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Are You Using Your Spouse’s Mistakes to Justify Your Own? · Doing Marriage Well

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  Doing Marriage Well for July 28, 2026 Are you using your spouse's mistakes to justify your own?
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  Another quote from Jay Stringer I've become increasingly convinced that many
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  marital conflicts are sustained less by incompatibility than by a loss of integrity.
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  This ties into part of yesterday's quote about spouses engaging in withdrawal,
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  contempt, emotional reactivity, or control because they are not receiving the
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  response they most desire.
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  I've talked about this as what we think we deserve. When our spouse fails to
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  give us what we think we deserve, we get upset.
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  Then we feel justified in treating our spouse in ways we know, deep down, are wrong.
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  It's as if entitlement gives us permission to lower our standards.
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  As Jay says, this is a loss of integrity.
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  Integrity is vital in a marriage. If your spouse doesn't show integrity, you can't trust them.
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  And when you can't trust your spouse, your marriage is in big trouble.
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  What's more, lowering integrity is a vicious spiral. One of you lowers integrity
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  as a reaction to something, and that causes the other spouse to do the same thing.
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  True integrity has nothing to do with what others around you are doing.
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  You don't excuse something you do in business as industry standard.
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  Likewise, you don't excuse treating your spouse poorly as justified by their actions.
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  A man or woman of integrity does what is right simply because it is right.
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  They do what is right when no one else is watching, and when those watching
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  think their actions don't make sense.
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  So I ask you, how would God have you treat your spouse? And how well are you
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  doing at treating them that way?
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  By the way, when asked what attracted me to my wife, I have always said her integrity.
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  I knew that she would do what she said. I knew she would do what was right.
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  And I knew she would fight to do those things even when it was difficult.
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  She has been that woman for 41.6 years, and it's a big part of why we have such a great marriage.
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  This is Paul, and you can't do marriage well without integrity.