Is it realistic to expect a marriage to be perfect?

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TotusTuusForever

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It seems that short of both spouses being saints a perfect marriage shouldn’t be expected. Most married couples have minor issues on the regular. Right? It’s not a sign that a marriage is doomed if a couple needs to work on communication after several years of marriage for instance. Right? I ask because all the relationship advice out there creates an expectation for perfection almost.Thoughts?
 
It’s unreasonable to expect a married couple or really any two people to never have issues, disagreements, etc. what can make the marriage come close is the never ending commitment of husband and wife to openly and honestly address these, strive to continually improve and deepen their communication, and to will and act for the goodness and holiness of the other spouse.
 
Just as no one person can be “perfect,” neither can a marriage. Every marriage will have its ups and downs and struggles. But the people need to pick themselves up each time and strive to grow in unity and to understand each other.
 
No, marriage can never be perfect. There will eventually be something that causes a disagreement or argument. But the key is for both to be committed to getting past the problems that arise. Success of a marriage is based on putting the union above any petty differences. How does this happen? Keep Christ as the center.
 
Perhaps it is perfection when there’s a realization and acceptance of imperfection.

That came out like a zen riddle but it wasn’t.
 
A good marriage is perfect. I’m a perfect person in a perfect marriage. Just ask my wife.

I mean, I think you know the answer to your question. I’m curious though What are all these self help sources saying anyone can have it has ever achieved a perfect marriage. I’ve never seen anything suggesting that. Do you have an example?
 
I don’t have a specific example. But, there seems to be an attitude of what I would identify as entitlement and selfishness in modern secular relationship advice. And unfortunately, in my own experience, if a spouse makes one mistake in marriage and if the in-laws find out, it can become a reason they hang onto a grudge against your spouse. Which makes me also wonder why society expects people to be perfect just because they are married and doesn’t give people grace for making average human mistakes. It’s almost like they are routing for the couple to split up. I see this mentality a lot in feminist circles. I’m thinking it has to do with the ideology that thinks the traditional nuclear family is antiquated.
 
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I can’t imagine my wife’s in-laws finding anything out we didn’t tell them.
 
No, and your shouldn’t either. If that happened, they wouldn’t be allowed in my house again? Are yours?
 
I don’t feel like going into details but I will say the snooping has been stopped.
 
TotusTuusForever said:
But, there seems to be an attitude of what I would identify as entitlement and selfishness in modern secular relationship advice
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Those sound more like relationship killers.

I think that people just want to sell books, and the US is basically a self interested culture at this point so those kinds of books will probably be out there.
 
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A marriage can never be ‘perfect.’ Think: Everyone is different! No two people agree on everything. Being married to someone else teaches one compassion, tolerance, and many other things that are necessary…for living in this world!

In fact, I’d say that the marriages most doomed to failure are the ones in which one or both spouse expects perfection. They must learn, if the marriage is to survive in any meaningful way.
 
TotusTuusForever said:
It seems that short of both spouses being saints a perfect marriage shouldn’t be expected. Most married couples have minor issues on the regular. Right? It’s not a sign that a marriage is doomed if a couple needs to work on communication after several years of marriage for instance. Right? I ask because all the relationship advice out there creates an expectation for perfection almost.Thoughts?
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I don’t think any mature person expects a “perfect” marriage. I’m not even sure what a “perfect” marriage would look like. People aren’t perfect. My husband wasn’t perfect and I certainly wasn’t perfect, far from it. The point of marriage is you accept each other, imperfections and all. You work out any big stuff and you don’t sweat the small stuff.

If by chance there was some starry-eyed naive person out there who didn’t realize marriage wasn’t going to be “perfect”, that’s supposed to be trounced out of them at the Pre-Cana workshop.

I also would heartily recommend NOT reading “Relationship Advice” columns. Most of those have made me raise an eyebrow since my teens. I used to read them to my husband and ask him what he thought, and he would either give me a blank look and change the subject or he would make a joke or laugh or say “Oh, poppycock” etc. If you need actual relationship advice, you are better off asking your wise older relative if you have one, your priest or deacon, or a counselor, than reading that tripe.

Don’t you have any older relatives or friends who have good marriages that you would kind of model yourselves after? A lot of us learn about marriage from watching our parents, but I understand that in some cases parents haven’t made great choices in life so they cannot always be role models.
 
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TotusTuusForever said:
And unfortunately, in my own experience, if a spouse makes one mistake in marriage and if the in-laws find out, it can become a reason they hang onto a grudge against your spouse.
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You can’t control what people outside the marriage are going to think of it. However, the marriage is between you and spouse, no one else.

If in-laws interfere in your marriage then it’s up to both spouses, and particularly the spouse that is their own child, to tell them to butt out and if necessary, distance themselves from the in-laws.
 
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The problem with some marriages is either the couple enters into marriage thinking that nothing will ever change… or expecting the other person to change.

To believe that after 50 years (or even 1 year) of marriage that neither you nor your spouse will change is what can cause problems, especially if there is no communication because you both already “know” the other person. People grow and change. Circumstances change. You have to be able to adapt. That’s why communication is important. My husband and I have gone through a lot of changes in our life in 32 years of marriage, having to re-evaluate and adjust expectations due to job changes, personal growth, health issues, family, etc. We are not the same people we were 30+ years ago, but we talked about what was different and what needed to change and what we needed to hold on to. Not all those conversations were easy, but the problems wouldn’t go away if we didn’t talk about them… they would only get worse. I wouldn’t say our marriage is “perfect” but it’s perfect for us.

Sadly, in a world where people are supposedly more “connected” than ever before, honest communication is still a rarity, mainly because a lot of relationship self-help books and advice pretty much advocate “self-care” over sacrificial love and generosity, and some people take that to extremes and forget how to listen.
 
Tis_Bearself said:
If in-laws interfere in your marriage then it’s up to both spouses, and particularly the spouse that is their own child, to tell them to butt out and if necessary, distance themselves from the in-laws.
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This is very true!
 
One upon a time a man said to his new spouse, “Now that we’re married I feel like I should tell you your faults.”
She said, “You don’t have to. If I was perfect I would’ve gotten someone better than you.”

Told to me by one of my favorite priest friends years ago, now deceased.
 
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So she thinks her fault is getting married to her husband? That’s an awful story disguised as a cute comeback. But it isn’t loving, or what marriage is about.
 
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