Stop Trying To Fix Your Spouse

When you are working through things with your spouse you have to determine that giving up is not an option. Why did God make men & women so different? I have no stinking clue, but the fact is that both are made in His image & likeness & reveal something majestic about who He is. To shut down on your spouse because she or he seems beyond understanding is to shut down on God.

Have you ever shut down on your spouse simply because you didn’t understand him or her and then wrote it off as your spouse is wrong, crazy, weird, & beyond ‘fixing’? Let me break it to you, you’re not a plumber & your spouse is not a broken pipe, no matter how much he stinks or lets things go in one ear & out the other.

I can’t tell you how many times I have heard of men shut down on their wives because “she is beyond comprehension or too complicated.” Or, how many wives shut down on their husbands because “he is too simple & narrow minded.” If you possess the perspective that your wife is too complicated or your husband is too narrow minded then you are setting yourself up for failure & your relationship for conflict.

The goal when working through things is understanding; it’s not about fixing 

the other person. 

Whenever you enter into conversations with your spouse with the intention of trying to fix their perspective, attitude, or personality then you already loss. You see, at first you try to fix the problem with your spouse & after the frustration of no fix the result is inevitability more frustration & shut down. But, when you seek to understand one another there is great growth that is able to take place in both of you.

Understanding does not always mean that you agree with something or that you would do it that way, but you get it, comprehend, & have chosen to live accordingly. Statistics show that men tend to think with a one tract mind. Women tend to think on multiple tracts at the same time. Both can be strengths or weaknesses. You have to learn to delight in each other's differences (You gotta check out: Men Are Like Waffles, Women Are Like Spaghetti).

Growing in deeper understanding of one another’s differences without writing them off as bad or wrong provides opportunities for great growth & deeper intimacy. Giving up is not an option. It’s time to thrive in your marriage & grow in the differences. Stop trying to fix your spouse, use your differences to complement one another, & allow God to reveal more of Himself through your spouse.

Let’s Do This Together

What things in your spouse have you written off because they were different (ie. ways of thinking, planning, cleaning, etc.)? How can you learn to let both of your differences become strengths that help your marriage thrive?