Recently we were reminiscing with friends as we pored over old photos and videos of our shared antics pre kids. Looking at those photos and watching the younger versions of ourselves in the videos got me thinking about the first few months after we were married.
We were living in a small town and one night at a party hubby’s colleagues urged him to sing. Hubby duly obliged and began singing one of his favourite love songs, directing it to me, so of course I played along and flirted with him as I danced. The next day I discovered that the small town gossip mill was alive and well when one of my work colleagues, who wasn’t at the party, felt the need to give me a ‘reality check’. Someone had told her about our antics and had commented on how we were obviously very much in love. My colleague’s response? Yeah well they’re still honeymooners, lets see what they’re like when reality sets in.
Of course I wasn’t going to let that one go. So I told her of my philosophy on creating a happy marriage which, in a nutshell, involves looking for the best in your partner. She retorted Well that’s lovely in theory but let’s see how you go in 10 years’ time when you’ve got kids and a mortgage, then you’ll know it’s not as simple as looking for the best in your partner! You won’t have time for that!
Part of me felt sad for her, she was obviously unhappy, but it was also frustrating because she didn’t want to consider an alternative to being miserable.
The most frustrating though is that hubby and I celebrate 28 years of marriage this year and we’re still very much in love. But I don’t see her any more. So I don’t have the satisfaction of going back to her and telling her that I was right!!
Happily Married
So, if you’re just starting out, I hope you can take some advice from an old bird because it’s really not meant to be that hard. In fact, the approach I’m suggesting is actually the opposite to what most people think of when it comes to dating and marriage. I’ve even been told it’s not romantic. And you know what? It’s probably not. But neither is falling out of love with your life partner.
The way I see it, the dating stage is when you are supposed to be finding out the most about the other person. That means warts and all!
There is a time for love to be blind, but it’s not now.
This is the time for you to choose to open your eyes and see! No it’s not romantic and it’s not easy. In fact this is the most difficult part, especially when you’re in the first stages of heady romantic love. But if you don’t do it now, one day when you’ve got kids and a mortgage and bills and you’re tired, exhausted, with everything life is throwing at you, that heady romantic love is going to fade. It has to, the physical changes in your body that happen during this phase are brought about by hormones which your body cannot sustain for more than a few years. And when that happens you’re going to start seeing your partner warts and all. But it will mostly be warts and over time you’ll start to wonder what you saw in them at all.
Or, you could take a good hard honest look right now, before you make that commitment. Look at your partner’s most annoying habits. Do their values and deepest beliefs align with yours? Make time to have those important, unromantic, discussions around finances, careers, children, faith, your beliefs around marriage and any thing else that’s important to you. Ask yourself Can I live with this for the rest of my life? And if you can’t answer that question without feeling a shadow of doubt about that one ‘thing’, break it off now!
I’m serious! Yes people change and beliefs can change but generally speaking most people don’t move too far from their core values. More importantly though – You don’t have a right to change someone else. That’s not Love! It infuriates me how many people enter into marriage with the expectation that they’ll change their partner to be the person they want them to be. If they’re not the person you want them to be now then they’re not for you. Period!
If on the other hand you decide you can and will love your partner warts and all, then you leave those warts behind at the altar. The last time I checked, marriage in the Western world was a choice. You are choosing to marry that person for who they are, which means you’ve made a choice to love the good bits and be blind to the annoying bits.
This is when it is time for Love to be Blind.
Choosing Love
And this is what I was trying to explain to my colleague. Hubby and I both have our good bits and our not so good bits and when we made a commitment to be life partners in marriage we also made a decision that the not so good in either of us were not deal breakers. So we chose to be blind to those bits and to focus only on the bits we love most about each other. And guess what? Contrary to what my colleague tried to tell me, it takes no more energy to choose to focus on what it is you love most about your life partner, than it does to choose to focus on what you don’t like.
It’s as simple as that. A choice. And if you choose to love, then something amazing will happen when those heady romantic hormones leave your body. You will experience a deeper and more beautiful love than you’ve ever known. Your happy ending! Try it.
About the Author
SARINA ELDER
Sarina is a Writer with a passion for Making A Difference (MAD).
As a first generation Australian who struggled with cultural identity as a child, Sarina understands the importance of Being, Belonging, and Becoming as a fundamental need in all of us, regardless of age.
As a misunderstood Creative, who was diagnosed with ADHD in her adult years, Sarina is particularly passionate about supporting others to identify and release their Creative, or the Creative in their children, and to embrace the Neurodiversity that accompanies Creativity.
Sarina believes the best way to embrace ourselves is through laughter, and is open to sharing her own stories with the hope of encouraging others.