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More than Love
Marriage has been demonized by those in it as if to discourage those it beckons peradventure to discourage those it beckons. This notwithstanding many dive into it not knowing what they are getting into only to momentarily be hit by a reality shock. Some immediately after the preliminaries want out, others are more tolerant and will wait a little longer attempting to understand this new relationship, yet others will hang there to the end of one of them. So then, what describes a successful marriage? Is it when a man and woman goes to church and makes their vows? Or when a couple holidays by the sandy Hawaiian beach at sundown bundled with the floral regalia and timidly plays to the ebb and flow of the ocean? Or is it when a man gives a woman a diamond ring or bows down on one knee and asks the lady for her hand in marriage?
I would define marriage as when two people come together and agree to live together as a man and wife. What happens thereafter does not constitute the marriage but does define what the marriage will be e.g. whether they will be rich or poor, whether there will be children or not, whether they will be happy or not and so on. That is marriage the way I know it and the way it has been from the beginning.
Without focusing on possible digressions of this discussion, I am totally surprised at what people think about marriage. Some say it’s a self declared jail sentence, others openly declare it’s where the man loses his bachelors and his wife gains the masters, and the list could be endless. I read in one post that marriage is hard work, while another declared marriage is slavery while another declared “love ends after marriage” and so on and so forth. If you were researching on what marriage is, without having a clue, and attempted to draw the picture that is portrayed, you would end up with ugly monster. But this is not what it was supposed to be. For any success, whether business or career, there is a price, a price called commitment and hard work. Marriage is no different, for it to succeed the players have to be willing to pay the price of commitment. If your commit to your marriage it should work out.
If I was to have the privilege of slicing out between successful marriages and those with success challenges, I would first say that they both start on the same footing with an emotional “pop up” called love. What happens after that determines whether the marriage will weather the storms of life or whether the storms of life will overwhelm the marriage. What these two people bring along with them to the marriage table will determine whether they are ready and prepared to fight for their marriage. If the two people get onto marriage armed to their teeth with pounds of love to last them a lifetime and bring nothing else, they will have challenges. But if they bring enough love with packets of perseverance, patience, kindness and all those spices of goodness, that marriage will survive the storms.
These are people who have come to the realization that to get the best you have to sow the best. The best time for your studies, the best years for your sports, the best you have. Similarly, I think if you give your best; best time, perseverance at best patience at best, kindness at best and so on that marriage will rock. As you see, marriage or its success is hard work. It’s not just a job, it’s a commitment that affects the emotions of others and if you are not ready for it don’t even try it.
I learnt many years ago that you can’t learn how to swim without getting your feet wet. Certainly marriage is not the kind of thing that you play around with. The emotional ties are so serious that you can easily change the life of one person overnight or severely affect the life of another with the simple use of words as weapons. Couples who are not ready to invest in a marriage should not get anywhere near it.
Marriage is for those who are quick to forgive and slow to criticize. Those who look out for the other, willing to outdo the other in doing good, those willing to not only put their time but their very lives into the marriage. Marriage is therefore not for the weak and faint in heart. It’s for those who are willing to influence and see positive transformation in their spouse. It’s for those who are mature enough to take care of another human with a sincere heart of service. It’s for those who will look at their spouse in the morning before having or makeup and still love them. It’s for those who are not bothered by the rhythmic snore of their spouse, it’s for those who see the weakness in their spouse and still choose to work together to overcome them.
The biggest problem we have in marriages is people get into marriage with nothing but love, thinking that love will take them through the tough times. You may think you are truly in love but it’s just the hormones playing poker with you, at such times the best you can do is take your time. When you wake up in the morning and look at your spouse and start wondering who poisoned your drink the previous night, then you probably weren’t ready for marriage. Don’t play into infatuation –it’s a dangerous card and once you lay it on the table chances of saving yourself become slimmer. In the end you will both be hurt and be losers. Don’t get into marriage thinking of love alone. That is a fallacy. There are times in marriage when love is absent, what will make you stick to your spouse? You have to bring you’re your marriage something more than just love, something you will hang to when love wears out. Margaret Hardisty in her book Marriage Takes More Than Love writes “you’ve got to bring more than just love to your marriage”.
A couple of weeks ago my lawn looked horrible after the winter – it was all gray and the grass had no form of life in it. In my busy schedule, I had overlooked to do some much needed maintenance and the weeds had now overgrown the previous tardy grass. It was matter of time and I would lose the yard to the weeds. I knew it would take time to bring it back to its former beauty and I committed to restore its lost glory.
Every evening after work, I would take my plastic tools and get to the yard, uprooting every weed by hand and later applying premerge and making sure the sprinklers worked properly. Weeks later the yard started showing signs of recovery and the more I kept nurturing it the more life came back until the lawn became green and pleasing to the eye. If I did not spend the time and effort to restore it, it would have remained an eyesore in the neighborhood. Marriage requires time, and effort. There are times your marriage will be rosy and everything works according to plan, but there will be other times when the center cannot longer hold and every part falls. Don’t give up, separate the grass from the weeds and concentrate on eliminating the bad. Take your time and effort to do what you got to do for you marriage to be restored back to its lost glory.
Sometimes we choose to be the arresting officers, the prosecutors and the judges. And we mercilessly convict and condemn our spouses when they wrong us. Without care or feelings we embarrass them and shame them in public not knowing we are doing disservice to ourselves. As long as you know you can contribute something to the good of your marriage, don’t give up on your marriage. Remember the love of the earlier years, the giggles and sweet nothings you all shared. If the lady said her car had broken down, even if it was past midnight the loving man would do whatever he could drive through the rain way past midnight to help her out. He would be there the following day top give her a ride to work. This is what started the spark, and you both have it, and if you would choose to, you can re-ignite the flame of your marriage. Be humble enough to start again.
Every marriage will have its testing time and if you are not strong you will walk away, walk away from a spouse you have known for so long. Walk away from your spouse whom you assured you will grow old together with. Walk away from your spouse you once entrusted with all your life. I would not want to discount marital test, they are tough and they can break you. But this is a test you don’t have to prepare or study for. You just need to put in your human heart, and the willingness to let your spouse to be better than you. The willingness to put a foot on your ego and allow your spouse to mount up as an eagle. Tests don’t have to result in breakages and marital disasters. Don’t be quick to trade your spouse with a new and younger problem free lad or lass. Don’t forget that once your spouse was like that lad or lass –immaculate, loving, caring, understanding and all that but as you get to know each other, as familiarity builds that all changes and the purring newness starts to be not too smooth.
Many times when marriages fail we run to our friends for help (as if their marriages were the best) and that’s when serious mistakes are made. We open up our can of worms and demonize our spouses, the same person we smiled to in front of witnesses during the wedding ceremony saying with confidence “I do”. We listen to our friends as they take us through a marriage crash course. They tell us what is not good and what is unacceptable. Foolishly we accept and live their lives through us, and as a result our marriages end in misery as our spouses get confused wondering what happened to their spouse they married.
When your marriage sails through stormy waters, take your time and understand your surroundings and slowly and steadily navigate to safety. Sometimes that safety may be a temporary place to help you both calculate how long you are willing to continue or whether you would rather let the marriage vessel break in the rough torrents of the ocean. Sometimes time is the best refuge. It takes away the exhaustion and frustrations of a bedeviling journey. Start with yourself, and go through what you know. Your internal reference: did you do everything correctly, what could you have done differently: did you overstretch your reaction? Were you too harsh? Were you too unrealistic? Go through your personal values as honestly as you can. And make amends – don’t be to proud not to go to your spouse and say “I was wrong you were right and I’m sorry for this or that”. More often than not, apologies always allow your marriages vessel to go several more notes in bliss.
If however your marriage is abusive, it means that your vessel is allowing water and you need intervention sooner than later. You cannot continue to stay in a burning house saying the fire will go off. You need intervention (external solutions) not internal solutions. Talk to a trusted friend, your best friend, your close friend and let them know what is going on. If your marriage is abusive don’t for a moment think you can fix it involve the authorities, there are far too many perverts out there and you’d rather be safe than sorry. Never justify your spouse’s abuse, never cover your spouses abuse, it only gets worse. The sooner the abuse is stopped the better for both of you.
A good marriage, if indeed there is one, it will be the one with some understanding, patience here, attention there, care here, some love there. This makes the marriage stronger and unbreakable. When storms of life come, the walls are closely knit together and can withhold any spin. Above all, don’t give up on your marriage, unless it is abusive. If this marriage did not work the next one will not. Statistics indicate that 50% of all first marriages fail but divorce rates of second marriages are estimated to be over 70% – I’m not sure that this is not skewed in one way or another but it does give an idea that you may be better off with your first marriage. Don’t compare your marriage with your friends or relatives marriage. Every marriage no matter how perfect it may appear in the outside has its own issues and you have no idea what they are hiding. Remember every coin has two side and all your friends would like to show you how good their marriage is and show you the side you want to see-happy family. Instead, work on yours it could genuinely be better.
When you encounter problems in marriage, you are the best solution. Remove pride, remove selfishness, remove anger and put on respect. Then sit down and talk. I could go on and on, but this is a good place stop. If you have a chance read my book – A Reason to Carry On. It’s not the only answer but it will help you rebuild, and carry on. It’s available at Amazon.com, Barnes and noble and other leading bookstores. What’s the point? Don’t give up on your marriage too soon.
About the Author
The author has also authored the book “A Reason to Carry On”, and is also a motivational speaker, a teacher and mentor.
