We’ve often been told, ‘patience is a virtue.’ Nowhere is this a more important virtue than in marriage. We not only need to be patient with our spouse, though that certainly helps, we need to be patient in our expectations of ourselves and our marriages.
You and I don’t get it right all the time, so we shouldn’t expect our spouse too either.
In other words we need to do as it says on my calendar for yesterday and ‘Be humble and gentle. Be patient with each other, making allowance for each other’s faults because of your love.’ Sound like good advice? I thought so, but then it does come from a reputable source. Those words are from the bible, Ephesians 4:2. The version is today’s living bible. It’s not one I normally read much, but I thought this gave a very clear and easily understandable picture.
It is because we love our spouse that we are prepared to overlook their faults. Now we know, or I hope we do, that none of us is perfect, so why should we expect our spouses to be? Rather than focusing on what it wrong with them, it all comes back to that concentrating on their good qualities and what is right with our marriage.
It also helps to take a good hard look at ourselves. Too often on today’s world we are told by advertising companies that we need whatever the product they’re selling is. That our lives cannot be fulfilled or happy without owning such and such. This is just one of the many lies in the advertising business.
Happiness doesn’t come from what we have or don’t have. In the words of Henry Van Dyke, ‘Happiness is inward not outward; and so it does not depend on what we have but on what we are.’
By making allowances for our spouses’ faults and helping them develop their good qualities, we are helping them be more in tune with themselves. When they are more comfortable in themselves, they won’t feel the need to resort to one-up-man-ship or control in the marriage relationship. They will be free to be themselves just as we are free to be ourselves and hopefully then allow our spouse to show the same patience and gentleness to us, making allowances for our faults.