You never marry the right person?

I read an article this past week by Timothy Keller entitled, "You Never Marry the Right Person." In it he proposes that our culture has focused so much on spousal compatibility and the assumption that if you hit a rough patch in your marriage, you must be not compatible, so forget about your current spouse and instead go search for the 'Right' one.

I agree with what he has to say, but I disagree with how he said it. I would propose that when you marry someone, you DID marry the Right person. I think that in our Western Culture, we have become so accustomed to things being easy, that when we face something hard, we conclude that SOMETHING must not be right! And in a marriage situation, it is so very easy to conclude it is the OTHER person that must be wrong, and not me! Marriage was never meant to be easy, so why expect it to be? Accept the reality that you are going to face hard times in your life. Wouldn't it be better to go through those hard times knowing that the one you committed yourself to isn't going to abandon you?

One of the other issues I think that has led to our Culture's problem with abandonment of our spouses is our oversaturation with media input. Every commercial you see, every tv show you watch, every movie you sit through is trying to sell an idea to you. The more you watch, the more you naturally accept as truth, or at the very least, the more you stop seeing the lies. Our media outlets have created the paradigm that there is a 'perfect' person out there. If the laws of probability have created us from slime, surely they can also find us that person that I can love without having to give any effort. We find ourselves looking at our spouse or our situation and comparing it to what we see portrayed in the media. That very act of comparison starts driving a wedge in a relationship that is perfectly healthy. And the more we allow that wedge to be driven in, the further we grow from our spouse, and the more we find things 'wrong' with them, and the further that wedge goes. It's a horrible downward spiral. (On a side note, I propose that every commercial causes a comparison between what you have and what the commercial is about.)

It would be much easier to be content without commercials.

The solution to this wedge of Comparison is the glue of Contentment. If you stop comparing your spouse to someone else's, or to what you see on TV, but are content with whom God blessed you with, you will come to the realization that you are already married to the Right person. That realization will lead to further contentment, which will strengthen that realization. It's a wonderful upward spiral!


One last thought, and I'll let you go. Every action has consequences, so think very carefully how you act toward your spouse.