Dear Compatible Husband Made Just for Me,
You don’t exist.
In their article You Never Marry the Right Person (actually an excerpt taken from their book, The Meaning of Marriage), Tim and Kathy Keller say, “No two people are compatible.”
Many men and women would agree that compatibility is an appropriate criteria to look for in a potential spouse. I would say that, too, until the Keller article challenged me to think a bit more deeply about what I actually meant when I have said: “We just weren’t compatible.” One definition of compatible is: “Able to exist or occur together without problems or conflict” (Oxford Dictionaries).
Seeing that we as humans work with, befriend, date, give birth to, and look in the mirror at flawed people who cause all sorts of conflicts, we surely can’t expect to marry someone who is the exception. Some of you may be thinking, “Well yeah, that goes without saying.” I agree, but do my expectations and behavior in relationships reflect that belief? Not always…sometimes I expect the other person to meet my needs in a way they cannot. The Kellers say,
Some people in our culture want too much out of a marriage partner. They do not see marriage as two flawed people coming together to create a space of stability, love and consolation…Rather, they are looking for someone who will accept them as they are, complement their abilities and fulfill their sexual and emotional desires.”
It’s kind of like playing a very frustrating game of Hide and Seek. You look all over for the other person without knowing that they stopped playing an hour ago to go home for dinner. Perhaps many of us are looking for someone who isn’t even there. So, maybe what we are looking for is not compatibility but complimentary, which means “combining in such a way as to enhance or emphasize the qualities of each other” (Oxford Dictionaries).
I think Elisabeth Elliot would agree as she says that God made males and females to be “complementary opposites.” Men and women were created to enhance each other’s unique characteristics. However, we cannot be in relationship together without experiencing some conflict and disappointment. That isn’t meant to sound cynical, though. Expecting conflict, differences and disappointment in relationships can help us prepare for them, work through them and, in affect, build a firm foundation. The other option would be to split at the first sign of incompatibility.
Stanley Hauerwas is quoted in the article saying this,
Destructive to marriage is the self-fulfillment ethic that assumes marriage and the family are primarily institutions of personal fulfillment, necessary for us to become “whole” and happy. The assumption is that there is someone just right for us to marry and that if we look closely enough we will find the right person. This moral assumption overlooks a crucial aspect to marriage. It fails to appreciate the fact that we always marry the wrong person.”
Alas dear, imperfect, potential Husband, we will not be perfectly compatible and we will never fulfill each others’ deepest needs. Even though I know that, I sometimes may still expect you to be something you were never made to be…because I am an imperfect, work-in-progress, too.
