Greetings and welcome!

In fact, you do not need a perfect marriage; instead, what is required is that you and your spouse together define your successful marriage. The funny thing is that no marriage is completely freed of conflict. There are two categories of marriages; either you’re in a HAPPY marriage or you’re in an UNHAPPY marriage.  Couples in successful marriages cope better with conflict of differences than those in unhappy marriages.  The ability to deal with conflicts is what highly determine and fosters a successful relationship.

In my marriage particularly, while I certainly did not go into it aiming to achieve a perfect marriage, I thought that with much prayer and effort my husband and I would experience the best marriage! Free of almost all conflict. This was not the case; it felt like the more I prayed, the more conflicts we faced. In retrospect, I guess I was seeking something like a “perfect marriage” (subconsciously at least) hmm… well, unfortunately, needless to say, this goal of a conflictless marriage was never met. Knowing what I know now, my efforts in the past were more about me trying to change my husband into the ideal husband for me or the “fantasy husband” I’ve always envisioned. I did not see it this way back then. I’m very sure I thought I was harmlessly showing him “the way” (the control freak in me). In all actuality I was trying to change the things about him I did not like that I thought I could change, e.g. being committed to the church, his friendly and passive nature, the way he handled the laundry, the way he dressed, the activities he engaged in on social media… (you get the picture). All this change for the sake of attempting to acquire a more harmonious relationship… so I thought. As you can imagine, we had a few bumps in the road coming into the marriage and I did not want for these bumps to become sinkholes (I delve more into this later). But I realized (not soon enough) that I was too critical of him! I was met with resistance and conflict the more I tried to change him. Once I accepted that he was WHO HE IS as a person, doing things his special way, and I stopped working to change him but learned to find appreciation for the parts of him that made him the individual I agreed to marry, we did much better together. The road to this discovery did not happen overnight nor was it smooth; it was rough, tough, and icky but we made it through! Don’t get me wrong, some of our conflicts did require a gentle open and honest conversation that would follow with a plan of action moving forward, which accommodated both of us accordingly because I was not willing to settle for every or anything. For instance, we had conversations around how he conducted business on social media until he understood how I felt, why I felt that way, and how it affected me. Finally, I had to decide to allow him the opportunity to do better and I had to learn how to accept certain things as they were because the truth is everything was not fixable. We are doing much better together these days. It was not an easy task to accomplish, at times we experienced conflicts that set us many steps backward before we could be where we are today but I can say it was worth the effort! As you can imagine doing better does not free us of all challenges but we are more at peace and more focused on the positivities that are present in our relationship today.

Like many people, not really sure about how to deal with the differences that exist in their relationship, I was searching for the wrong thing “a conflict-free relationship” in better words a “Perfect Relationship”. I experienced some tough times figuring out what I was doing wrong and what was left for me to do right. While I know that no two marriages are created equally, my hope here is that by sharing my experiences and resolutions it will serve as a possible insight to help at least one couple experience success in their marriage. This is despite having a relationship that IS far from perfect!