Do your utmost to ensure you are not the cause of the greater trouble and that you labor to make your love genuine and to outdo your spouse in showing honor. It could be that God chooses to work within your marriage in such a way that it becomes as joyful as you wish it would be. 

Some marriages are the stuff of fairytales. Some are not. Some husbands marry wives who respect them, and some wives marry husbands who love them as Christ loves his church. Some do not. The sad fact is that some people marry well and some people marry poorly.

What do I mean by “marry poorly?” This could refer to a couple who fell in love and married hastily, far too quickly to consider whether it was really wise to join these two lives together. In time, they learned that it was probably not. It could refer to a couple who ignored parents or pastors when they expressed deep concerns about their compatibility in matters of worldview, goals, or shared beliefs. Time has proven those concerns valid. It could refer to a person who married another while assuming certain troubling behaviors would change. Yet years later, they have not. In these ways and so many more, people can conclude they may have married someone to whom they were not well-suited.1

Of course, those who marry well and those who marry poorly are equally married in the eyes of God and are responsible before him to make the most of that marriage. Incompatibility or irreconcilable differences may be sufficient grounds for divorce in the eyes of the law, but they are insufficient grounds in the eyes of God. Whether it’s obvious that you and your spouse are joyfully compatible or discouragingly incompatible, God means for you to remain married.2

To those who have had to conclude that they married poorly, I offer my sympathy. I am glad you are admitting what you are admitting, as it can be helpful to simply state this, even if only in your own mind. Of course, the main matter is what you intend to do about it. How will you live within your difficult marriage?

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