This is the third and final part about The Baggage We Bring to Our Relationships. The first week I shared about the importance of identifying the baggage we carry from our past. Last week I talked about recognizing the role our baggage plays in how we see things and how we react. And today I want to tell you about one of the biggest mistakes that almost cost me my marriage.
As I mentioned before, when Arturo and I were married for five years, we considered divorce, since we spent most of our time together, fighting. Fighting about money, our children, food, bills, in short, we fought about everything. When we started going to church, one of the things the pastor would say was to pray for what we wanted. So, desperate to experience some hope, I began to pray. My prayer was something like, “Lord, change him. If you change him, everything will be better for us!” Maybe as you read this, you can quickly realize the mistake I made. After several days of having these words as the basis of my prayers, the thought came to me that Arturo was not the problem. I immediately responded to this thought by saying, “So who is the problem, if it’s just me and him?”
It may sound a little ridiculous, but I was convinced that Arturo was the only one contributing to the problems we were experiencing. And that mentality almost cost me my marriage. The reality is that we all have baggage. Therefore, we all contribute to the relational problems we have. If we want to improve in our relationships, we have to identify our baggage, recognize the role our baggage plays in how we see things and how we react, and make the necessary changes in our own lives, since we cannot change anyone else. That way, even if the other person is not willing to do the same, we still learn and become better people than we were and we will have more clarity that will help us make better decisions.