Doubting your relationship: Did God really want you to marry this person, or was it a mistake?

Spouses may bitterly observe that their marriage is not what they had hoped. But it doesn’t mean you missed out on God’s plan. In times of frustration, sadness, or discouragement in our marriages, we may wonder whether our spouse was really God’s plan for us. Did He really intend this marriage and this spouse for me — or did I miss it?

If you can’t answer these questions with ease, don’t despair. There is one thing you can know for sure: God is always working for our sanctification, in whatever circumstance we find ourselves. He never imposes His will on us; He created us free, and accepts the exercise of that freedom.

Since all of us encounter difficulties along the paths we’ve chosen (and there are big bumps along every road in life), we can become convinced that we’ve made a mistake. Certainly, the grass always looks greener on the other side. But God’s will for men and women is found through the circumstances that life presents. What if God’s hope for you was exactly this man or this woman who crossed your path? What if it was precisely him or her that God sent to you?

Of course, this person may not correspond to the ideal spouse you were expecting. Who hasn’t dreamed of an idyllic marriage in which a communion of hearts can express itself in a wonderful sharing, especially on the spiritual plane? Who hasn’t dreamed of a “perfect” partner who fulfills every need and desire?

This doesn’t exist. What’s important is to be able to imagine that with this partner as he or she is, and with all your own imperfections, you can make your path an uplifting and beautiful one that prepares you for the eternal wedding banquet, the only one that never disappoints. God can help you do this.

The philosopher Émile-Auguste Chartier, commonly known as Alain, said, “What’s important is not to have made the right choice, but to make something good come of it.” So in moments of doubt about your chosen spouse, what God asks is not that you dream about the road not taken, but that you realize that if you have received the sacrament of marriage, the person you have wed has now become your “mission,” the call of God in your life.

Denis Sonnet