Background: I’m in a meeting at work and the term “marital weirdness” is used to describe a couple our team is serving. She’s having a life change and he’s still expecting her to hobble around cooking, cleaning, and doing laundry, with no intent to assist. Marital Weirdness.
So this post will be filled with things I’ve learned from others. I take no credit for any knowledge shared, just for the compilation of it all. Marital weirdness is not automatic. It is something that is developed, groomed and then perfected. I think it is a result of yielding to and practicing unrealistic expectations, including more rules than love in a relationship. You end up with this beast that devours people, relationships, futures and homes, that maintains an outward appearance of bliss. The example given above is just one way marital weirdness presents itself. I’m sure we have all experienced or seen it presented in many different forms.
Proverbs 31 shares about 7 verses regarding being a wife. They speak of her worth, trustworthiness, how she enriches her husbands life and how she is one of a kind. In an older post I emphasized how we play a major role in who our husbands will be. If you believe in his vision (rather than tearing it down), encourage and support him, he will turn out just how he saw himself. If there was no vision to begin with, you cannot impose one on him. It leads to marital weirdness. But you can draw it out of him. Marriage isn’t about making each other different, but refining each other to maximize your individual and collective potential.
Back to unrealistic expectations. When we put these on our spouse and they fail to meet them, we are then disappointed or angry. We question their abilities in other areas which then upsets them. Trust is lost. We must always remember that we are not perfect, so we shouldn’t expect our spouses to be. And when we marry, our faith should be in God, not our spouse. They can and will fail. If you are looking for the man of your dreams, the only place you might find him is in your dreams. God is the only one that supply all of your needs and give you the desires of your heart. He may use your husband to do that, but your husband is not the source.
So is it ok then for either party to say, “This is who I am, deal with it”. Of course not, like I said before marriage is about refining. A good wife enriches her husband or makes him better. And we in turn get the praise and reward of being that help to him. There are always exceptions, like marrying a fool. It does happen. But even God can change the heart of a fool. You can’t, but God can. And weirdness creeps in when you start trying to change people. We can influence change in others through educating them and loving them. Any other path leads to marital weirdness.
If you have one of these weird marriages, don’t be discouraged. Seek God on how to rectify the situation. Add more love and take out some of the rules. Except the person you have and try to see who they can be after being refined. Except who you are and try to see who you can be after being refined. Marriage should be a heaven on earth experience, not hell on earth.
References: Proverbs 31:10-12, 23, 28-29, 31
