Living with another human being feels almost impossible at times.   We can continually deal with questions like: Will she ever change? Can he ever see beyond himself? When will my needs be met? Since when is our credit card bill more important than me? But here’s part of the deal… Marriage points out our selfishness rather clearly. Marriage kicks individuality in the butt. Marriage holds us accountable. Marriage exposes our commitment to God and our faith. And marriage has a way of exposing our immaturities.

All of the above can be seen as a huge negative or a huge opportunity for change. Once we realize the truth about this partnership called marriage, we have two choices. We can either dismiss what is being exposed within us or we can embrace it and begin to put into place mechanisms for change. For some, “dismissing” is going to the extreme of ending the marriage and looking for another partner only to eventually be confronted with the very same self-conflicting issues.  But for others, marriage provides an opportunity for God-stretching truth that exposes what’s on the inside of us.  It’s that “inside” part that scares us sometimes and we’d rather keep it hidden. We can accomplish that during engagement perhaps, but not when we spend over fourteen hours a day together.

I suppose it’s that “real us” we’re afraid of letting out. However, God already knows about that real us intimately and most likely so does our spouse. So, go ahead, be real while listening for that voice of change causing you to become a more mature life partner.