Letter #20: I’ve been married for 4 years — here’s are 3 things I’ve learnt as a husband
#1: Being married sucks — but only as much as you want it to.
I remember telling myself when I was younger that I would only marry once. I had the privilege of having parents who have been together and didn’t go through a divorce. At times they were rocky, yes, but they stayed together, mainly for me and my sister’s sake.
Maybe it was just in Asian culture, but from what I could observe growing up, there wasn’t a whole lot of romance that stayed around after marriage. It’s like there’s a limited shelf life or an expiry date.
Now that I am married and have come full circle, it’s easy to see why this is the case: people get complacent. They get comfortable, assume they know everything about their other half and start going through the motions. Big mistake.
If you do nothing, the marriage will stagnate. It doesn’t matter how crazy in love you both were at the beginning, if you don’t work on it and create renewal in the marriage, it’s like being at a cliff that’s slowly tipping you over into a gaping canyon.
People seek freshness and a new start — that’s normal. Some people look for it in other people while they’re still married. That’s wrong. You just need to look for it in the same person. You can’t assume you know everything about them.
Sometimes, it’s as simple as having a break from each other. Taking physical time apart, even for a weekend can confirm to yourself how you feel about them. Doing new things with them to see how they react can also introduce a new aspect about them that you hadn’t seen before.
Do new things — if you don’t, things will stagnate and you’ll think marriage sucks.
#2: You marry someone else, but in the end you marry for yourself.
Before I got married, I met a woman. It was a chance meeting, unplanned. We happened to be at the same place and met through mutual friends. She had been married for three years at the time. We got talking.
It was strange. We had a connection and felt like old friends. There wasn’t any attraction, but she told me things about her husband and her life that I felt she hadn’t told other people before.
She felt distant from her husband. They hadn’t had kids at that time. I sensed that she wasn’t sure that she wanted to bring life into the world that wasn’t surrounded by love… but we didn’t get that far.
I don’t know whether she married out of social obligation or whether he was the best choice at the time. What I do know is that she ultimately didn’t marry for herself.
What I do know is that she ultimately didn’t marry for herself.
Every decision we make, we do it because of a perceived personal gain. That’s science, not speculation. This includes everything, especially the social customs of the world.
You marry someone because they can improve your life in some way. It could be monetary, status or general happiness. Whatever the case, you marry for the most important reason for you.
When marriages break down, it’s usually down to two reasons:
- what’s important to you changes and your partner can’t help you with that, or;
- your partner can’t continue providing to you what’s important.
This isn’t fixable. It is hard. You have to face it. I hope that woman that I met once faced it and was able to fix it.
#3: Being married isn’t the top of the hill. It’s the bottom.
Why does our society suggest that your wedding day is one of best days of your life and that the time that follows is a slow, inevitable, sometimes excruciating decay of the relationship?
It’s called The Big Day. After that, you settle with your partner and things just seem to slowly expire. Imagine if things got better and better over time, such that the happiness you experience from The Big Day becomes a norm?
It’s hard to imagine, isn’t it? The reality is that people can become happier and happier over time, or at least maintain their level of happiness with their spouses.
If people started imagining that The Big Day was the bottom of the mountain, would it change what they did day to day? Would they treat every day they spent with their spouse differently?
If you knew that working on your marriage was hard but with each forward step you take, it only leads to more happiness, how many steps would you take every day?
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Until next time,
-J.
