Do you complement each other? When we spent the day with another couple recently, Mick and I thought how well they complement each other. They are very different in a lot of ways yet, each one is the same in that they support and complement each other and encourage them in the jobs they are doing. Consequently their marriage works well because they work as a team.
What one doesn’t have in the way of skills, the other one supplies. When one is struggling and feeling down their spouse is there to lift them up and love them and encourage them.
Alternatively I look at some other marriages of people we know and don’t see that complementing or supporting each other. In some marriages it seems as if support and encouragement on is all one sided. And yes, I can think of more than one example where I see that happening.
It appears, to the one standing outside the marriage, that one partner does all the giving in the relationship rather than it being reciprocal. Rather than give and take, the way it should be in marriage, one person appears to do all the giving and the other all the taking. One person is negative and unappreciative.
For example if the husband volunteers to so a job and then the wife instead of thanking him, criticizes or tells him, ‘I should have just done it myself to begin with At least it would have been done right!’ Ouch! Why would he attempt anything again?
Then there’s the husband who rather than encouraging and supporting his wife, makes jokes about her cooking or business skills or intelligence. Yet she is always supportive of the things he does. Yes I know those of us on the outside only see a certain picture of things, but when it happens repeatedly and is so obvious, you have to wonder if it’s not the reality.
So I ask the question I started with. Do you complement each other? Part of complementing each other is that you also take time to compliment each other and encourage them in whatever they are doing, and that each of you can rely on the other for support. That’s what a good marriage is like.
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