You Can't Change Your Spouse (No Matter How Hard You Try!)

You Can't Change Your Spouse (No Matter How Hard You Try!)

We recently talked with a younger couple about what we’ve learned in our 20 years of marriage. We talked about how life continues to be full of challenges and growth and I shared that it’s been a happy season for us as a couple. My husband jokingly remarked, “Because she’s realized she cannot change me!” We both began laughing because we knew how true his observation was. We are both learning to grow in accepting—rather than desiring to change—each other. There’s a grace in daily living that truly does come from letting go of a desire to change the other.

For any married couple, there are countless differences that can prompt a person to want to change his or her spouse. Maybe her husband is much messier than she is. Maybe his wife wants to live on a prompt schedule that feels rigid and stressful to him. Maybe her husband doesn’t “get” or even seem to notice her emotions. Maybe his wife perpetually interrupts him during conversations. Whatever the annoyance or difference is (and there are probably several), the desire for one’s spouse to change is normal. And it is also usually devoid of grace.

Yet grace for the other—with all their flaws and failings—is one of the most important ingredients of marriage. This week’s featured article, “You Can’t Change Your Spouse—But You Can Change Yourself,” deals honestly with this difficult issue. Dorothy Greco writes that in marriage, “God calls us into the deep waters of otherness.” We may feel we are justified in our desire for our spouse to change—for he or she may have habits that cause irritation, resentment, or even deep hurt. But we are foolish if we think trying to change these differences will bring about good in married life. Inevitably, trying to change the other leads to greater hurt and festering resentment. Greco flips the script, sharing her own wonderings and experience: “But what if I could choose to see my husband’s inability to change as an invitation from God for me to change—to press into my historic wounds and grow so that my peace is not dependent upon someone else’s behavior? This attitude takes me out of the powerless position and into a place of possibility and hope.” May God grant us hope and peace for the coming year as we each love our spouse well—with grace.