5 Things I Wish I’d Known Before I Got Married

Both of our sons got married this year, and we couldn’t be happier with who they chose. We were confident that these amazing women were good fits for our boys and that our sons were ready for this new adventure. However, we also know that they don’t know what they don’t know. Getting married comes with many challenges, some of which they expect and likely other things they don’t.

A few years ago, I read a great book by Love Languages guru, Gary Chapman titled: 10 Things I Wish I’d Known Before We Got Married. Many things resonated with me and I have since recommended the book to several engaged couples. Recently, I wrote a shorter version that lay closer to the particulars of my own experience. I offer this to other young couples who are also headed into that mystical land of “matrimony”.

Disclaimer: This is unashamedly written from a “guy’s” point of view using my own experience as a young husband. I think, men often need more help understanding the subtleties of relationships. However, some of the same concepts may likely apply to young wives as well. I will let the women translate this as needed for their own experience.

What I Wish I Knew When I Got Married

My wife’s differences are gifts to embrace, not thorns to pull.
I think that it is common to discover that some of the things most attractive about your spouse can become the biggest sources of irritation after you begin the journey of trying to live as “one.”

The instinct when you get comfortable enough to share your true feelings is to try to change your wife to be more like you. Your way of doing things makes much more sense and seems to work. So, if you could just convince her to try it your way, she would appreciate your “superior” gift of wisdom and insight.

The problem of course is that she is thinking the same thing. She wants to change you. So, here the war begins. You hope to win most of the battles till she eventually agrees that “you” had it right all along, but unfortunately, this doesn’t usually happen, especially if you marry a strong woman who is intelligent and capable in her own right.

Like the profound tale of the “North-going Zax and the South-going Zax, neither of whom would remove from their tracks,” you will stay locked in a stalemate until you find another approach.

It took me way too many years to try a different approach. Rather than working hard to try to convince Diana of her foolishness, I began to embrace the wisdom and beauty of her unique perspective.

I knew that she often had opinions that contained grains (sometimes even whole silos full) of truth. Fighting her did not seem to persuade her anyway. So, If I tried to intentionally learn from her and her “crazy” perspective, then she was somehow more pleasant to engage with. It was almost as if she liked being appreciated and respected. Go figure.

Then I started to notice a strange pattern. When I focused on the positive value of her ideas, rather than tearing them apart, she became more open to being persuaded about mine. As I let her change me, she was far more open to change herself.

Over dinner on our anniversary a few years ago, we posed the question, “How have we been changed by each other?” We were able to go back and forth with examples for a long time, appreciating the significant, positive changes from our younger selves. It turned out that we had changed each other in many ways, not by pulling the thorns, but by embracing each other gifts.

I discovered that my wife was not my adversary, but my tutor.
When you are married to a woman, you are married to her family.
I intuitively knew that a whole new set of parents, cousins, and weird uncles come along with a wife. What I didn’t fully appreciate was how ridiculously important they were to her. It was almost like they had been in her life longer than I had.

I put in my time and went to the required family events and visits. In general, I even liked them. But I didn’t know how important those new relationships were for me. If I didn’t build a healthy connection with one of her relatives, then it reflected on her. If I was rude or disinterested to someone in her family then the impact was like I had been rude to Diana directly. The hurt and rupture was serious.

I still remember one time before visiting her grandmother, Lottie, Diana remarked “You know, Grandma doesn’t think you like her.” I was taken aback. I had not said or done anything overtly mean or rude. However, the truth was that I hadn’t engaged with her, asked questions, or stayed present with her stories. My attitude was to just endure the visit and get on to something I was more interested in.

I was more intentional the next time we visited Grandma and tried to be fully present. She seemed to warm up to me, Ironically, I seemed to enjoy it more. I also found that embracing the family gatherings and releasing Diana to give lots of time to family that came into town was another way to make her feel loved.

Finally, I found that learning as much as I could about my wife’s family traditions, stories, and characters provided valuable insight into the many complex layers that made her who she was. The more I understood this world, the more skillfully I could love her.
I love my wife when I love “her” home.
I think for most women, the home is an extension of herself. How the house is decorated and kept is a reflection of her identity or even her sense of her own beauty and value.

When we were newly married, I had no concept of how closely my wife connected the house to herself. I loved our house, worked on it, and took some pride in improvements (mainly outside stuff), but it certainly didn’t reflect on me. If the house was a mess and people were coming over, then it didn’t mean that “I was a mess.” So, the house was a little out of order – no big deal. For her, it was humiliating.

In general, when Diana asked me to pick up and clean in our early years, I just heard “my mom” asking me to do some “chores.” I might do a few things, but the to-do list never seemed to end. I would get frustrated and complain and she would get angry. It never ended well.

I don’t know how long it took, but I eventually grew up and stopped thinking I was a “child being mothered.” The key was when I started to understand that valuing the order and cleanliness of the house was one of the best ways that I could express love to her. When the house was beautiful, she felt beautiful. When the house was in order, she felt in order. I stopped having to do my “chores” and started delighting in blessing her by valuing what she valued.

Not surprisingly, when I stopped acting like a child. She stopped having to treat me like a child. Instead of nagging I heard appreciation. And the more I was appreciated, the more I wanted to do things that pleased her.

One final helpful idea was understanding that our house was her domain. If she thought we needed new throw pillows, even though we could throw the old ones just as far, then we needed throw pillows. If she wanted to rearrange the perfectly arranged furniture, then rearrange we shall.

I eventually came to understand that she was pretty good at making things pretty. That was one of the reasons I fell for her. She had a heart for hospitality, making things lovely and inviting to family, friends, and strangers alike. It was a tangible way that she could demonstrate love to others. And she loved having a partner to help her do it.
I love my wife when I set boundaries on work and distractions.
I have discovered that I seem to possess a bit of an obsessive-compulsive personality. One of my strengths is that I can stay focused on one thing for an absurd length of time.

This is one reason why I have found some success in various leadership roles. I have set goals of building a youth group or track team and work on them from every angle with reckless abandonment. The drive is from somewhere deep, and far more intense than the simple pride and satisfaction of meeting basic expectations. I want to create something amazing. I am willing to pull out all the stops to do it.

When it comes to relationships, the problem is that this intense and incessant goal-focus creates distance. Tim Keller called this a pseudo-spouse. The Bible calls it an idol. God calls us to devote ourselves to our wives and Him over all other things.

I never thought anything was more important to me than my wife and children. That was my heart. But my attention, or lack thereof, told a different story. My busyness and goal focus shouted, “I have more important things to think about and do!”

My youth pastoring days were both exhilarating and exhausting. I kept coming up with cool new events to add to the program and the group kept growing, which just added more work. It was exciting. The ministry was thriving, and my sense of purpose was deeply satisfied.

Yet our marriage was dying. The really sad thing was that I didn’t even know there was a problem until my wife refused to help with the youth group anymore. She also told me that she was unhappy with our marriage.

I was shocked and devastated. “But, I love you”, I protested, “How can you not be happy?”. I somehow believed that the good feelings and intentions of my heart were enough. I didn’t understand that the engine of love only runs on the fuel of time and attention. Take either one away and love starves.

I had neglected both time and attention. I was so busy with teaching, coaching, and youth pastoring that there was little room for family. But perhaps more damning was that I was not present even when I was home. My mind was elsewhere.

There were kids with problems, logistics to work out, and issues to solve. I was trying to demonstrate the love of God by devoting myself to a bunch of needy teenagers, meanwhile, my wife was lonely, depressed, and angry at her distracted husband.

In addition to this neglect, I also modeled to my children a workaholic lifestyle. I am proud that every one of them is a hard worker. The downside though, is that they may have not learned healthy balance and boundaries.

It is a good thing to work hard. It is also a good thing to play hard and rest well. It is even better to be fully present with those we love most – to listen well, to save space to just talk, laugh, cry, or hold them when they cry.

To do that, we need to limit our work. We need to keep work at work and keep reasonable work hours. That concept was perhaps easier to follow back in the days when a man clocked in and out at the factory. But the modern man working remotely and digitally lacks such natural boundaries. So, the boundaries have to be constructed and maintained on your own. A failure to do so has been the ruin of many marriages.

The Cell Phone Invasion

These days, one of the most common hindrances in relationships is the intrusion of our phones. It is painful to go out to restaurants and see a couple dining a few feet apart but with minds held captive in other worlds. On occasion, that couple has been us, before we come to our senses and put the darn things away. When I go out with your wife, I want to date her, not my phone! She may not know quite as much as my smartphone, but she is a lot nicer to hold.

For some, phone use is a literal psychological addiction, complete with dopamine hits with every click and rising anxiety every minute it is not checked. The overuse of this tool can be a hindrance to productivity when alone but can be downright hurtful, annoying, and rude when it becomes a distraction during conversations.

As a counselor, I have to discipline myself to ignore alerts and not check my phone during sessions. Probably the most therapeutic thing I do with my clients is to give them undivided attention. To do that I need to be fully present.

Once in a while, I get bored during a session and I am tempted to do a little check of my phone. I can even justify it as being so quick that the client will believe I am still listening. But the truth is that I am sending a message to them that I have more important things on my mind than what they have on their mind. And that message is not only unprofessional but the antithesis of love.

It also took me a long time to learn that my wife longs to have me fully present to just listen. Besides the cell phone interference, I can be easily distracted by all of the little squirrels running around my head. I can hear every word she says with my ears, yet my brain is tracking other things.

I often have to intentionally tune my mental radio to her station and keep it there. To do so requires giving active feedback, asking probing questions like a good reporter, and offering expressions of empathy.

Body language

It’s also possible to be fully engaged mentally, yet give nonverbal signals that send the opposite message. So, it’s important to physically turn toward her and maintain good eye contact. If I do a good job with the physical cues, she will still feel supported even if my mind tends to wander off occasionally.

Keep Dating

A final way that I can balance our relationship and distraction is to continue to have regular dates and periodically go on getaways or extended vacations.

The truth about being married is that it is never static. The relationship is always either growing or declining. There is a continual need to set aside time to connect and enjoy each other. It is too easy to take each other for granted and become two ships drifting apart. Those regular dates and shared adventures have a way of renewing the emotional intimacy that we once felt.
The more you work at being married, the better you get!
Marriage is a little like my high school sport of cross country. I loved cross country because it was challenging. I loved it because of the relationships. It made me a better person, both physically and mentally. But I also loved how the sport allowed people of average talent to become pretty good if they dedicated themselves to working hard.

I think men often get married thinking that he is talented enough to be successful at this venture just by showing up. He thinks he is generally a good guy and that his bride is clearly more amazing than he is. In addition, the two of them have come to that ultimate state of enlightenment called “being in love.” So, what in this match made in heaven could possibly go wrong?

The reality is that the prospect of two individuals becoming one without a lot of sweat and tears is similar to a fifteen-year-old couch potato expecting to win his first cross-country meet. The commitment and desire might be there, but the experience and fitness are not.

Most married couples agree that marriage is hard, not because it is bad, but because the joy of deep intimacy only arrives after a great deal of work. There can be happiness in the early years of being married. Yet, as the iron strikes the other iron day after day, sparks will surely fly.

Rather than confirming the essential goodness of your character, getting married tends to expose your weaknesses. In fact, you may have gotten away with some rough edges your whole life of singleness. But others didn’t have to put up with you 24/7 for a lifetime, so they didn’t call you out.

Your spouse, on the other hand, will let you know when you are irritating or selfish, not because she doesn’t love you, but because she does. She believes in you enough to also believe that you can become even better.

The normal thing to do with this negative feedback is to be defensive – to take this as rejection. The mature thing though is to be humble enough to accept the criticism and embrace the need to change. Humility not only says, “There are things I know I need to change. But there are also areas I am not even aware of.” Humility is grateful for the one who reveals the blind spots.

Like cross-country, copious amounts of intentional effort in your marriage will produce improvement. Outliers author, Malcolm Gladwell suggests 10,000 hours is needed for mastery. However, being successfully married may require more like 10 x 10,000 hours.

Perhaps that is why the length of most marriages is around 5–10 years. That is the stage when both of you are tired of walking on eggshells and are losing patience with the quirks and idiosyncrasies of the other. It may also be the point when you realize that your spouse is not changing as easily as hoped.

Some couples give up at this point, thinking “I guess we made a mistake, since all our efforts are only making it worse.” Many others stay together, but only by gritting their teeth and settling for a silent truce that reduces the fighting as well as the intimacy.

However, the couples who believe in the promises of God will hang on to the hope that two can become one. They will maintain a growth mindset and keep on fighting for love, believing that they can eventually get there.

Research confirms that the later years of being married (20+) are the best yet. I believe that it may take that long for each spouse to finally kill off a large measure of their own selfishness. It may also take that long to learn the art of loving each other – deeply listening, carefully responding and fully appreciating the wonderful gift and unique creation that the Lord has given.

Though Diana and I still get into arguments, even some with intense anger, we are getting better at identifying our sins and offering forgiveness. Now, the conflict usually leads to greater understanding and growth.

We can’t imagine not being married to each other.

We have reached the stage where we often finish each other’s sentences, know the exact little gesture that will bring a smile, and believe that we somehow won the marital jackpot. In our 64+ years of life, we have experienced many wonderful things, but nothing is more deeply satisfying than this intimate, spiritual friendship.

There is no person we would rather be around. We can laugh till we cry or sit silent for hours just as easily. We have listened to the same songs, read the same books, shared the same adventures, and of course raised the same children for nearly forty years.

What we are experiencing now, is what I think everyone longs for. Though the journey has been far harder than we expected, it is also more beautiful than we could have ever imagined. I think what we are experiencing is something close to what God envisioned for Adam and Eve. It does not come naturally, but with God’s help, it is possible.

This is what can happen when we lean on Him and over time learn the sacred art of loving each other well.

A dozen years ago, I read The Meaning of Marriage by Tim and Kathy Keller. This one book so stirred my soul that it led to a career change and passion that produced numerous ventures like this article. One of Tim’s most famous quotes is found here as he describes the beautiful potential of the experience of being married.

To be loved and not known is comforting, but superficial. To be known and not loved is our greatest fear. But to be fully known and truly loved is, well, a lot like being loved by God. It is what we need more than anything.