According to this study, people who exaggerate their spouse’s positive attributes are likelier to be content in their marriage:
Seeing a partner with rose-colored glasses could help protect against that decline in marital satisfaction that sets in almost as soon as the honeymoon bags are unpacked. “Seeing a less-than-ideal partner as a reflection of one’s ideals predicted a certain level of immunity to the corrosive effects of time,’’ write the researchers in the study.
They say there’s a case to be made for encouraging couples to maintain “positive, even unrealistic, perceptions’’ of each other to stay satisfied over the long haul.
And I have to admit, it does make sense. Thinking your partner isn’t good enough for you may entice you to seek out a better partner. Thinking that person is better than what’s out there might encourage you to stay and be more satisfied.
Actually, I think the opposite is true. The secret to a happy marriage isn’t fooling yourself into believing that your spouse is better than he or she really is. It’s viewing both yourself and your spouse realistically, as sinners saved by grace.
Here’s what Dave Harvey says in his excellent book When Sinners Say I Do:
“Till sin be bitter, Christ will not be sweet.” – Thomas Watson
He means that until we truly understand the problem, we won’t savor the solution. Isn’t that your testimony? Haven’t you seen that the more clearly you comprehend the scope of sin’s awfulness, the more quickly you flee to the Savior, now revealed anew in his glory, holiness, beauty, and power?
Looking first at our own sin as a root cause of the problems in our marriages is not easy, and it certainly doesn’t “come naturally.” The sin that remains in your heart and mine opposes God and his people. It obstructs our joy and our holiness. It eclipses thriving, healthy marriages which are testimonies to God’s goodness and mercy.
But as we begin to build our marriages on the Word of God and on the gospel of Christ’s victory over the power of sin, as we face the sad, painful, undeniable reality of our own remaining sin . . . as we see it for the bitter, hateful thing it is . . . and as we recognize sin’s insidious goals at the core of every relational difficulty we encounter, something wonderful happens. We flee to the gospel as our only remedy.
Then we begin to realize there is new hope for our marriages. A lot of hope. Hope that emerges from the power of the gospel, the very power that raised Christ from the tomb. We get a glimpse of the sweet relationship our marriage can become—a living, thriving union where sins are confessed and forgiven. My friends, when sin becomes bitter, marriage becomes sweet.