We all know that marriage is a compromise, a life full of adjustments. It has to be that because no two human beings are totally alike. There have to be differences.
An executive of a company once explained that he does not like people who always agree with him on every question. Such people are superfluous, unnecessary. They add nothing. They simply agree.
No such situation can exist in a marriage. If the two people are honest, they will disagree. They are, finally, two different human beings.
My wife and I, during our courtship days, were astonished at how much we were like each other. We felt we saw the world in much the same way. We agreed on a great deal. We were not fools. We knew there would be differences, but we were, at least initially, struck by the similarities.
Here is one of the crucial differences that has arisen, and it is both good & bad. I am sloppy, imprecise; she is meticulous, precise.
This can be good. I often begin a project, a letter, a task. I work on the broad outlines; I create the first draft. She polishes the final product. She makes sure there are no ambiguities, she, to speak metaphorically, crosses the t's dots the i's. This is often brilliant, excellent. What could be better than to have someone clean up the sloppy product you 3/4 created. What could be better for her than to have someone block it all out so that her only task is shaping the final product? This could be great; this often is great.
But there is another side.
I am writing this while she is correcting one of my letters to a company. I wrote the short letter in about two and a half minutes. She has taken, is taking, about an hour to rewrite the three short paragraphs I wrote. I need to curb my impulse to yell, are you still working on that stupid letter? It really doesn't matter that much. Just finish it. Just send it. It isn't that important and there are ten other, better things you could be doing.
The preceding is not an uncommon reaction on my part. She is such a perfectionist it drives me crazy. And yet I know, from bitter experience I know, that her minute corrections, her precise calculations, have often saved us a ton of money, or acute embarassment.
I know the preceding, and since we are both retired there is no reason I should be upset that she takes so long to do something I would never spend so much time doing. And yet her perfection often irritates me. I have learned to not let her know I am irritated. I have learned to sometimes curb my irritation: I tell myself over & over that she likes to be precise, that she doesn't mind spending so much time on small detail.
But my essential point is that marriage is compromise, marriage is learning to live with another human being, a human being who does things differently than you do. If you are not willing to compromise, don't even think about pairing yourself with another.
P.S. She just showed me her corrections to my letter. It is ten times better than what I initially penned. I know I was a fool for getting irritated, but that does not mean I will not get irritated next time. However, each time I remind myself that she does improve my hasty effort. Humans are fools and habituated creatures. I know how I've lived & survived for sixty years. It's hard for me to learn & accept that there may be another way, a way that, if not better, is at least better suited to another person, the person I have chosen to live with.
Copyright © 2004 Henry Morgenstein