It shouldn't be a big secret that in marriage, you're going to have to compromise on a lot of things. You have to consider how different things are going to affect your spouse as well as yourself. You're a married couple, a team, and that means you can no longer be completely independent in everything you do. Sometimes this might mean sacrificing something for the betterment of your marriage or sacrificing a personal goal to achieve a goal that you've set as a couple.
It shouldn’t be a big secret that in marriage, you’re going to have to compromise on a lot of things. You have to consider how different things are going to affect your spouse as well as yourself. You’re a married couple, a team, and that means you can no longer be completely independent in everything you do. Sometimes this might mean sacrificing something for the betterment of your marriage or sacrificing a personal goal to achieve a goal that you’ve set as a couple.
When we started seriously looking for a house two months ago, we didn’t plan on finding the perfect place as quickly as we did. We’ve done some house hunting off and on throughout our three years of marriage so we felt really comfortable putting an offer on a house within the first week of our search. It had all of the features that we both cared about, it was in our price range and the location was perfect for us! Unfortunately, that meant we were going to have to pay taxes, tuition, insurance and our down payment all in the same month and money was going to be tight.
A week after we made our offer, Joe paid for our home inspection with cash and then a few days later, he handed me cash to pay for my oil change. I realized that I had no idea where he’d gotten all of that cash because we hadn’t filled our envelope recently and as far as I knew, he hadn’t made a withdrawal from our account. When I asked him about it, he got a really sad look on his face but wouldn’t tell me where it came from. It took me a few minutes, but I finally realized that he had just handed me what was left of his gun savings! Joe has been saving, little by little, for a handgun, ammo and a case. Every time I give him a present, a little bit of money to add to the gun fund is always included. He finally had enough for a gun and had been planning on making his purchase soon. If you know Joe, you know how big of a sacrifice this was for him and it made me really sad that he’d be starting back at square one after saving for that purchase for three years.
A couple weeks later we were looking at our budget, trying to figure out how we were going to pay for tuition and still put a considerable amount of money down on our house without our emergency savings taking a hit. I had just registered for summer classes and was excited to get another semester under my belt and be that many credits closer to graduating. But, if we didn’t have to pay tuition for the summer though, we would be just fine in the money department. I started thinking about Joe sacrificing something he really wanted just a couple of weeks before and the decision easy for me! I dropped my classes for the summer and Joe him that I’d take the semester off for a break and to focus on our house and the move. After all, that’s what I’d been planning to do last semester, before my last minute enrollment in January so it would be good!
Joe won’t get his handgun for a while and I will have to take extra classes every semester if I still want to graduate when I originally planned, but our sacrifices were worth it! We are the owners of what is going to be a really cute house in a great neighborhood and we haven’t been set back too far on our journey to financial peace because we were both willing to sacrifice. Our sacrifices were different, but they were both personal, we know how significant they were for each other to make, and they helped make something we were trying to do as a couple happen.
Have you ever had to sacrifice something personal for something in your relationship?