Marriage, like many other areas of life, is not to be entered lightly. Unfortunately,many, if not most marriages do not live up to the expectations that wereanticipated at their beginning. There can be many reasons for this, but we will beexploring three of the top reasons that people who are married are reallydivorced, and what can be done to help correct this problem.We should never have gotten married to begin with.The process of choosing someone we would like to marry is not an easy one. Wedate people to see if we are compatible with each other in a variety of areas.Areas we look for compatibility include food we like to eat, music we like to listento, activities we like to participate in, spiritual practices we like to observe andcultural, or family traditions we like to participate in, to name a few.Other items that are very important comes down to simply how we are wired. Dowe like to touch and be touched, is it important to spend most of our timetogether, do we like to do things for people and have things done for us, do welike to compliment people and be complimented in return, and do we like to givethings to other people and have things given to us, or not.Of course, one last item that is very important is the physical attraction andpassion we have for that person.When it comes to choosing someone we want to marry, we usually do a verygood job with the physical attraction part, and then fail miserably when it comesto the other areas. Physical attraction and passion are very important, howeverwhen that is what the marriage is built upon, it is destined to fail miserably. Noamount of physical attraction and passion can stand up to people who are notcompatible or do not have the same wiring in how they interact with others.In fact, the physical relationship will mask the other issues for a while. Thisusually lasts just long enough for the two people to become very comfortablewith each other, and for the people around them to become comfortable with theidea of these two people being together. When this happens, even though therelationship is not what either hoped for, it has become very comfortable for allconcerned and the thought of hurting the other person, or the people aroundthem makes it too difficult to end the relationship, only to postpone doing so untillater, or choosing to just exist together, which is as if they are not married at all.We want to change them to be like usOne of the interesting things in the process of choosing someone to marry, isoften, we choose someone that is very different than we are. This is actually avery positive thing, if we can still check the other boxes of compatibility andwiring in interacting with others.This desire to choose someone very different than ourselves makes perfect sensewhen we think about it. Each one of us has strengths and weaknesses. Theperson we choose to marry often has the opposite strengths and weaknesses. So,when the two combine in the relationship, their strengths and weaknessescomplement each other, where one is weak, the other is strong, and vice versa.Unfortunately, this is not what usually happens. I had a friend once put it to methis way, “we spend our life looking for someone who is different than we are, tooffset our weaknesses, and after we find them, we spend the rest of our life tryingto change them to be like us”.In our humanness, we have such a desire to be right, or to have our own way. So,even though we know we have a weakness in certain areas, we would ratherargue or fight to be right than to let someone else who is strong in that area beright or have their way.When we choose to argue and fight to be right in areas where we are weak, thenthe marriage is dysfunctional and again will likely end, or just exist, which again isas if they were not married at all.We allow things to become routine.This is one of the biggest issues facing every marriage. There are so many thingsthat come into play with this. First, and maybe foremost, we simply get lazy. Lifeis hard and has many responsibilities. When you are sharing life together, it is soeasy to find a routine that both of you like, that makes life just a little bit easier.There is nothing wrong with this at times, however our tendency is to get intothat routine and never change it.Second, we are simply tired. Our pace of life and all that must be done, can wearus out. If feels good to relax with your mate and to unwind and let the stress ofthe day melt away as you relax together. Again, there is nothing wrong withallowing yourself to recharge your battery, but when this becomes routine, thetiredness turns into boredom and life can start to feel very dull.Third, somehow, we start to think it is more important to take care of theresponsibilities, or the things that come up outside the home, than it is to stayfocused inside the home. The person we are closest to is often the one mosteasily taken for granted, and even though we may not want it to seem that way,we send a clear message of what we think is important when we start taking ourmate for granted.Fourth, we simply get selfish. When we think more of ourselves, we areconcerned with how we feel or what we need, instead of thinking these samethoughts for our mate. When we fall into a pattern of only wanting our needsmet, this becomes a habit and we start a routine that will be almost impossiblefor us to turn around.What can we do to change this?1. Make sure you are compatible with the person you plan to marry.Again, you can be very different people, but you need to be compatible orthe differences will be too much for the marriage to overcome. The simpleparts of life like enjoying meals together, listening to music together,participating in activities together, observing spiritual practices together, orattending cultural, or family traditions together, will not be so simple. Atfirst, you may go through the motions and try to enjoy these together, butover time this will not hold up. You will find that one of you sacrificesyourself to allow you to do things together, or you will end up each goingyour own way and doing these things alone, or with friends instead of yourmate. If you find yourselves arguing and fighting about these things beforeyou get married, you may want to rethink the marriage altogether.Also, make sure you are wired the same way in at least two areas. If youlike to touch and be touched and your mate doesn’t, or if you like to spendtime together and your mate wants to spend time with friends, or if youlike to do things for other people and your mate doesn’t, or if you like tocompliment and be complimented and your mate doesn’t, or if you like togive and receive things and your mate doesn’t, this will be a source ofconflict. You don’t have to match in all the areas, however the two of youshould be similar in the areas most important to you, or you will findyourselves arguing and fighting continually over these areas. Again, if youfind yourselves arguing and fighting about these things before you getmarried, you may want to rethink the marriage.Finally, make sure physical attraction is not the only, and most importantarea you look for. In fact, when you are dating, if you are sensing thatsomething is missing in the relationship, stop doing things physical for aperiod. If physical is the only thing holding the relationship together, it willbecome painfully evident if you stop doing this. As we said before, physicalwill mask issues in the relationship, so if you stop the physical, the otherissues will rise to the top when the mask is removed. Then you can eitherresolve these issues or end the relationship before you get married.2. Stop trying to change your mate.You picked someone different than you for a reason. You were drawn tosomeone because they were different than you. They completed a side ofyou that was lacking. So, quit being self-destructive to the relationship inhaving to be right, or having your own way, and realize that your mateshould have their own way as much as you. If we could only view themarriage relationship as a give and take, then there could be a functionalrelationship where each person’s strengths were maximized, and theweaknesses were minimized. The person who has strengths in certainareas would take the lead in those areas, and the person who has strengthsin other areas would take the lead in those. This will require teamworkwith each side understanding their strengths and weaknesses to know whoshould take the lead in different situations. This simple fact alone canresolve many of the problems most relationships have.3. Do not allow your relationship to become routineThe very existence of your marriage may rely, in large part, to this issue.When you find a routine that both of you like, enjoy it and find pleasure inthis, however don’t become lazy and let this routine become the major partof your marriage. Remember we are human, and as such we are fickle. Weget bored very easily with things that become routine and when we getbored in our marriage, we will look for adventure outside of our marriage.This is a primary reason that affairs occur within marriage relationships.The irony is, that if we were in a marriage relationship with the person wewere having an affair with, we would probably fall into another routine andget bored with them as well. Have we ever thought about having an affairwith the person you are married to? If we put the time and energy it takesto have an affair into the relationship with our mate, we would probably beamazed at the results we would see. Instead of allowing ourselves tobecome lazy and fall into a routine, have an affair with your mate. Not onlywill this add adventure back to the relationship, but it will also add a sparkof creativity and excitement that will keep the marriage vital year afteryear.If you continually find yourself tired and simply wanting to relax together, itmay be time to assess what all you have going on. Again, it is good to findtime to relax together, but if you are run down and always findingyourselves tired, you may need to adjust your schedule. We know thereare seasons of life where it is impossible to stop doing some of the thingswe have to do, however many times we are the ones adding things into ourschedule we would be better off not doing. Look at your schedule and seewhat areas you can eliminate to feel more rested and give more energy tothe marriage. You will find there is more value in scheduling time for yourmarriage than there is in scheduling things outside your marriage that takeyour energy needed to keep your marriage from becoming a tired routine.Along with this thought, realize that nothing outside the marriagerelationship is as important as what is going on inside the marriagerelationship. Do not ever take your mate for granted and see other peopleor things as more important than they are. This is the quickest way to theend of a marriage. Your mate must always be the most important person inyour life. Everything we do must consider them before we consideranything outside the marriage relationship. Every decision we make to putsomething else in front of our mate, communicates to them that they arenot the most important thing in our life. It must be a conscious effort tomake yourself put your mate above everything outside the marriage.This also includes our own selfishness. There is no question we must takecare of ourselves or we will not be able to give to anyone else, but takingcare of ourselves must never be at the expense of our mate. In ourmarriage relationship, we should always think of our mate as importantly aswe think of ourselves. This means that every decision we make will notonly take our desires into consideration, but also our mates. When we dothis, we are always able to come up with better solutions for the marriage.Instead of finding solutions that just meet our own needs, we find solutionsthat meet both our needs and our mates needs. Not only does this makefor a “win/win” solution, it also shows our mate how important they are tous.

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