If getting married changes you, does that mean your spouse never loved the "real" you?
People are changed by marriage. What does this change say about your spouse's love? And what do you do when your family doesn't accept the "new" you?
“It’s like I don’t even know you anymore”, Haley’s father shared in frustration. “Ever since you started dating Jonathan, you’re just… different.” Haley’s* story isn’t unique. Most often from parents, but sometimes from friends and other relatives, many of my clients have suffered pushback and resentment for allowing their serious relationships to change them in noticeable ways.
As in Haley’s case, these are rarely stories of triumph or pride, although my clients wish they were. Haley shared this news with me remorsefully, lamenting that those who used to be her biggest supporters are now skeptical of what she considers her greatest accomplishment: finding and marrying her husband, Jonathan, and all the accompanying “changes” to her personality and character she’s experienced.
If most people believe that marriage is a big deal, particularly those who view it as a lifelong commitment, why is it that those closest to the bride and groom often tend to be the least comfortable with spouses influencing how each other operate in the world?
In some ways, it’s expected that marriage should change how we live. In choosing to spend the rest of your life with one person, you forego all other romantic options, establish a shared home and life together to serve your future plans, and, if you’re the bride, even take a new last name to symbolize this transformation. The potential controversy only seems to arise when who we are (not just how we live) seems to change because of our spouse, rather than because of the marital institution, and changes in unexpected and unapproved of ways.
After all, shouldn’t your spouse accept who you are fully rather than trying to change you? And, doesn’t any change judged significant by those that have known you the longest obviously point to your spouse trying to change you?
If this is the argument of parents watching their adult children transform and fly the coup with their spouses, the argument from the children goes something like this:
Haley: “I am different, I’ll admit. But I have never felt more myself than when I’m with Jonathan. He brings out the best in me. He makes me feel stronger, and braver, like I could do anything.”
The key here is the phrase, “brings out the best”. What does it mean to bring out the best in someone? By how you live in every way, but particularly how you treat that person, you give him reason and opportunity to reveal the best he has to offer the world. You aren’t creating in that person something that wasn’t there before. That would elevate spouse to the role of Creator or nature. You’re cultivating the environment in which your spouse can realize the good that was within him all along. In many ways, that’s defines love: ordering your life to not only want the best for someone else, but to help that best materialize.
Unfortunately, sometimes our friends and family are far less appreciative of this revelation of good. This typically happens when a couple’s values differ from the values of their loved ones. For example, Haley valued assertiveness and transparency, more than she realized in her childhood. Then, Jonathan was the first person to encourage her cultivation of the bravery necessary to live out those values. Haley’s parents, however, valuing politeness and non-offense, found her new “bluntness” offensive and disrespectful.
So, Is This Good or Bad Change?
The question is not whether Haley changed from the woman she was before she met Jonathan, but if the change is not only appropriate but good. How do we measure good?
By our conscience, informed by our values and beliefs.
With honest, intentional, and significant thought about what our values are, what we believe, and what our conscience is telling us, we can examine whether a change moves us closer to or further from the best versions of ourselves.
This is crucial: the conscience doesn’t necessarily reflect the opinions of any specific person, including our spouses or even certain (dark) parts of ourselves. While others can certainly help us realize when we’ve strayed, a well-informed conscience is based on intentional discernment about what we consider to be the best possible way we could live that would do the most possible good.
If your conscience is the yardstick for positive change in marriage, then change is only negative when it’s a movement away from what your conscience is urging you to do. This is why marrying someone who aligns with your values is so powerful: you have at least one other conscience you can trust aligns with the parts of you that want to improve. And, chances are, the longer you two are together, the more you’ll help each other improve.
Putting It Into Action
If you get pushback from your loved ones about letting your spouse “change” you, the first step is always to take the accusation seriously. Have you changed? And, if so, is that change moving you closer or further from your most virtuous self? Do you like who you’ve become, or did you simply change your exterior to appease some part of yourself or someone else?
If you determine the change is positive and aligned with your values, the next step is to support your friends and family in adjusting to the new parts of you that you’ve been brave enough to reveal. For Haley, as she worked up the courage to tell the truth, she also had to develop the virtues of gentleness and patience. She embraced the idea that truth can be delivered well or poorly, with the best way to deliver it with love. So, while they may have still struggled to accept the adult version of their daughter, as is the challenge for any parent, Haley’s practice of loving honesty certainly encouraged the best possible relationship with them.
In a way, Haley provided the reason and opportunity for her parents to change in their own positive ways, too. And, who could wish for a better outcome than that?
*The details of this story have been changed, while maintaining the important themes, to protect the anonymity of my clientele.