Wednesday, July 06, 2011

Coping with changes

This post is probably best considered a follow-up to my last one.

We've probably all heard - though hopefully not firsthand! - the clichéd lament invoked at the end of a marriage: "You're just not the person I married anymore."

Well, of course not!  All of life is change.  The type of changes we undergo is what distinguishes the living from the inanimate, and the specific changes we experience are part of what makes even two genetically identical people different from each other.  When you come right down to it, it's the series of changes that we encounter one moment at a time that ultimately defines our life.  I'm amazed at how many couples enter marriage with two antipodal expectations.  We never want any of the things we love about our partner to change, yet we expect any negative characteristics to change for the better.  Personally, I find that the ways in which my bride has changed have resulted in her growing into a much better version of herself (in Matthew Kelly's words) than she was at the outset of our life together.  But it's also true that many of the changes that are manifest in us are not for the better.  As we grow more at ease in our relationship and let our guard down, we may be more comfortable making choices that don't make for such a positive home environment, that are not such pleasant experiences for the people we love.  Dealing with these sorts of changes in a way that is still nurturing and loving, rather than enabling, presents a whole other set of challenges.

But what about when the changes aren't in my partner, but in me?  For instance, I know people who have come to conclude, after some amount of time in their marriage, that they're interested in things that they mostly don't share in common with their spouse.  Some have reached the conclusion that they've really been attracted to other members their own gender all along.  (While it might not seem as if that's a change, their realization that this is the case certainly is, and would seem an unsolvable obstacle to the preservation of the marital relationship.  Or perhaps the change is more an unwillingness to subjugate that part of themselves to the needs of their marriage partner any longer.  I'm not trying to debate here what is the right resolution to this quandary.)  Even what would seem more beneficial changes can be more disruptive than one might think, depending on the emotional environment in which they occur.  In my own marriage, for a time the development of my spirituality seemed to distance me from my bride, and it took me years to become emotionally ready to deal with the underlying issues between us that this revealed.  In the intervening time I also underwent some very negative changes, which ultimately led to the more positive ones I needed to make all along.

Though sometimes the changes we experience are due to circumstances beyond our control, many of the changes that we undergo are the result of decisions we make - often minor, sometimes monumental.  In either case, consciously deciding how to respond to them within the context of our marital relationship will be the chief thing that determines whether these changes separate us or bring us closer.  I am convinced that if I develop the habit of making these choices in the way that is most loving to my wife, the resulting changes will be facilitate our union rather than obstructing it.

I suppose my point is that change is inevitable in both members of a marriage, and preserving our relationship as we each become very different from the people we were when we made our vows, well, it takes a real commitment to loving each other.  It helps to remember that, no matter how drastic the changes we undergo,  for each of us the soul of our person-hood remains present, hopefully growing into the best version of ourselves along the way.

Learning to love my bride as she and I both experience life's changes is ultimately a great joy.

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