Roadblock #5: “Is this person going to make me happy?”
Action: Ask yourself, “Am I willing to serve them?”
Many couples focus on concepts like “compatibility” when considering whether to tie the knot with their significant other. Are we compatible in temperament? In conflict management styles? In sexual interest? There’s nothing wrong with digging into all of that – as noted in Part 2, we should dig into all those questions and many others! But we also have to realize that “Are we compatible?” is often just another way of saying, “Is this person going to make me happy?”
By contrast, marriage is so often about serving our spouse. Being willing to:
- love and be kind to this person even when they are tired and grouchy
- serve them when they aren’t feeling well and we have a million things to do
- believe the best of their intentions toward us when they agreed to do the dishes in the morning and then ran out the door for work without doing them
As we discovered in The Surprising Secrets of Highly Happy Marriages research, it makes a huge difference to the eventual happiness of the marriage when we are prepared to do all of that and so much more. For example, to think, I guess they’ll do the dishes tonight instead of automatically believing: They expect me to do all the dishes, and don’t care about how much I have to do!
So ask yourself: are you willing to shift your focus from your needs and desires, to theirs? Both are important, of course. But “in sickness and in health” requires a willingness to be other-focused more than self-focused.
(One caveat: A small percentage of people will go into marriage with that sort of goodwill … and discover that they are facing intense challenges such as addiction or abuse. What is required then is a shift to boundaries, caution, and counseling rather than blindly continuing to “try harder to serve them.” In such cases, establishing boundaries often is the best way of serving their spouse, the marriage, and themselves.)
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