Before and After Marriage

I heard a lady say the other day that, "People are different after they get married." On the whole, I could not disagree more with that statement. There are many who would blow me off and say that it is an obviously true phenomenon, but I think they have not looked closely enough at what they believe to be true. I am not unaware that people quite often "put their best foot forward" when they are courting a prospective mate, whether they intend to marry or not. The fact is though, that if one has not had the time to observe their partner's true personality and behavior before marriage, then the courtship was not long enough. Even if one is dating someone who is being totally genuine in their behavior, and one gets married and finds out that things aren't what they thought they would be, the courtship was again, likely too short to gain a real take on, or understanding of the person one was previously dating.

People are pretty much the same after they get married as they were before. The trouble is that too many marriage partners go into a marriage proposal believing that while there may be some things they don't like about their prospective partners, that it will be easy enough to "change" them after they are married. More often than not, nothing could be further from the truth, especially where personality traits are involved. Take the way that people handle problem resolution. The way one handles a problem before one marries, especially large problems, will very likely be the exact same way one deals with problems after one is married. Take for example the person who when confronted with a serious issue, clams up and withdraws into himself and does not communicate. Because he gets married, he will not suddenly change into a person who remains rational and communicative in order to please his spouse. He will stay within the same pattern. Expecting that behavior to change after marriage takes place is a big mistake, based upon unrealistic expectations.

I'm sure I will take some heat for this, but I have seen those types of expectations rationalized far more in the hearts of women than I ever have men. In fact, while I know of plenty of women who thought they would change "their man" after they got married, and failed frankly, I do not know of a single guy who married a woman he thought he would change. Those men may certainly be out there, but I don't know any personally, nor am I acquainted with any.

My advice to Christian ladies would be to have longer courtships, and leave any notion of being able to change a guy behind. If you are searching for that special "someone", you want of course to share the same general values. So allow that someone to be who he is, and make sure he is someone who allows you to be who you are. That is the best way to know that you both will be satisfied with each other after marriage. You and your spouse will want to have a solid understanding of what if means to have and Ephesians 5 type partner. You could not possibly pay too much attention to that.

If your prospective partner has careless, selfish spending habits before marriage, don't expect that to change because they will get married and will suddenly have financial responsibilities to share. If they are hot-tempered before marriage, don't expect the joy and happiness of a one-time glorious marriage ceremony to make that go away. If a man eats, sleeps and breathes cars before marriage and rarely takes his head out from under the engine hood, then don't him to pay more attention to his spouse after the honeymoon is over. If the guy has season tickets to football, hockey and basketball, don't expect his head to be in the marriage game just because you are a good woman.

If marriage is something that you have decided is definitely for you, choose a man, choose a woman who you can talk to, and who obviously wants to be with you and who doesn't run away from trouble or get angry and withdraw, or blow up every time there is a problem. If you don't do that, if you go into a marriage thinking you will be able to change your partner by whatever means, you will likely be in for years and years of disappointment.

In other words, be at peace, and find someone also peaceful, who doesn't need changing.