I was frustrated. It felt like my wife and I kept having the same arguments repeatedly. Sometimes it was about how she felt: I didn’t listen to her. Other times, we couldn’t get on the same page about money. I’d think we were making headway, and then we’d fall back into the same fight. For a while, I secretly blamed her. I didn’t say that out loud, but internally I just assumed it was all her fault. After all, I was doing everything I knew to do. Eventually, however, I came to realize that, to my amazement, a good bit of the blame lay at my feet. I was making some significant marriage mistakes.
Of course, making mistakes is inevitable. But some mistakes are more difficult to spot than others. Here are 7 major marriage mistakes that can be easy to slip into, but are destructive to a marriage.
1. Model your marriage after someone else’s.
One of my early marriage mistakes was copying my friends’ marriages. As we told each other stories about interacting with our wives, I would copy the ideas that worked for them. The problem, of course, was that we weren’t them. For example, I had a friend who said he kissed his wife goodbye every morning as he left for work. This sounded like a great idea. So, even though I knew our young kids often kept my wife up at night, I began kissing her goodbye every morning, waking her up. Even though she’d let me know she didn’t love this, I continued for a while until finally she was clear: “Stop waking me up!” She shouldn’t have had to get upset. I had to learn to listen to my wife, not my friends.
We all learn from other people, and that’s good. But each marriage is unique. And the way to communicate love to your wife is to learn what love looks and sounds like to her.
2. Get busy.
I find it easy to get busy. Whether it’s planning things with friends, saying yes to extra work projects, offering to coach the team for my kid, or identifying house projects regularly, it’s easy to fill my time. However, the thing about building a strong marriage is that you actually need time. No marriage flourishes when all you can manage is a daily 10-minute conversation over dinner.
There may be seasons of busyness, of course, but if we want a marriage that thrives, we need to fight off busyness. Down time together isn’t a luxury; it’s a necessity.
3. Don’t ask for help with money.
Many marriage mistakes revolve around money. In our culture, there is a lot of pride and shame attached to how we handle our finances. This makes it difficult to ask for help, which is exactly what we need to do when we’re struggling! As a result, according to a National Survey of Families and Households, financial disagreements are actually the strongest disagreement type to predict divorce!
It’s critical to seek help if you and your wife are struggling with money. Take a class together, call a mentor, see a counselor. Do something to bring your money struggles into the light so that you can begin to deal with them before they cause lasting damage.
4. Isolate.
Isolation is deadly for individuals, but it’s just as harmful for a couple. While your marriage is unique, it’s not an island. And you need people who are for both of you. Find friends who don’t let you get away with complaining about your wife, but challenge you to work at growing. Find friends who will walk with you when times are hard and celebrate with you when they’re great. These don’t need to be peers. In fact, if they’re a generation older, it might be better. Older couples have been through it and can speak with authority and understanding.
Not every couple needs to be social butterflies, but every couple needs other people who love and care about them. Work to build community.
5. Avoid conflict.
Early on in our marriage, I was so allergic to conflict that I literally could not rest if there was any disagreement between us. This resulted in my mostly avoiding anything and everything that could cause conflict. This basically meant that I ceased to have individual thoughts or wants and did all I could to cater to my wife. Instead of bringing us together, however, this aversion to conflict stunted our growth, creating an environment in which my wife didn’t really get to know me; she just knew the “me” I presented.
Every healthy relationship has conflict. Lean into it. Do so with humility and grace, but don’t avoid it. Conflict is a catalyst for growth.
6. Keep secrets.
Secrets can be deadly to a marriage. It’s not just that the thing you’re hiding is bad, but once the secret is out, there’s a breakdown in trust that is painful. And if you manage to be good at keeping the secret, it forms an invisible wedge, driving you further from your wife. It’s a lose-lose proposition.
Practice transparency. Allow your wife to have access to all your passwords. Make sure your wife knows your friends. Leave your phone sitting around. Have your computer monitor in a public space. Your wife should feel confident that you have nothing to hide.
7. Win the fight.
Admittedly, it’s fun to win the fight. Dunking on your wife can be satisfying. However, it can also be destructive to your relationship. When your goal is winning rather than understanding, you’ve missed the point. If you and your wife are a team, the point isn’t winning but growing together.
Argue to understand, not to win. Fighting is inevitable, so learn to do it in a way that when you finish, regardless of who “wins,” your wife feels like you are on the same team.
Sound off: What other marriage mistakes do we often make?
Huddle up with your wife and ask: “What’s something I could better in our relationship?”