working on renovating it with his girlfriend. My mom has a nice little condo, two dogs, and an active social life. Things aren’t perfect – there are still hiccups, grumbling, and tears from all parties, but it is getting better. Slowly, but surely, things are getting better.

Liz Greene hails from the beautiful city of trees, Boise, Idaho. She’s a lover of all things geek and is happiest when cuddling with her dogs and catching up on the latest Marvel movies. You can follow her on Twitter @LizVGreene.