What I Wish Every Married Person Knew About The 20 Mistakes That Ended My Marriage
What I wish I could have changed about my marriage, that may help yours.
Michael Kyule | Unsplash Motivational Speaker Gerald Rogers learned a great deal about love from his recent divorce. After separating from his wife of 16 years, he discovered mistakes and key takeaways from the marriage and shared them on his Facebook page.
From "never stop courting" to "always choose love," he shared 20 important things he wished he had known when he got married. You'll find these lessons valuable, even if you're not married. And the best part is, he wants to get remarried someday.
What I wish every married person knew about the 20 mistakes that ended my marriage:
1. Never stop courting
Never stop dating. Never take that woman for granted. When you asked her to marry you, you promised to be the man who would own her heart and fiercely protect it.
This is the most important and sacred treasure you will ever be entrusted with. She chose you. Never forget that, and never get lazy in your love.
2. Protect your own heart
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Just as you committed to being the protector of her heart, you must guard your own with the same vigilance. Love yourself fully, and love the world openly, but there is a special place in your heart where no one must enter except for your wife. Keep that space always ready to receive her and invite her in, and refuse to let anyone or anything else enter there.
Protecting your heart isn't about building walls, it's about knowing where the door is and who gets the key. This vulnerability is a gift that loses its value when you give it to everyone. Keep that innermost room reserved because if your wife can't find her way there anymore, she'll eventually stop looking.
3. Fall in love over and over and over again
You will constantly change. You’re not the same person you were when you got married, and in five years, you will not be the same person you are today. The change will come, and in that, you have to re-choose each other every day.
She doesn't have to stay with you, and if you don’t take care of her heart, she may give that heart to someone else. Always fight to win her love just as you did when you were courting her.
4. Always see the best in her
Focus only on what you love. What you focus on will expand. If you focus on what bugs you, all you will see are reasons to be bugged. If you focus on what you love, you can’t help but be consumed by love. Focus on the point where you can no longer see anything but love.
What most don't realize is that you are essentially training yourself to see your partner through a lens of disappointment. The qualities you had fallen in love with didn't disappear, you just stopped looking at them.
5. It's not your job to change or fix her
Your job is to love her as she is, with no expectation of her changing. And if she changes, love what she becomes, whether it’s what you want or not.
I confused criticism with care, thinking that my observations about what she should do differently were gifts rather than burdens. Your partner deserves someone who loves their journey, not someone standing at the finish line of their own expectations, wondering why they won't just get there already.
6. Take full accountability for your own emotions
It’s not your wife’s job to make you happy, and she can't make you sad. You are responsible for finding your happiness, and through that, your joy will spill over into your relationship and your love.
Your partner cannot be your emotional life support system. They can't make you happy any more than they can make you sad. Those states live inside you, fed by your thoughts, your unmet needs, your relationship with yourself.
7. Never blame your wife if you get frustrated or angry
When you feel those feelings, take time to get present and to look within and understand what it is inside of you that is asking to be healed. You were attracted to this woman because she was the person best suited to trigger all of your childhood wounds in the most painful way so that you could heal them… when you heal yourself, you will no longer be triggered by her, and you will wonder why you ever were.
When frustration rises, the mature response isn't to lash out or even to calmly explain why she's wrong. It's to pause, get present, and ask yourself: What old pain is this touching? What part of me feels threatened right now?
8. Allow your woman to just be
When she’s sad or upset, it’s not your job to fix it; it’s your job to hold her and let her know it’s okay. Let her know that you hear her, that she’s important, and that you are that pillar on which she can always lean.
The feminine spirit is about change and emotion, and like a storm, her emotions will roll in and out, and as you remain strong and unjudging she will trust you and open her soul to you… Don't run away when she's upset. Stand present and strong and let her know you aren’t going anywhere. Listen to what she is saying behind the words and emotions.
9. Be silly
Don’t take yourself so seriously. Laugh. And make her laugh. Laughter makes everything else easier.
When you can make each other laugh you remember why you chose this person in the first place. Those moments of shared absurdity, of not taking ourselves so seriously, were keeping us connected, keeping us light, reminding us that marriage doesn't have to feel heavy all the time.
10. Fill her soul every day
Learn her love languages and the specific ways that she feels important, validated, and cherished. Ask her to create a list of 10 things that make her feel loved, memorize those things, and make it a priority every day to make her feel loved.
A soul that goes unfed every day will eventually stop expecting nourishment from you and by the time you notice the emptiness, she might have already started looking elsewhere, for any source of feeling alive and loved again. Don't make my mistake. Learn her language, speak it fluently, and never stop filling her soul.
11. Be present
Give her not only your time but your focus, your attention, and your soul. Do whatever it takes to clear your head so that when you are with her you are fully with her. Treat her as you would your most valuable client. She is.
There's a particular kind of loneliness that comes from sitting next to someone whose body is present but whose attention is a thousand miles away. Presence is the foundation of intimacy, and without it, you're just two people occupying the same space, slowly becoming strangers.
12. Be willing to be intimate with her
To carry her away in the power of your masculine presence, to consume her and devour her with your strength, and to penetrate her to the deepest levels of her soul. Let her melt into her feminine softness as she knows she can trust you fully.
True intimacy isn't just about physical connection, it's about showing up with your full presence. This kind of trust only grows when you're willing to meet your partner there, and about being steady enough that she doesn't have to be.
13. Don't be an idiot
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And don’t be afraid of being one either. You will make mistakes and so will she. Try not to make too big of mistakes, and learn from the ones you do make. You’re not supposed to be perfect, just try to not be too stupid.
The fear of making mistakes often leads to the biggest mistakes of all. When you inevitably make one, just admit it, learn from it, and do better. That's not weakness. That's actually the smartest thing you can do.
14. Give her space
The woman is so good at giving and giving, and sometimes she will need to be reminded to take time to nurture herself. Sometimes she will need to fly from your branches to go and find what feeds her soul, and if you give her that space she will come back with new songs to sing….
(Okay, getting a little too poetic here, but you get the point. Tell her to take time for herself, especially after you have kids. She needs that space to renew and get re-centered.)
15. Be vulnerable
You don’t have to have it all together. Be willing to share your fears and feelings, and be quick to acknowledge your mistakes.
16. Be fully transparent
If you want to have trust you must be willing to share everything … Especially those things you don’t want to share. It takes courage to fully love, and part of that courage is allowing her to love your darkness as well as your light.
Drop the mask. If you feel like you need to wear a mask around her and show up perfectly all the time, you will never experience the full dimension of what love can be.
17. Never stop growing together
The stagnant pond breeds malaria, and the flowing stream is always fresh and cool. Atrophy is the natural process when you stop working a muscle, just as it is for a relationship that isn’t focused on growing. Find common goals, dreams, and visions to work towards.
One of the quietest killers of marriage is the slow drift that happens when two people stop evolving in the same direction. We became roommates managing logistics rather than partners building something meaningful together.
18. Don't be obsessive about money
Money is a game, find ways to work together as a team to win it. It never helps when teammates fight. Figure out ways to leverage both people's strengths to win.
The couples who thrive financially aren't necessarily the ones who make the most, they're the ones who figure out how to play together. Instead of resenting these differences or insisting there's only one way to handle finances, successful partners leverage them.
19. Forgive immediately
Focus on the future rather than carrying weight from the past. Don’t let your history hold you hostage.
Holding onto past mistakes that either you or she makes is like a heavy anchor to your marriage and will hold you back. Forgiveness is freedom. Cut the anchor loose and always choose love.
20. Always choose love
In the end, this is the only advice you need. If this is the guiding principle through which all your choices are governed, there is nothing that will threaten the happiness of your marriage.
Love will always endure. In the end, marriage isn’t about a happily ever after. It’s about work. And a commitment to grow together and a willingness to continually invest in creating something that can endure eternity. Through that work, happiness will come.
These are lessons I learned the hard way. These are lessons I learned too late. But these are lessons I am learning and committed to carrying forward. Truth is, I loved being married, and in time, I will get married again, and when I do, I will build it with a foundation that will endure any storm and any amount of time.
Men — this is your charge: Commit to being an epic lover. There is no greater challenge and no greater prize. Your woman deserves that from you. Be the type of husband your wife can’t help but brag about.
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