What is Wrong with Comparing Your Marriage

What is Wrong with Comparing Your Marriage

I can remember when I was still very young and seeing people of marriageable age around getting ready for marriage, I begin to think of when my turn will reach to get married. This does not only happen to me alone but every other young man and woman who sees marriage as a perfect thing that there can’t be anything wrong in it.

From the eyes of a teenager and young adult who are yet to experience what marriage is, marriage looks like an ideal union in a perfect environment and can’t wait to get into it, whereas some grown up adults who have seen it all that marriage is not always what they have held it to be when they are still very young.

Now that I’m married, I begin to see marriage full with lots of problem of different kind though varied from the trivial problem to more complicated conflict. When I look around trying to compare my marriage with others around me, I sometimes feel that my marriage is not normal and that something is wrong with. The more I try to figure out what the problem is, the more I get into trouble with my spouse. Is there anything wrong with my marriage?

This is if not exactly what happen to many couple in marriage today; it can be a similar situation, people compare their marriage to others and begin to judge their own marriage if it is normal. There is no way you can compare another person’s marriage with yours and expect to get a satisfactory result in term of what that person marriage is achieving.

Every marriage has its own peculiar problem and as such you cannot put them on a scale trying to judge others marriage with yours. People you see that their marriage seems everything is going perfectly for them outwardly might just be a deception inwardly. The secret is just that they have learn to manage the problem that comes around with their marriage and you as an outsider will hardly see what is on the inside of their marriage. [Read: How You Can Save Your Marriage From Near Divorce]

There is actually nothing wrong with your marriage and until you come to agree with it, you cannot move forward with your preoccupied mind that something is wrong with your marriage.

It is better to focus on your marriage and addressed any issue that comes up than obsess with the way other people deal with their marriage. Don’t allow the sour taste of reality that has become unbearable push you to compare your ailing relationship to that of your friends and neighbors.

[sws_blockquote_endquote align=”left” cite=”” quotestyle=”style05″] The only way to stop comparing what you have with others is to CLARIFY and GROUND your marital expectations in reality. Only then will you be able to stop assuming that everyone else’s marriages are better than yours. Understand that looking at other people’s relationships with envy is caused by skewed expectation of your own marriage. [/sws_blockquote_endquote] Do you unconsciously expect unlikely scenarios in your marriage? Are your expectations driving your relationship to the ground? The best way to discover answers to this is to dig deep down and take your time to make a list and drag out all those unspoken thoughts in your mind and write them down. Only then can you come face to face with any unrealistic standards.

Better yet, get your spouse involved as well. It wouldn’t be surprising to find out how different your expectations are from his/hers! Getting them out in the open and discussing them NOW does a lot towards realigning your marital goals and clearing up misunderstandings.

First, whatever expectations any of you have should never, in any way, compromise the key elements that support the framework of your marriage. These include trusting each other, respecting one another, making the other’s happiness a must, and so on.

Through this soul-searching activity, you can better tailor your marriage to fit into a realistic context, instead of expecting it to be a flawless relationship devoid of any conflict. There’s nothing wrong with having lofty visions of a wonderful marriage when you were younger. Those dreams inspired you to be the best person and spouse possible. Now that you’ve had a taste of the challenges of married life, it’s time to make those desires cross over into a more realistic light.

While you’re at it, focus on the positive aspects of your marriage which may have been buried under your previous expectations. Try to remember what brought you together as a couple in the first place and reminisce on the highlights of your past. Sure, your relationship isn’t spotless, but that doesn’t mean you should take the best parts for granted. [Read: 3 Helpful Ways For divorce Prevention]

Create opportunities for you to reconnect with each other and rediscover what exactly you LOVE about being together. Think of exercises (like the one above) where you can share things about your partner that turn you on, or some quirky trait that you find endearing.

Recapture that lost feeling so that you don’t forget that what you have is beyond comparison to other relationships. The simple habit of making small reminders to each other (in the form of affection, dates, etc) as well as grounding your expectations in reality both go a long way in keeping you focused on the marital relationship.