Expecting Perfect Behaviour from Imperfect People

A short ebook from my relationship series and blog: "Finding Mr Huggie-Wuggie" that is all about building an outstanding foundation for an outstanding Christian marriage. This ebook contains 8 articles:

Expecting Perfect Behaviour from Imperfect People
"...To put it simply, life presents many challenges.
Some of these challenges could make or break our marriages. So here’s the thing: we know that the people we marry are not perfect when we marry them and will not become perfect over the course of our marriages. And yet for our marriages to survive, our spouses have to consistently make the right choices when faced with these marital “make or break” challenges, as we also will need to make the right choices when we are equally faced with our own challenges.

Anticipating the Pressure Points of Your Marriage
“…I was thinking that in a marriage, the same issues will predictably occur time after time in that marriage, to cause friction, disappointment etc. I was also thinking that for many people, it will be very, very easy to identify what these issues are, or what they will be within marriage, if you are not yet married. Often it will be very straightforward to guess the reactions of our spouses or would-be spouses to different issues, the things that will trigger different responses, insecurities etc…”

To Be Honest…
“… I am starting to think that “romantic” simply means “you and me, together, celebrating our togetherness”. It is also not about buying a package of ready-made romance that someone else has already put together for us, but rather investing our time, our skills, our efforts and our creativity to tenderly, skilfully and painstakingly craft something that is personally meaningful to us…”

Revised Relationship Schedule
“… From observing other people’s marriages, many times I have seen issues crop up which might have been avoided altogether if either spouse, or both of them, had been more deliberate in thinking towards and planning for an excellent marriage before marriage. Possibly the most obvious example of this is when someone is married to a dreadful spouse – rude, inconsiderate, self-centred, lazy, immature, irresponsible – possibly all of the above, possibly even worse. And I think to myself:
“What were you looking at?!”…”

Within the Marriage Itself
“…Sometimes it will happen that we will endure, or overcome, for years, (and years, and years, …even decades) and then surprisingly capitulate, or compromise. This is something that I remind myself of all the time. As a Christian, I need to guard against complacency. Not only that, but I need to keep fighting, keep pressing ahead in Christ, with ever greater determination. I need to keep crying out to God that He would keep me grounded and rooted in Him…”

“…But he’s not a Christian!”
“…But then it finally dawned on me: the reason why I’m always noticing guys who are not Christians, and never seem to notice guys who are Christians, is because guys who are not Christians so vastly outnumber guys who are, and there simply are not that many Christian guys to notice, especially with my fussy criteria about prayer and being biblically grounded! How simple is that?!…”

Being Mrs Huggie-Wuggie!
“… And so I realised – finally – that my task is not to find some guy, and manage to squeeze out huggie-wuggie characteristics from him, where they don’t naturally exist. Rather, my task is to find someone who is also naturally like this, and whose huggie-wuggie level is the same as mine, who also naturally yearns for these things, and values these deep conversations. And that to me was an amazing relevation, although I’m suspecting that it should have been a little more obvious to me…”

And "The Difference Between Love and Lust"