Striving For Perfection in Marriage (Part One)

by April L. Cao

My purpose in writing about challenges in our marriage is to acknowledge and testify that we stumble when we put ourselves before God. Marriage is not a race but a marathon of joys and challenges and I recognize how I have been the proverbial fool. A charlatan masked as a semi-pious Christian woman. When I said for better or for worse I did not mean it. Oh, I thought I did. I promised and vowed with every beat of my twenty-one year old heart but what I really said was “take me as I am, but you sure as heck better not change!” And that, my friends, was the moment when I set up my beloved for complete and utter failure.

Eleven years (plus some months) ago I entered into the legally binding, altogether consuming bonds of matrimony. At 21, in love and in desperate need of rescue, I married a man who epitomized perfection.

Perfectly established.

Perfectly patient.

Perfectly encouraging and empathetic.

Perfectly driven.

Perfectly six years older to take on the role as father and husband.

In the beginning we shared a love of everything and seemed to complement each other in the ways that mattered most. Him, the charming naval officer, me the young and oh so skinny trophy wife (because at the time skinniness was next to Godliness). Both of us fiercely conservative, appropriately extroverted and mutually faithful to God and family.

I made him perfect enough for the both of us. And then later- so much later when life did not go my way-I resented him for it. Gone was the carefree girl who looked up to him like a doting child. The golden pedestal I had placed him on slowly began to tarnish and crumble as separation, infertility and loneliness burrowed into my heart like a cancer.

By the grace of God the love did not die despite the creeping bitterness. We had fun, entertained, filled our time with friends and family, traveled while living overseas. We still managed to laugh despite the biting, sarcastic banter that became our way of communicating. This, it seemed, was what marriage was. Growing older, growing apart and settling. I had built our relationship upon unreal expectations and quietly mourned the husband I had dreamed of as a girl.

I felt cheated. He was no longer perfection to me. His pedestal had become replaced with comparison, resentment and utter disappointment. Wasn’t I a reflection of my husband’s flaws? After all of these years, had I misjudged my needs? Was he enough for my forever?

I often wonder why I had this attitude of needing things to be perfect. I certainly was not perfect and really didn’t expect it of myself. If that were the case I would be a meticulous housekeeper and that, my friends, is not the case. Did I expect mediocrity for me? No. Did I hold myself to the same standards as my spouse? I said I did but probably not. Secretly I thought he should be more like me. More sensitive, more understanding maybe even more passive for the sake of my pride. I think it was easier to bask in the light of the golden halo I had placed above his head than confront the imperfections I hid in myself.

Read Part Two in this series here!

About the Author:
April Lakata Cao is a native of Northern Virginia and currently resides in Virginia Beach, Va., where she has just completed her eighth move in eleven years of marriage. April and her husband, a graduate of the United States Naval Academy, have two beautiful children ages four and seven. As a military spouse who has experienced five deployments and countless months of separation, April shares her personal challenges and life lessons as a freelance writer. She is a stay at home mom, a reading and writing enthusiast and for the past three years has published the blog, Amazing Grace (www.intoourheart.blogspot.com) to encourage, educate and inspire adoptive and prospective adoptive parents. Not only does she have a heart for orphans, she is fiercely passionate about religious freedom and women’s rights across the globe. But above all else teaching her children to love, trust and obey God is her most precious job.