Relationship Envy
I have known many couples who look at other couples and wish that their partner were more like their friend’s. I call this, “relationship envy”, coveting in the 10th Commandment sort of way....
Ex 20:17 “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house. You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male or female servant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.”
coveting... to be jealous, to desire even with all that we have already been given, the David and Bathsheba kind of sin... David had so many beautiful, exceptional women, but he wanted just one more...
Change is a good thing. We all want our partner to change in some way, but the problem comes when we want our partner to become someone they cannot be. It would not be hard to love if our partner was everything we could ever dream we wanted them to be, but we must learn to love differently. Our culture has forgotten how to love like that.....unselfishly.... our partner cannot be everything we wish they were, it’s impossible in one person... and the tragedy is that when we are so consumed with the person we wish that our spouse would be, we miss the miracle of who our spouse already is!
Sometimes after a marriage is over a spouse will look back and say, “Why were those things so important to me when they were so faithful and hardworking, ect.?”
My question for my own soul and for yours when we see this sin creeping in is, “What good quality would you be willing to give up to have the other quality that you’ve got your eye focused on?” If your husband is compassionate, you probably want him to be a more firm leader. If he’s a strong leader, you may be whining that he’s not compassionate enough. You can’t have both.
The lesson is, our sinful natures are never really happy. Our flesh is always looking for what we still don’t have instead of what we do. We always want just one more thing. It’s a trick of the devil to steal our energy and our power and to undermine our spouse and their effectiveness in this world as they feel these unmet desires in you and try endlessly to live up to them. Instead, they could be spending their time, uninhibited, racing fully forward with all their strength to do what they were put on this earth to do, unfettered by our disappointment.
Let’s not be tricked by the evil one. Wanting “more” was what caused the first sin in the Garden and robbed Adam and Eve of living happily ever after in paradise. God has a unique plan for how He wants to use you and your husband with exactly the package of characteristics that you have for His kingdom. It would mess up his plan if your husband were like “Joe” and you were exactly like “Suzy”. It’s a good thing that God doesn’t give us what we think we want. I have a feeling we would mess everything up if He did.