When Your Spouse Doesn’t Want What You Want
There are a lot of things in my relationship I want that I don’t get, and if you’ve regularly read this blog, you likely know what they are without my having to spell them out. You also probably know that I’m totally happy with life as is currently comprised – if nothing changed for the worst, I’d be satisfied with my marriage, my lifestyle, and my place in both.
But its easy to look at things you don’t have and question if you are in an unfulfilled relationship. For as much as I champion patience and understanding, I’ve done it myself. I’ve questioned my wife’s devotion to me on the subject of moving to a new state; she wants to stay, I eventually want to leave. That’s just one example, but there are a couple of things about our relationship in which I’ve silently stewed; questioning our soul-gathering bond over more than a meal or a weekend.
But there’s one thing you have to know about what you want, especially in a relationship. It usually has come or will come at the expense of what your spouse wants. And if you really want to be personally happy, an appropriate focus is on what you can do to make your spouse happy. People get tripped up because it almost sounds subservient to commit yourself to someone else’s happiness, but that’s exactly what marriage is; an agreement to try and do less of what you want and more of what your spouse wants over the duration of your lifetime.
Yes, there is a compromise in marriage, and if you pick the right person to marry, you’ll find it in more instances than not. But there is an acceptance that comes along with your pledge, and if you find yourself fighting or miserable in your marriage, you have to rediscover why you made the pledge, and revamp ways to enjoy it. Maybe I won’t get to move halfway across the country, but maybe an area of the region will be more welcoming to my wife.
Maybe you won’t get to buy that car or open that business you want, but there may be a time for that in the future, or another product or endeavor you can undertake that is more conducive to your family lifestyle. I don’t think anybody sets out to stop someone they love from doing something they want to do, but as partners, we all want to feel like we’re an intimate part of our spouse’s ambitions. If their plans scare the heck out of us, we do what we feel necessary to preserve the integrity of our family.
Going with and without is a careful negotiation, one of internal reflection more so than outward balance. There are things your spouse wants that you are unwilling to provide or unable to facilitate, and yet the love and compassion for you is still there. Appreciate what you have, work for what you need from each other, and grow towards the individual wants from there.
