Have you ever stopped to think about the differences between you and your husband?
What about similarities?
I believe it is important for a husband and wife to embrace both in marriage. Differences make people unique, stir mystery, and define preferences. They add color to life in a way a spouse may not have seen before. While similarities and same interests bridge connection, inspire pleasure, and also have a part in defining relationships.
For example, I like salt and my husband loves pepper. I enjoy romantic comedies and my husband always wants to see action movies. I am a woman, with lots of strong emotions, while my husband is a man, whom is very logical. I would rather stay at home for a quiet evening in, and my husband would rather hang out with friends and do something fun. I am a wallflower and he is a social butterfly. I like our bedding bunched up and undone, where my husband has fought to have our bedding neatly tucked in around the edges.
As far as similarities my husband and I are both Christians and we desire to pursue a love relationship with God daily. That is a similarity we share that defines our relationship, it gives us many things to talk about, and we encourage each others walks with God often. We both like black licorice and find joy in trying a variety of kinds. We love to travel. We find adventures thrilling, even if it’s just a new restaurant we want to try. We both find certain tv shows entertaining and watch them as we unwind from a long day. We share the same passion for marriage ministry and helping others.
The point is… we could sit around and fight about our differences, or be insecure that our differences mean we are not compatible, when we should be embracing both differences and similarities and cultivating them in our marriages. Differences help identify the individuals in a marriage, while similarities bring two together to be one. Evaluate you and your husband’s preferences and find joy in embracing both. Allow your marriage to have the freedom of having both differences and similarities. Also, when fights do come, check to see if it just a matter of preference or opinion, and if so diffuse the fight by acknowledging it as so.