You aren’t as accurate at remembering as you think you are.  In fact, many of the things you remember aren’t necessarily true.  In some ways, we are like the old sailor that told the tale so many times that he started believing it himself.  Let’s learn how to manage our expectations so that we have the best possible mindset.

     Have you ever been somewhere with your spouse and later you tell your spouse you can’t believe someone said that?  Your spouse answers, they didn’t say that – they said this. It’s happened to all of us. The fact is that we don’t remember things as clearly as we think we do.  Why is this? Maybe it is because of our biases or prejudices. Maybe it is because it is our nature to put ourselves in the best possible light. For whatever reason, we do it – and on a regular basis.

I’m Always Right

     How does this affect our marriage?  I once had a couple in their fifties come for counseling.  The lady was an “in charge” type of person. No sooner had they set down and she announced, “There is nothing wrong with me.  The problem is my husband. Talk to him.” Now I’ll go out on a limb here and say that I think she had fabricated a lot of her memories.  I felt like telling the husband he could go home and making ten appointments for her. Of course, I handled it much more gently than that. I told her that sometimes when we pack memories away, they aren’t always right.  This is when she informed me, “You don’t know me, I’m always right”. I thought, “Oh, you must be a picnic to live with.”

     The first thing we learn in marriage counseling is those marriage difficulties are never one-hundred percent one person’s fault.  No one is completely guilty and no one is completely innocent. We each contribute to marriage woes. As Christians, we can understand this because we know we have a sin nature… all of us.  You are a selfish person, living with a selfish person in a fallen world.  

What Was God Thinking?

     God didn’t make us perfect when we got married.  He gave us marriage to perfect us. That’s right – there is no relationship like a marriage where two become one.  There is no relationship where we get under each other’s skin like marriage. Marriage doesn’t manufacture our sin, but rather exposes it.  God created each of us, so neither one of us is a mistake. It is not my marital obligation to correct Kim, but to love her as she is. That’s God’s plan.

How to Process This: 

    I’ve looked in the mirror recently, and perfection is not in my immediate future.  This means I am flawed by my sin nature… and guess what? My spouse is too. My family grew up in the same house, yet we remember some events entirely differently.  This should not be surprising. It is human nature to see things and remember events differently. Yet I think each of us could pass a polygraph test on our version of what took place, so our misplaced memories are sincere ones, some of them are just sincerely wrong. 

     So why should we disagree about remembering how something happened?  This falls into the category of “You who is without sin, cast the first stone” (John 8:7).   I’ve come to realize that if we are going to have a relationship, it will be because you can forgive me.  That’s right. I have enough wrong with me that if we are going to have a relationship, you will have to forgive me.  Marriage is a much more intimate relationship than a friendship with me. Therefore you should be ready and able to see things differently with your spouse… and not disagree.  I wrote a post on “7 Shortcuts To Better Communication,” and you can find the link to it at the bottom of this article.

What Should We Do?

     If we will humble ourselves to believe that we do not have total recall, then it lowers the bar of what we expect of our spouse.  They don’t have total recall any more than we do. In other words, if I realize my recollections aren’t accurate, then I don’t expect Kim’s recollections to be accurate either.

     Great forgiveness is the mark of someone who has been greatly forgiven.  Our forgiveness of others is a direct correlation of our relationship with God – or lack of it.  Forgiveness is the hallmark of a good marriage or a good friendship. If we are to begin practicing forgiveness anywhere, it should begin with the one we are “one flesh” with.  Swallow some pride, realize it doesn’t matter, and move down the road of understanding and relationship building.

You might find this helpful: 7 Shortcuts To Better Communication

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