Did I Marry the Wrong Person?

Did I Marry the Wrong Person?

Do you often look at your spouse and wonder, What went wrong? How are we strangers when we used to be best friends? When a song plays that reminds you of your early passion, of the fire that’s now missing, do you realize how far you’ve drifted? As you’ve puzzled over what went wrong, have you gone all the way back to the beginning to ask yourself, What if I married the wrong person?

We all know nobody is perfect. You must marry a messy, imperfect human as that’s your only choice. But how is it that you used to be able to tolerate their rough edges? How is it that some of the quirks that now drive you mad were once endearing? Why does it feel like everything is a slog now? Why are they on your last nerve? Maybe it’s even more extreme; you’ve moved past annoyance to seeing each other as enemy, roommate, or hinderance to the life you want.

How Insecure Connection Affects a Marriage

While the new wears off on every marriage, the closeness and attraction doesn’t have to. You didn’t marry the wrong person, but you have allowed the marriage to coast toward disconnection. If we are not intentional, over time, our attachment bond may deteriorate. For some, this happens in a moment as one discovers the other has cheated. For others, it is a gradual erosion of failed bids, surface conversations, and the same old argument.

When we have an insecure bond with our spouse—when we don’t fully trust they are for us, that we’re their person—the signal between us gets scrambled. Instead of communicating love and care, subtle signals of threat pass between you. Even good intentioned actions get misinterpreted and villainized, leaving you both feeling misunderstood.

And when we don’t feel safe, we go up into our brain and make stories about what’s wrong and what needs to be fixed. An explanation, something to blame, makes it feel like we are in control and have a plan to reach safety again. But too often, the explanation is that our spouse is the enemy and the source of all problems. They are the one making this a bad marriage. At first, it’s soothing to think we’ve figured out: Ha! It’s them, not me. They have issues. But then we can start to panic, What if we don’t make it? What if they never change or were wrong for me from the start?

Your Differences Aren’t the Root of the Problem

Some come to counseling convinced they’re doomed because they have different personalities or divergent interests. People want to make sense of why things feel so distant, and these variations seem like a plausible explanation: I messed up and married someone who is not enough like me. But your marriage doesn’t succeed or fail based on shared hobbies, similar cleaning habits, or compatible bedtimes. The differences may highlight the disconnect, but the discomfort of the difference is just the backdrop for the insecure connection and the negative cycle. Assuming your marriage would work if your partner just saw things as you see—if they were just a little more like you—will leave you stuck in blame and contempt.

The Cycle Is the Enemy

Instead, both must see they have co-created a negative cycle of disconnect. Over time, by responding and reacting to each other’s defensive moves, they have created a feedback loop of hurt. Both are acting out of wounds created in childhood and adolescence; both are acting out attachment needs and fears. No one person is doing this. You will remain stuck as long as the narrative is, It’s all you!

Now abuse, addiction, and mental illness all influence the cycle, so please know there are factors that individuals must address within themselves. Each partner must be accountable for their “within.” But the “between” is a dance, and both make missteps. The shared dance of disconnect is the most prevalent problem I see in my marriage.

Once you stop blaming and shaming each other, you can unite to fight the cycle together. It feels so much better to be a team against the negative cycle than to be warring camps who periodically lob grenades at each other. Are you ready to figure out how you’ve both created distance and how you can stop blaming and start owning and repairing?

New Story Counseling can help you recover a thriving marriage. Life is too short to regret your spouse or to live in gray. Technicolor marriage is waiting. Let’s get to work. Reach out today to revive your marriage.