Married couples usually give vague responses when asked about marriage or what it entails to keep a good one. Statements like “marriage is not a bed of roses, it’s all about love, patience, and endurance and co”. What no one tells you is that marriage is more complicated, yet simple than that. It just depends on how you manage your expectations from fantasy, versus reality.
Understandably, we cannot know it all when it comes to marriage or before we get into it. Like hell, we might not even know how to navigate it due to its high dynamism despite the number of pieces of advice we receive.
Thus, I constructed contradictory facts from personal experience and those of my loved ones about marital union noteworthy of.
In marriage, you’d have to lose your pride to gain it
What this means is that you have to let your guard down, reduce the mystery about you to let your partner access into your life for you both to navigate your union successfully. Marriage isn’t a game of who knows best or least, it’s about meeting each other where you are and building a stronger version of yourselves individually and as a couple too. By losing your pride, you gain it through the utmost respect and value your partner gives you.
You have to serve to lead
This point is relevant in all cadres of relationships; a sibling relationship, parent-to-child relationship, between friends, and erotic relationships, you name it. This connotes a similar point number 1. Except in this case, serving your partner becomes more intentional and physical. This sentence has a lot of meaning to it. It highlights the importance of sacrifice and acts of service in a relationship. It shows how servitude allows your partner to entrust their life and well-being in your hands, thereby, leading them through the relationship.
You attach to your partner by detaching
Attachment is one of the factors of a healthy relationship. Being with someone you love for a while permeates attachment by choice or force. However, the healthier choice in a relationship would entail detaching from who you love to gain a solid connection with them. By this I mean, learning how to live wholly as an individual first before getting together, being independent, engaging in things you love doing alone, or being yourself outside of who you are when you’re with your significant other. This way, you foster a deeper healthier sense of attachment to them.
Creating mystery in togetherness
A common misconception in marriage is that it ought to be revealing of everything- your past, present (as you stay with your partner), and your future as well. But creating a little mystery about yourself is equally needed in your relationship to make it thrive. Creating a bit of an unavailability even while you’re present, makes your partner crave your attention more antithetically to putting all your cards on the table all the time. This mystery in togetherness is often what people either twist to mean “singlehood in the relationship” or take to the extreme. It’s all about balance, as long as you know it’s a vital ingredient to a successful healthy relationship.
Summing it all up
Most times while married, it’s hard to comprehend the lessons it’s teaching you enough to educate others. Even when we do, it doesn’t erode the challenges and beauties it comes with. However, specific knowledgeable facts are required to better prepare anyone for it before saying “I DO” and these pieces of advice come disguised as two opposites in one — like some of the examples I listed above. You just have to be ready to embrace it.
Goodluck
Thanks for taking the time to read.
