Stop Looking for the Perfect Spouse

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If I asked you to write down all the qualities or criteria of your perfect spouse, what would be on it?

At one point in my life it would have looked something like this for myself: petite, bubbly, sweet, kind, cute as a button, musically talented, athletic, a great cook, a dancer who likes to read and have in-depth conversations, is consecrated to Jesus through Mary, is Catholic, from the South, and knows how to make a good gumbo.

I'm sure some people just gave the most epic eye roll of all time at my former qualities of a perfect spouse. Why? Because that person I imagined all those years ago probably does not exist. Well, she did kind of exist, at least in my mind, but not in reality.   

Utterly absent from my list were all the human imperfections along with most admirable character traits. Was my perfect spouse going to be selfless, always 5 minutes early, bad at board games, and/or have a great deal of wisdom? Perhaps there were some things assumed that never made it on my list. However, I still hold that this person was more of a figment of my imagination than real flesh and blood. She was my image of perfect.

"Perfect is the enemy of the good," or at least that is how the saying goes.

It is a phrase often quoted in the business world as a principle that it is better to be 80% good and finished than 100% perfectly not started. The "perfect" in this sense is having unrealistic expectations about something to the extent that it damages the project. I should know, as I am a recovering perfectionist and have found that when I have these unrealistic expectations of perfection, one of four things happens:

  1. It prevents me from starting something because it won't be perfect.
  2. It allows me to blame others or make excuses for specific problems that are my own.
  3. It prevents me from finishing what I started.
  4. It robs me of my enjoyment and plants a fear of being judged in my mind.

Have we formed in our minds the perfect date, girl, guy, significant other, or spouse so that we:

  1. Don't try to date (or don't take dating seriously)?
  2. Blame others for our lack of dating success (girls blaming guys or guys blaming girls)?
  3. Don't follow through to completion (ghosting, dismissing the other person too quickly)? 
  4. Don't begin because our date won't measure up to what others think (family, friends, Hollywood, Instagram)?

In other words, have we allowed the idea of our perfect date or spouse to hinder our dating life and search for our future spouse, to the extent that we perpetually find a problem with every person we date? (For example, I once taught a student who had a list of over 150 desirable traits for their future spouse!)

On the flip side, there is also the risk that instead of dating someone for who they are, we date them because they fit our perfection "fantasy."

In this scenario, we can become so enamored by dating someone who meets our checklist of the "perfect person" that we risk ignoring potential red flags because the fantasy of perfect has unknowingly become an idol in our lives.

For example, you may need to ask whether this person is:

  1. Asking you to act contrary to your morals?
  2. Not respecting your boundaries?
  3. Trying to isolate you from your family and/or friends? 
  4. Mocking your hobbies or trivializing them?
  5. Showing no interest in your interests and is unwilling to learn or support you in them?
  6. Interested in you for only one or two shallow reasons (money, looks, flashy lifestyle, status, an extensive library of books)?
  7. Forcing romance when there isn't any, or comes on too strong?
  8. Not encouraging you to exercise your faith?
  9. Someone who is persistently selfish and doesn't do anything for anybody?
  10. Someone those closest to you might be expressing reservations about or trying to warn you about? 

So, what should you be looking or?  

The first step is to take that list of red flags and frame it positively.

You will have a great start, or you will at least be a lot closer to your real goal, which is to discern a vocation to marriage, and whether your vocation to marriage is to a specific person.

God asks us to discern whether we are called to marriage with a particular person, not with a specific "perfect" fantasy.

Does all of this mean that by not chasing the perfect, we are "settling?" Absolutely not. It is essential to have standards and expectations; however, focusing on what we need instead of what we imagine ourselves to need (the perfect) demonstrates a sense of maturity and growth.  

It takes the focus off us and places it back on God. God calls us to listen to Him, as God knows that who we need may not necessarily be who would be "perfect" for us

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