For a Couple to Be Happy, Both People Need to Be Healthy

It is very important that we heal the way we see ourselves and see ourselves as accepted by God. That is why so many marriages fail: two insecure people meet and believe that each will satisfy the other’s hunger for validation.

Or an insecure person meets someone fairly secure, and the insecure one wants that secure person to cover for him, heal his wound, and tell him, “You have worth.” He wants to see himself through that person’s eyes, have that person bring him his slippers at the end of the day when he comes home from work, and make his favorite meal every day. He wants to turn that person into his worshiper because an insecurity is eating him alive, because he does not accept himself.

For a couple to be happy, it takes two healthy people. People talk about finding “my other half”; what you need is two whole oranges making juice together. Because if you try to join two half-oranges, no two oranges are shaped exactly alike; when you put them together, you will see the seam. I believe that two healthy, whole oranges must come into a marriage and bless each other out of their wholeness. Two oranges: a man and a woman secure in God, grounded in God, with a healed, healthy sense of self that says, “I am who I am, and God loves me this way. I’m misshapen, perhaps a little homely, shorter than I’d like or skinnier, but God loves me.” Then, out of his own health, he blesses his wife, and his wife blesses him.

We have to ask the Lord, “Lord, heal me emotionally. Let me accept myself as I am, with my virtues and my faults, with my past, my mistakes, my imperfections, the things people did to me, and my wounds, and say: That is what makes a life.” No one here can tell me they have never been wounded in life, never been mistreated, never made serious mistakes, or have no physical, emotional, or spiritual flaws. We are all in the same situation, and the only difference is that some find balance amid all this, while others live distorted and off-balance because they have not found the ability to accept themselves as God accepts them. That is why, so often, our human relationships keep getting hurt and distorted: an unbalanced, unhealthy person damages everything they touch. And that insecurity means that, at the slightest offense or mistake by our friends, we immediately see something of unforgivable magnitude, and we are hypersensitive. We are always expecting someone to stab us in the back, because that is how we see people. And that makes the prophecy come true, because sooner or later they do what we expect them to do to us. But when someone approaches relationships with ease, with health, with an expectation of blessing, and with naturalness, they discover that there is much good in other people.

Why do so many people fail in their relationships with others? Because they expect to fail, or because there is some insecurity in them that leads them to hurt others and themselves. Others, though, approach life and deal with people naturally, and come through the worst situations unscathed because they are healthy inside. Life knocks them down, and they get back up because they are made of rubber. They are like those sturdy little children who go out to play, get an elbow in the side, scrape their own elbow, but come right back and start jumping around again because they are healthy.

Accept yourself, seek your health in God, and think of yourself with sound judgment. It is important that we accept ourselves just as we are.

Source: A Simple Life