We all have things about our spouse that baffle us. Why do they do that? Some of the little idiosyncrasies at the beginning may have caused us heated discussions. You call them on their weirdness and they respond in offense. Then after a little while, those strange habits don’t bother us so much anymore. In fact, after more time, we come to expect it and even laugh a little when they, without fail, are consistent in that odd habit. We come to appreciate that this is just who they are, and it’s not really hurting anyone.

Yesterday I learned the term: Wabi Sabi. Wabi Sabi is the Japanese art of finding beauty in imperfection. It’s the celebration of cracks and crevices and all the marks that time, weather and use leave behind. If we don’t become experts in Wabi Sabi within our marriages we can spin our wheels by majoring on minor things instead of just appreciating who our spouses are as people. In the Japanese culture, Wabi Sabi is the kind of quiet, undeclared beauty that waits patiently to be discovered. The same is true in our spouses. Those imperfections are waiting to be discovered by you to be a thing of beauty. The way your spouse snorts annoyingly when she laughs, the way he is sometimes grumpy when the grill won’t light right away.

My wife used to get irritated by the strange habit that I have of leaving a little bit of something behind all the time. Whenever I eat, I would leave just a small spoonful in the plate, sometimes a swallow in a glass to drink, leave one sock behind or refuse to leave the last bit of tissue on the roll or sliver of soap. At first it really irritated her, then she just said one day… “that’s my husband”. Learn the art of Wabi Sabi, the very thing of imperfection in your spouse is the thing that you will miss if your spouse was to no longer be around.

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