A story is told of a discussion at a linguistic conference in London, England. This was supposedly attended by some of the best linguists in the world. They were competing to find the best definitions and explain the differences between the words “complete” and “finished.” Samsundar Balgobin was named the winner when he was posed with this final challenge. “Some say there is no difference between “complete” and “finished.” Please explain the difference in a way that is easy to understand.”
I want to relate a portion of his response that is applicable here; and that is, “When you marry the right woman, you are “complete.” If you marry the wrong woman, you are “finished.” Now this is by no means meant to pick on women. Because the same thing could be said here in relation to men. Regardless of which gender we would use here, I think you get the point.
Yet, I want to add a different twist to this. It is certainly easy to say that when we marry the right spouse, it is easy to feel complete. And I imagine that when most of us married, we truly believed that we were going to spend our lives with this “right” spouse. If we didn’t believe this, we probably wouldn’t have married them.
So, I want to change this gentleman’s statement to read a little differently. And that is, “When you marry the right spouse, you are “complete.” If you marry someone you think is the right spouse, and he or she turns out to be much more difficult than you ever imagined, work to re-engage this spouse in meaningful dialogue and renewed connection. While I know this is much more challenging than “just doing it,” if you are able to begin to work – truly work toward renewal, you just might find that rather than being “finished,” you are becoming “complete.”