When Your Spouse Irritates You

If you entered marriage believing that you could merge lives effortlessly, the first thing you need to do is change your expectations. The truth is, living together requires many adjustments.

Remember this is not like trying to put up with a college roommate or the person splitting the rent in your apartment, where you can choose to ignore minor irritations or strange habits until the end of the lease. This is your life partner, the one you vowed to stay with until death. And not just stay together, but build an intimate relationship. This week we'll talk about bringing two lives together in harmony.

You found out he snores like a lumberjack. She squeezes the toothpaste in the middle. He thinks Burger King and laser tag are the ingredients of a romantic evening. She sings the wrong lyrics to every song on the radio.

The key to working through such irritations is to keep them in their proper perspective.  Don't turn molehills into mountains.  There is so much about each other that made you fall in love with each other, focus on these things when the little annoyances seem to become big annoyances.

Too many couples view marriage as the finish line of their relationship. They work and work to make it to their wedding day, then sit back and wait for "happily ever after" to begin.  If you didn't enter marriage with a strategy for keeping the relationship alive then you're in trouble. The wedding is the first step, not the final one. To make your relationship work over the long haul, you need to put the same kind of time, energy, and effort into it after the wedding that you did when you were dating.

How did you act when you were dating?  Did you give gifts?  Did you always make sure that you had quality time for each other?  What are some ways that you can keep that love for each other alive beyond the "in love" feelings?

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