Be Careful When Comparing Your Spouse to Others

We compare 20 minutes sitting in the sun with another parent watching soccer practice with 20 minutes sitting around the kitchen table with our spouse balancing the checkbook.

We compare the 30-year-old who spends an hour a day at the gym with the 45-year-old who has born and raised three children or who works two jobs to pay the bills.

Not particularly fair, but we do it anyway. And the longer wave been married, the more we have to compare.

I'm not saying that there are never good reasons to take a long, hard look at our marriage. Nor am I saying that we should gloss over things about our relationship that we might want to change.

I'm just suggesting that comparing the spouse with whom wave spent 10 years with someone else we might only see 10 hours a week doesn't really tell us all that much. Believe me, most of the time that attractive neighbor, co-worker, classmate or whoever will bring just as many irritations or problems to a relationship as our current partner.

What we need to do is use our comparison-based critique to consider what we could make better about our marriage.

Maybe we need to get all dressed up and go out on the town now and then. Maybe we need to talk about more than just day-to-day household management. Maybe we need to balance the checkbook some other time and spend that end-of-the-day time cuddling on the couch. Maybe we need to head down to the gym together.

When our attraction goes from comparison to action, we are in even more trouble.

There is just no way we can make any kind of rational decision about one relationship if we are starting another at the same time. Love, especially new love, is really blind. Trying to see the old love of our marriage through eyes clouded by the new love of an extramarital affair, we will be unable to view either clearly.

My advice? Don't worry all that much when you find yourself attracted to a person you're not married to. If it becomes more than just attraction, however, try falling back in love with your spouse before you fall in love with someone else.

The Rev. Kenn Potts is a pastoral counselor and marriage and family therapist with Samaritan Interfaith Counseling Centers, Naperville and Downers Grove. His book, "Take One A Day," can be ordered at local bookstores or online.