In the vast field of marital experience, the first challenge that raises its head is that of mutual adaptation between spouses. Adapting! A complex process, difficult to explain, full of twists and unexpected turns. Simplifying, let’s say it is a process of integrating the spouses with their different personality traits to avoid conflicts and live together in harmony.
Let’s use a metaphor. I am a tree with branches spread out like arms, in all directions. You are also a tree, open with abundant and thick branches. There is a danger that our branches might collide and sparks might fly, and that, in the fire, our love could be reduced to ashes under the cover of night.
How many centimeters should you cut and how many centimeters should I cut so that our branches don’t hurt or damage each other, and the health of love remains preserved?
To adapt to each other, both spouses need to trim down many centimeters, to let go of certain personality traits. Therefore, husband and wife, dying to themselves a little every day, will gradually adjust to each other, integrating each other into their different personality profiles to reach full harmony.
This assumes that each spouse turns on the lamp of self-criticism and accepts, without shock, the critique of the other spouse, giving them at least the benefit of the doubt, that is, asking themselves if there might be some truth, and to what extent, in what the other says. Otherwise, a serious threat looms on the horizon: that instead of adapting to each other, one stubbornly insists that the other adapt to them in every moment and in all nuances.
It is said that the journey of married life is long; and when, along this long path, the first congenital flaws, previously unknown begin to appear -those silences that are worse than shouts, those bitter outbursts of wounded pride- who can avoid confrontation? It would be difficult due to the different personality traits.
Public opinion attests that this spouse’s personality is marked by remarkable maturity, but no one notices certain areas of immaturity that remain hidden from people’s eyes. In practice, it means that this spouse is usually reasonable and even pleasant in their behavior, but at the least expected moment, that typical reaction of their personality, stemming from those remnants of immaturity, will show. If at that moment the other spouse interacts with them, there is no doubt that there will be friction and sparks will fly. Everyone, even the more balanced individuals, needs to go through the circle of adjustment.
In ordinary behavior, sometimes certain traits prevail, and at other times, others do, depending on health situations, emotional state, ups and downs, vitality, metabolic processes, work activities…
Certain traits (whether positive or negative) are stubbornly present in overall behavior, although sometimes their expression depends on external stimuli.
Adapting also means smoothing out, wearing down, or softening those traits that make the spouse uncomfortable in daily life.
It is the same person, who has to stay alert to notice which of their traits annoy their partner and become aware to decide which branches to prune, which edges to smooth, where to control impulses, when to stay silent, where to give in… And all of this amounts to dying oneself. Dying, in this case, means loving, love or sacrifice, objectively. If this journey from one side of the river to the other- from emotional love to selfless love- isn’t made, there will be shipwrecks.
Taken from the book: “The Happy Marriage,” Chapter IV: Selfless Love; subtitle: “Adapting”, by Father Ignacio Larrañaga.
