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Let's air our dirty laundry. None of us has a perfect marriage or relationship. I speak from a wealth of experience, having been married 3 times, the first one ending in divorce, the second one in widowhood, and the third one now lasting 20 years.

Once you have been married for a while and the bloom is off the rose, it is easier to offer criticism rather than praise? That is pure human nature, and we have to fight against this. Can we admit our faults to our loved one? Did you want to change your spouses bad habits? Come on now, admit it. Many newly married couples say, "Well after we are married, I'll train him/her to be the way I want him/her to be."

How many of us remember and put into practice the following from St. Paul:
"Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. Love does not demand its own way. Love is not irritable, and it keeps no record of when it has been wronged. It is never glad about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance." (1Cor 13:4-7). Yeah, right, sure! St. Paul was not married. Would he have felt the same if he had been married? Perhaps so, but that is the subject of another topic.

Lest I digress, when we are newly married it is much easier to subjugate your own will to that of your spouse. I discovered with my first marriage that after a period (shorter than it should have been), neither one of us would bend. We spent what little time we were together picking at each other's faults. I wanted to go to counseling, but he would not go. It was time for divorce court.

My second husband was a better intellectual match for me, but even though our love was more mature, the marriage was flawed. My will and stubbornness raised its ugly head, as it did his, too. There is a part of us that does not want to become smothered in the other person; we do not want to lose our identity, even though we felt that way up to and soon after marriage.

Remember, differences bring couples together, creative tension gives way to vibrancy in the relationship, the same tension that makes for a healthy sexual relationship, but communication must be open and honest. If you were both alike in every personality trait, would you not get bored with each other?

My marriage to my second husband was far from perfect, but we both had the maturity to work through our differences and to realize when our negativity towards each other was a sign

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