12 Lessons on Marriage: Lesson #3

You Probably Married the Wrong Person

​​By: Jeff Pipe, PsyD

If you’re not sure, then you’ve probably married the wrong person.  If you’ve not yet realized that the Gospel - and not your marriage - is the solution to what ails you, then you are probably lost in your disappointment or your shame and feeling like you married the wrong person.  After all, things aren’t working in the marriage…. and you can see that you weren’t really ready to marry when you did…and you didn’t really know what you wanted and needed then… you were too young… and now it seems clear that you married him/her for the wrong reason - you felt pressure from your parents, you got pregnant, you wanted to get away from your parents, you were just stupid.  You weren’t a good fit; you’re not compatible.  You don’t share the same interests or values - he’s just not as thoughtful or sensitive as you are; she’s so anxious and inhibited; he can’t appreciate your creativity; she’ll never be adventurous; he doesn’t… she can’t… Your building frustration and pain and shame are compelling evidence for the idea that you married the wrong person.

It’s a reasonable conclusion.  It’s not true, but it’s reasonable.  You just don’t have the perspective yet to realize that everyone marries the wrong person at the wrong time for the wrong reason.  It’s not about who you marry, but what you do with the relationship.  In spite of the differences you and your spouse have, you are as well-suited for each other as any other couple out there.   You are no more socially attractive, physically attractive, intelligent or emotionally/relationally mature than your spouse.  “Crazy marries crazy.”  You don’t know that trading one spouse for another is, at best, trading one set of problems for a different set.  “Its six of one or a half-dozen of the other.”  Though your relationship  problems are unique to you in their quality, they’re no different in quantity from the challenges and conflicts other couples are confronting.  But, until you’ve burned through a couple of marriages, you really can’t see that.

Perhaps if you find someone more suited to you, the second marriage will be easier.  It won’t - it will likely be harder… but you won’t be able to scapegoat your spouse and you will be more motivated.  Nobody wants to divorce twice.  You can kick the can down the road for a little while longer with a second marriage, but you’ll eventually have to do the work you avoided in the first marriage.  But how could you know
​that yet?

Image by tirachardz