Happiness Should Be a Central Focus in Marriage

Just not YOUR happiness…

Man, you know what idea I absolutely hate?

This popular notion of finding “the one” person to be with who will fulfull you forever.

One of the reasons that I hate it is that it makes no logical sense whatsoever. Think about it for a second, there are only two logical outcomes if there really is one person you are destined to be with:

1. There is no possible way that anyone could ever marry the wrong person. If you are truly destined to be with someone, you’ll end up being with them. You can’t escape fate. In this situation, there’s no point in worrying whether someone is “the one.” The thing is, it seems like this option can’t be true since there are so many miserable and failed options, so that only leaves us with the second option:
2. Someone tens of thousands of years ago married the wrong person and messed things up for everyone. If it’s not true that you are guaranteed to end up with “the one,” then someone somewhere must have already married the wrong person and changed the course of history. Not only might your “the one” already be married to someone else, they might have never been born. In the first situation, you had a 100% chance of ending up with “the one,” in this situation you have a ZERO percent chance of ending up with “the one.”

But believe it or not, the fact that the concept of “the one” is incoherent nonsense isn’t even the thing that I hate the most about it.

The thing that I hate most about it is that it makes marriage and relationships into selfish things when they should be generous things.

It destroys the beauty of relationships. It destroys the point of relationships.

…For Me

There are two words that often accompany the phrase “the one” but are implied even when they are left off.

“The one”…for me.

This is the whole attitude behind the concept of “the one”: finding personal fulfillment.

Are they a perfect match for me? Do they satisfy my desires? Fulfill my expectations? Make me happy?

Love is a Verb

This goes hand in hand with another disturbing trend, the tendency to treat love as a noun.

We can talk about love as a noun and there are times when we should, but we get in trouble when we primarily think of love as something you feel instead of something you do.

Because here’s one thing I can guarantee you: the blissful feelings of romantic companionship won’t always be there.

I can also guarantee you that they will be there sometimes, but “sometimes” is a long ways away from always.

What happens when your spouse is doing something that annoys or frustrates you? What happens when you think there are other things out there that will make you happier than working on your marriage? What if you start to think there are other people that will make you happier than your spouse?

If you see your spouse as someone who is supposed to be perfect for you and satisfy every longing of your soul, you’re in trouble.

If you see your spouse as a person to be loved, none of those questions are relevant.

You’re going to be good to them when they are making you happy and good to them when they are making you angry. You’re going to love them well when you feel the ecstasy of being in love and you’re going to keep loving them well when you don’t.

Divorce

Divorce is never ideal, but I get that it is necessary. Adultery, physical and mental abuse, and abandonment are all unfortunately real.

But those aren’t the only reasons why people get divorced.

If you are thinking about a divorce solely on the grounds of the marriage no longer being satisfying, I would urge you to reconsider.

Not only will you likely harm your spouse and children, you probably won’t even help yourself.

Your next marriage won’t be to “the one” because “the one” doesn’t exist. Your next marriage won’t last forever just because you promise that it will. Your last one didn’t.

The fact is that marriage has the potential to be the deepest and most satisfying relationship of your life, but only if you keep working to get close to the other person and push through the adversity.

That was actually the whole point of marriage in the first place. When you promised “for better or for worse” you weren’t just picking pretty things to say to commemorate your wedding. That was an actual vow. Things are going to get tough, but you’re going to stick with it.

Choosing Wisely

I have to add a disclaimer at this point, because if you’ve been following me up to this point, you might think it doesn’t matter who you marry. Pick a name out of a hat and devote your life to that person.

But I actually think that it does matter quite a bit. Before you are married, you have the ability to choose your spouse intentionally and I think you should take full advantage of this fact. Once you choose a spouse and devote your life to them, it’s too late to second guess your decision, but you do have a decision to make at the start.

You want to choose someone you are attracted to and that you get along well with. You want to make sure that you have similar values and visions for what the good life is. You don’t need to be the same everywhere, but you should have broad agreement over many key issues.

Is it possible to have a significant disagreement with someone and still have a successful marriage? Sure, but the more major differences that you have and the more significant they are, the more of a problem it’s going to be.

A Republican can have a successful marriage to a Democrat, but a Republican who thinks all liberals are stupid probably won’t have a successful marriage to a Democrat who thinks all conservatives are stupid.

Now that we’ve added this disclaimer, I’m going to add a disclaimer to the disclaimer. You don’t need to evaluate a potential spouse forever. Living with someone for a decade because you’re not sure you want to get married isn’t wisdom, it’s the irrational fear of making a decision.

Plus I’m not a fan of the whole shacking up thing to begin with. When you combine the practice of living together before marriage with the ease of divorce laws, a marriage is basically little more than an agreement to conduct your break up in court.

Conclusion

Instead of looking for “the one,” you should be concerned with being as close as you can get to “the one” for someone else.

Finding someone to love and getting married is great, but loving them forever is the real point.

This is the thirteenth in a series based on my article 30 Lessons About Life You Should Learn Before Turning 30. Shoutout to Dr. Christine Bradstreet 🌴 for the idea to turn the post into an in-depth series.