Hard-won Marriage Advice

Here is a problem that happens in marriages and other relationships.  It comes from well-intentioned people being well-intentioned.

You want one thing and you have reason to believe your spouse wants another.  Happens all the time.  But you are well-intentioned.  So you come up with a compromise in your mind.  You mentally give up part of what you want.  It feels like a real sacrifice to you.  After all, you want the whole thing.  It is a real nice thing you are doing for your spouse.

Eventually you get around to telling your spouse, or more likely you execute your compromise.  Your spouse gets mad.  And you feel betrayed.  This is the compromise!  Your spouse is rejecting even the compromise.  So intransigent. Don’t they see your sacrifice?

But there are reasons your spouse feels that way.  They don’t know about your sacrifice and by this point it will feel otiose and manipulative to tell them.  It wasn’t their compromise.  Quite possibly  your compromise wasn’t fair.  Human nature is that we rate our own interests higher even when we are trying not to.  Quite possibly your compromise misunderstood what was actually important to them about what they wanted.  But even if the compromise was completely fair, its your compromise.  You can’t skip the part where you counsel together.  The process is important.  I’m not just saying that your spouse will feel like they are being cut out of the discussion, though that too.  I mean that your spouse hasn’t had time to assimilate that there is a split in goals and hasn’t had time to assimilate the need to hash something out.