He was nothing like this when we were dating. I mean he would send me little notes, hold the car door open and was generally thoughtful about almost everything. Now, I’m not sure I exist in his world, except when he wants sex. I seem to not matter anymore. He is not the man I married.
It would be difficult to count how many times I’ve heard some version of this story, either from a husband or wife. Though the particulars can be different, the storyline is always the same.
He ain’t the guy I married!
And then I let the disheartened spouse know that their season of dating did not really count as far as it being a season of discovering the real person. I tell them something along these lines, in a tongue-in-cheek fashion:
Dating is a brief season, prior to marriage, when both people fake each other out. This is the artificial season where each person puts his/her best foot forward, so to speak. This is the time when each person is being nice to the other in order to win them over. The partners are careful to keep their real selves under wraps until after marriage. If they date for more than a year, the real self can pop out from time to time, be seen for what it really is and then be put back under wraps until after the marriage.
Another advantage of dating is that you can always let the girl go home at the end of the evening. You don’t have to live with her 24/7. My wife and I got along great, for the most part, during our season of dating.
However, after the honeymoon, I woke up the next morning and there she was sleeping in MY bed. I couldn’t send her home anymore. She was at home! I had to live with her, through the good and the bad, for the REST OF MY LIFE!!
From her perspective, she could not get rid of me either. We were stuck with each other. It was far easier to enjoy the benefits of dating, drop her off at the end of a fantastic evening, and go back to my apartment. She goes to her place; I go to my place and we start all over again the next day.
Dating is very convenient, but not really real for most of us because it is possible to navigate through the dating period without ever dealing with the real baggage we all carry around. On the one hand, we selfishly hide our baggage, and on the other hand, love causes us to be blind to the other person’s baggage.
The Tale of Ricky and Lucy
After our honeymoon, our dialogue could have gone like this:
Lucy: What is that?
Ricky: What is what?
Lucy: What is that train with all those baggage cars in tow?
Ricky: That’s my baggage. I never told you about that. I was thinking that if you knew what a jerk I really was, you wouldn’t want to marry me.
The next day…
Ricky: What is that?
Lucy: What is what?
Ricky: There is a long train in our front yard. What is that?
Lucy: Oh yeah, that’s my baggage. You’re not the only one in this relationship with problems. I conveniently forgot to mention this when we were dating.
For better or worse really means for better or worse. Unfortunately, there is a little hypocrisy in all of us and the dating season is one of the most tempting times to disguise the gap between who we really are and the person we present ourselves to be. It can be that artificial season that really doesn’t count.
If the person you’re married to is nothing more than a silhouette of the person you were dating, let’s talk. One of the things you’ll need to come to terms with is the fact that he/she has not really changed. You’ve only gotten to know them better.
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Paula is 18-years old. She is the oldest of four kids. Her parents have been faithful to God all of her life and they are a tight-knit family. Ron, the dad, has taught his kids that they would never date until they are ready for marriage and the right guy comes along. This has never been a problem…
