ACCEPTING MY IMPERFECT SPOUSE
An anonymous reader of this online journal surprised me with an email late in the afternoon yesterday. Still on her middle 20’s (I guess she must have been somewhere between 24-26) and just starting a family with her husband and two-month old daughter, this reader, who revealed she happened to follow the conversation of comments among my Mommy friends in my post prior to this, was intrigued with the way I said “I’ve already accepted the fact that my husband is a not-so romantic person, while I am the opposite”. “How was I able to do that?” and “Did my love for my husband lessened in anyway as soon as I realize his flaws?” she asked.
Wow, what very innocent yet challenging and thought-provoking questions. And the whole time I was trying to compose a reply for her, I was pausing for so many times thinking how I am going to answer her questions truthfully while at the same time imparting on her some words that could help. To someone like me who have been married for six plus years already, others could have thought the questions were very easy to answer as rich experiences throughout married life would suffice to give an equally authoritative and satisfying answer.
However, the truth is, I was in gaps of pondering as I find it hard typing the right words to claim that I can give a good advice. Yes, over the years, married life must have taught me so many lessons already. I must have learned it the hard way most especially the adjustments to domestication (yay, I was a bad cook then, and I was very lousy too in cleaning the house, doing the laundry and ironing clothes), but as I share and journey through life with the husband, I realized domestication was only one of the many aspects.
Just as in motherhood or any other paths of life that one endures, married life is a learning process still. One phase in a marital relationship that I thought I was trapped was discovering the “real him”. Why did I say “real him”? Because, it is so true that no matter how long you’ve been together with a person, your togetherness isn’t enough as guarantee that you very well know the person already. True colors are no more than visibly revealed the moment the wife and the husband lives together.
Jun and I were together for some five years before finally settling down and within those years, regularly going out for lunch and dinner dates made me so familiar already with his eating preferences and habits. Or so I thought. I was very surprised to know that my husband doesn’t eat tuyo (dried herring), a favorite breakfast of mine especially during rainy days. Then later I found out, he has a different way of cooking sinigang—where he prefers using the fresh tamarind or unripe mango as pampaasim while I am satisfied at using the ever-convenient tamarind powder mix. That was just about food. And thankfully, through the years, we learned to adjust and compromise (well, he eventually learned to eat sinigang with the tamarind mix).
Discovering and eventually accepting his imperfections was a different story because all the while, I’d compare my marriage to something I’ve seen in a movie or read about in a novel with blissful plots and endings. There were a number of traits in him which I discovered along the way of our marriage that I was so disappointed and almost regret having married him. I cannot reveal these though here because it’s a matter of also respecting him, but those were unacceptable as for me. “Bakit ba naman ikaw pa naging asawa ko. Kung pwede lang, isanauli na kita sa Nanay mo,” these were my words I always bragged at him at difficult and trying times and through those somewhat hell we went through. And while it is an advice for couples to “never end the day with a fight”, my husband and I were number one violators in the earlier years of our marriage. I’m keeping my pride and so he is with his ego. We were both stubborn and would not even dare make the first move to try and reconcile.
Thankfully, we’re maturing and learning to be in our senses. We are a family anyway and we realized that we have to make our marriage work for the best. Not only for our son, but because we wanted to fulfill our marriage vows to one another.
Never that I can deny, I have an imperfect spouse–a spouse who in some ways, disappoints me, hurts me, frustrates me, and stumbles in so many ways. But neither am I. Because this is the reality of human relationships and like with so many others, our marriage has difficult moments too. This understanding then has given me a great appreciation for my husband, who’s willing to engage in a difficult task with me and even though it can be difficult, he’ll continue to hang in there with me; we confess to each other, we forgive each other, and sometimes we have to learn to forget what each other did.
So there dear reader, I hope I was able to impart some words of wisdom. God bless your marriage!
14 responses so far
nalungkot ako for myself, ndi na tayo sabay 
when...
Hi Feng, so true what you said. Nobody is perfect. And a relationship will never be 100% a bed of roses. Pero it’s up to us to make the most of it, right? To make the best of it. To realize, accept, and compromise, as you’ve said.
Hubby and I both come from different countries, with different upbringings (I’m from a matriarchal, and him from a patriarchal family, so you can imagine the clashes we sometimes have). We have different tastes in food, movies, etc. I love books and he doesn’t care a fiddle about ‘em. I’m super makalat and disorganized (ADHD, hehe) while he is has OCD. and the list goes on, LOL! talagang opposites attract, in our case.
What’s important is that at the end of the day, we TRY to make each other happy and complete. Love is not enough, as they say. You have to work on marriage too =)
hi feng. love the fact that youre able to touch other people’s lives, such that they would want to email you privately for an advice. nakakatuwa. kahit hindi ako ang in-email natutuwa ako for you
this post reminds me of an advice given to me by my mom. ive been married for 7+ years already, yet she keeps telling me there are many things we have yet to discover from each other, and many times in those years, hubby and i have found ourselves agreeing with her. we will eventually uncover imperfections, as you say, but i believe it’s important that we remain committed to this marriage despite the multitude of flaws.
love your post. take care!
Wise words, no doubt about it. I’m sure your anonymous reader will find this insight very helpful. I guess it’s part of the “growing pains” of married life ‘no?
Sabi ko nga sa kaibigan ko during one frustrating event, “the honeymoon period is definitely over”. Hubby tells me all the time he will never give up trying to make our marriage work, and I won’t too. I have been disappointed with him and with myself a lot of times. At 30, I couldn’t believe I can still be very immature.
Marriage is hardwork but then so is love di ba? We’re just sure we want to work with the right person.
pahabol, i love this post!
hi there sheilamarie. *hugs*. grabe ano, what differences we continue to discover with the husbands. like you, my lists goes on and on through time. and when i do discover a trait on him that i do not seem to like, minsan nga naisip ko, “is this the person that i married? para kasing nagbago na sya. he’s not the one i used to know.” but then i thought, hindi lang naman sya ang nagbago, ako rin, as he does comment the same thing re: my ugali. change is definitely inevitable in relationships. yun nga lang, it’s when changes don’t go the way we wanted it that we get disturbed.
hello ladycess. really, i was very surprised with much delight with the email of the anonymous reader (just when i was surprised about a friend of Mommy T and Baby T who regularly reads this journal). i just hope i was able to impart some words that could help.
kung tutuusin, you and hubby have passed through what they call “the initial 7 years of test” which is the most crucial. but still, there are a lot more to discover on your journey together as husband and wife, as advised by your Mom. and as experienced, she’s right. i have a friend who once confessed with me and another friend of ours. sabi nya she’s having a hard time handling her marriage. sabi naman nung friend ko, “of course, mahirap talaga ang buhay mag-asawa, hindi mo na kailangan sabihin sa akin yan, masyadong ng redundant”. it took us a while before the statement sinked through our senses. pero tama sya. wala namang marriage na madali. the more important thing i guess, is that the husband the wife try their best to make the marriage work.
auee hello. gusto ko ng maiyak dyan sa sinabi mong honeymoon is definitely over. dahil sa aming mag-asawa matagal na ring over.
sabi nga nung friend ko eh, sila daw nung mister nya at the earlier part of their marriage eh parang manga mag-boypren and gelpren pa kung magsabihan ng 143, at as in kahit pinagpapawisan na sila sa init eh magkayakap pa rin sila (oh, bawal ng greenminded, i’m referring to the mushy huggings and cuddlings lang ha). pero now that matagal na silang mag-asawa, ayun, naiirita na daw sya kapag naka-lingkis sa kanya asawa nya, lalo na ngayon, sobrang init ng panahon dito sa Pinas.
oh well, most often the quarrels and disagreement spices up a marriage. the good part about it is, in the end, the wifey and hubby make up for some lambingan and sweetness. and yup, agree with you, marriage is hardwork. salamat at you love this post. sana naka impart tayo sa reader with some words of wisdom kahit kaunti.
Hi! I like this post very much. Nobody’s perfect as we all know it. Maybe some husbands are not born romantic but I’m pretty sure what they lack in some areas, they compensate in other things. Maybe they are very diligent husbands, very good providers, very supportive, etcetera. And sometimes, they just communicate their being “romantic” differently, not the way we want it or the way we expect it. But as long as we feel they love us their own way, that should suffice I guess.
The differences I believe, as long as handled well, make us grow as partners. We learn from each other. Same with each other’s imperfections, we learn to be more accepting and be more patient. Madaling sabihin I know pero habang pinagdadaanan yung adjustment period, it’s really hard. Parang mas madaling mag-give up. Kaya mahalaga talaga yung maturity as the marriage progress. But then once “over” the acceptance period, all of them are lessons well taken and experiences we are ready to impart to our children or in this case, an anonymous letter sender. I’m sure the letter sender learned a lot from your post.
hi Lynn. salamat you also liked the post. And yeah, you hit it right. ang asawa di ko naman talaga romatic, but I’m proud to say that he’s really a very responsible haligi ng tahanan, a very good provider that is. agree with you, i believe that must have been his way of making us feel that he loves us so much.
re: growing as partners–napakasarap isipin na after going through the rough times ie. adjustment period, discovery of revealing traits, and accepting the flaws, the husband and the wife learns their lessons, be more matured and grow old together.
with all your comments and inputs here, we have helped the anonymous reader, i’m sure of that.
have a blessed Sunday Lynn.
I should learn how to do that.. accept the imperfections..nice one..
hello luisa. accepting the flaws–it’s a learning process really.
By the way, there’s this book I’m reading right now His needs, Her needs: Building and Affair-Proof Marriage by Dr. Willard Harley, Jr.
It’s a very good book that provides some wise insights on how to meet each other’s emotional needs.
hi, feng! thanks for the warm welcome on PMN! ikaw naman, magpakita ka na, don’t just lurk
i love this post. i was talking to a friend of mine recently and she seemed to have realized that she — like most people — “settled”, and that she feels it shouldn’t be the case, that she’s shortchanging her husband. it’s sad.
i was telling her that with me and my husband, it’s always been trying to compensate for the other. like when i was in highschool and he was so major in love with me (and i wasn’t with him!! hahahahaha!), he would always say that he’d have love for the both of us, if i didn’t have enough for him.
i learned to reciprocate later on because he isn’t as romantic as i wish he’d be, and be romantic for the both of us.
i agree with you though, it’s a learning process.
while i’m at it, i’ll link you up, okay?
hello May. hmm, sound an interesting book. is that available in amazon? i’ll check it out later. i’m particularly interested in “the wise insights” on how to meet each other’s emotional needs. for me, my constant companion is Communication: The Key to Your Marriage by H. Norman Wright.
salamat at you loved the post. you’re friend is not alone, actually, that’s what most wives feel. we want them to please us always that sometimes, we’re shortchanging our husbands already without even noticing it.
jencc, hello there! haha, so now i’m delurking. definitely OK to link me up. thanks so much.
and yup, agree with you, the husband and the wife should compensate for one another though sometimes, it feels good to think na the better half loves you more–more than you are to him.
give and take is the key. 
glad to know you and hubby aren’t giving it up to still be romantic. hay, married life is a learning process indeed.
good, Feng, for accepting hubby’s flaws–di ba he also accepted yours? LOL
but it’s true, we are not perfect, the humans that we are, we have flaws. and that is true love–accepting the other person for what he/she is.
God bless you and your family!
hello mommy dine. thanks for dropping by. agree with you, accepting the person 100% is the key.