Book Reviews

What If I Married the Wrong Person?

Dr. Richard Matteson & Janis Long Harris, ISBN 1-55661-664-3, Bethany House Publishers

This book is for every one who is afraid to make a big mistake on their wedding day. It will change how you see yourself, your partner and your marriage. Most people in less-than-perfect marriages feel a duty to stay married, but they also wonder how they can ever survive their painful situation. This book will guide you to rebuilding your marriage (or ideas about marriage) and enable you to restore the intimacy and affection you once felt.

Although the book was written primarily for people who are seriously wondering whether they may have married the wrong person, single adults may find the book helpful in raising issues they might face in a marriage.

Doubts begin with tiny hints and fleeting thoughts. As doubt grows, so does the evidence that you made the wrong choice. Doubt quickly turns into panic which in turn, is often accompanied by depression and the future looks hopeless. You are now faced with three choices – you can get divorced, or you can force yourself to stay in a painful marriage. Or, you can consider the possibility that instead of marrying the wrong person, you created the wrong marriage, and you can take steps to create a new marriage to the same person.

Dr Matteson says “People who divorce in the hope of finding the elusive Right One are often shocked at how much harder it is to meet potential dating candidates, much less marriage candidates, the second time around”.

Before couples or individuals now single again can get help, they need to understand what brought them together in the first place. It is likely that the person you chose to marry fitted some physical, emotional or relational template from the past. Whether we realize it or not, many of us are attracted to people who fill unmet needs left over from a previous stage of life.

The energy, effort and expense people go through to make an impression while dating can put them in a disadvantage later on as it is almost impossible to continue the level of effort, which leads to the shock of a post-marriage awakening. Some common mistakes many devout Christians make during courtship and early marriage are pointed out and discussed.

Couples seldom enter a marriage with negative expectations, but most do with unrealistic expectations. Disappointment may also follow as people and circumstance change. If your expectations are not met, you might conclude that you must have married the wrong person. Some people also underestimate the degree to which children in the house may affect certain aspects of a marriage. Two people may also bring very valid and reasonable, but totally different expectations into a marriage.

When pain, disillusionment and disappointment come into our lives, we often fasten a trait or behaviour to a person close and label the person accordingly. We then treat them in ways that bring out the worst in accordance with that label. Haven’t you helped shape that person who now annoys, hurts or disappoints you into the person carrying that label? How have your own attitudes and behaviour contributed to the situation? The authors help you to identify ways you might be thinking or behaving that emphasizes your partner’s weaknesses or minimizes his/her strengths. These include behavioural patterns such as Mind Reading, Emotional Reasoning, Demands, Short Sightedness, Nagging, Tuning Out, Verbal Abuse, Withdrawal, Disconnecting, Physical Abuse, Neglecting of Priorities, Distancing and Defensiveness.

Did God choose One Right Person for you to marry? Why stay married to the Wrong Person? The person who might seem to be the Wrong Person for you now, might seem like the Right Person at a later stage in your life. Marriages are most vulnerable precisely at the stage when they need to be the strongest. The uncertainty of your choice of a partner is discussed in relation to various stages of life and the fact that responsibilities and opportunities will change as your life together unfolds.

Many marriages are reduced to misery because of unhealthy thinking habits. In the discussion if thinking habits, the authors draw a parallel between marriage and a spiritual journey. The object of a spiritual journey is to develop a closer relationship with God. One of the objectives of marriage is that partners develop a closer bond to each other. This can only be achieved by a continual transformation of our minds and the ways we think in accordance with Romans 12:1. Several types of thinking patterns and the influence on a relationship are discussed.

There is a chance that the cause of your unhappiness isn’t a wrong partner, but a wrong way of thinking about your partner. No one’s perceptions of self or your partner are fully accurate, but certain steps are explained that you can take to bring your thoughts in line with reality. Dealing with your faulty thinking habits are your responsibility, not your partner’s.

While it’s true that love is more than a feeling, one measure of a marriage is the degree to which a couple can maintain a balanced s*xual relationship in which each partner’s needs are met without violating the personhood of either. S*x is much more than giving and receiving physical pleasure. It is a promise that reflects that you and your spouse belong to each other. It is a gift that opens you to vulnerability as well as to pleasure. If you begin to withdraw from your spouse it feels to your spouse like you are breaking a promise. This is also emphasized in 1 Corinthians 7:3-5. At the time a couple most need to start working on ways to regain their sense of closeness, they begin withdrawing from each other. In marriage, friendship skills are the building blocks of intimacy. The most important factors of a satisfying friendship are acceptance, shared activities and shared talk.

Dr Matteson says ”Loving touch between two people who have promised themselves to each other is like the seal and signature on a legal document. Without the appropriate seal and signature, a legal document is null and void. Without physical touching, a marriage is essentially void.” In marriage, affectionate physical contact through touching is an instrument of healing. The greater the stress in a marriage, the more important loving touch becomes.

Successful relationships require an investment of time. During the development of the relationship, the couple plan their time and spend more and more time together. If the couple marry, they need to invest significant amounts of time together in order for their relationship to thrive. Activities such as Monthly Celebrations, Weekly Vacations and Family Time are proposed and discussed. The couples who most need to get away alone, are the ones who find it the most difficult.

All marriages have problems, but in difficult marriages they tend not be solved. Hurts accumulate and leads to resentment and alienation. The authors teach some practical problem solving skills to help you and your partner to improve your relationship. However, the effectiveness of problem solving techniques is greatly enhanced by feelings of closeness, but you can work on both at the same time.

One of the biggest factors that will determine the success of your marriage is how much you can accept about your spouse. Although certain behaviour such as abuse, violence and adultery are totally unacceptable, what is acceptable are based on individual perceptions and may differ from person to person. Most people do have basic traits defining their qualities and characteristics that are unchangeable. A few strategies are given in learning to accept these traits and behaviours. Guidelines are also offered for cases of abusive behaviour.

What’s the purpose of your marriage? There are many practical reasons for getting married, but as marriage unfolds, you will long for a deeper meaning. For any friendship to become serious and lasting, both people in it have to concentrate on what they put into the relationship, not just what they get out of it. The real purpose of marriage is for two people to help each other become the people God created them to be, to sacrificially minister to each other and to grow together in relationship to God, each other and the community.

Dr Matteson concludes his book by stating that soul mates don’t find each other in a single choice to get married, but they create a bond between themselves in their many seemingly insignificant choices of daily living. Becoming real soul mates in part means working together on a relationship with God. By God’s grace, two wrong people can journey toward the right marriage

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