Compromise is not a battle tactic: how marriage has changed me

Nadia Amer
Aug 22, 2017 · 4 min read

Last month my husband and I spent a hectic couple of days moving his stuff from his studio to my own studio — which is now where we will jointly live until we win the lottery.

It was an emotional experience for the both of us, and especially for my husband, Mohamed, who has spent the past 4 years living as a bachelor in his man cave; a place filled with mismatched furniture, terrible linen and strange things a woman would never buy like:

  • A bike shaped clock
  • A Rastafarian-styled ashtray
  • A Star Wars comforter
  • Motor oil

Each item I’d pick up with a quizzical “and this one…?” Would trigger a story for him, and he’d explain to me how he came to have each piece. Once he’d finished explaining, I’d follow-up with a curt “Okay, so are we keeping this?” and he’d pause, and say no. It would then be buried in a bin bag, in preparation for funeralisation at the building’s rubbish chute.

By the time we’d finished packing, we had amassed 2 jumbles of things:

  • a small mound of adult appropriate homeware that would be rehoused in our 450 sq ft dream home.
  • a large heap of personal items that would be stored at my mum’s (much bigger) apartment.

At the end of a long day, we decided to to do a quick final check of the studio and found the only item left on the floor was a lonely-looking perpetual motion toy. (The kind you see on executive desks all over the world, and a classic gizmo for any budding physics enthusiast.) I picked it up and looked it over, sure that this was another item for the NO pile when I heard Mohamed behind me saying:

“I got that from the Science Museum on my first visit to London…”

And there it was.

Another story of how his home came to be, and another item I had pawned off as junk.

I felt a twinge of guilt in my heart.

You see, all this time I had thought that moving into my place was the compromise. That the act of living in this tiny space together was the real test. I mean, I have had to give up a private space where I have spent 4 years of my own life, cultivating MY thing.

But in this time I had somehow missed out on the big picture and neglected an important fact that only became apparent once we’d casually trashed most of Mohamed’s life.

You see, in my research of relationships, I had always expected the concept of ‘compromise’ to turn up at the door of my marriage with fully loaded guns and a thirst for blood. How funny that I hadn’t even recognised her when she showed up for real. A compromise wasn’t something we had fought over or achieved out of necessary battle on the fresh green field of our marriage.

Quite the opposite.

Compromise had shown up quietly, tiptoeing through the back door and taking a seat in the living room and waiting to see how we moved in the moment, she was far less obvious to us, and a little more sentimental…

It was the idea that we were both in some form, saying goodbye to the individuals we once were when we were alone.

This isn’t a bad thing, nor is it a sad thing, we were happy to pack and excited to move. But we often forget that we all live very separate lives until we gather ourselves within the embrace, intent, and commitment of a marriage…and when we do, we are irrevocably different.

My idea here isn’t that I am bringing a revolutionary concept to the table.

Compromise within relationships is incredibly well-documented on the internet, and in self-help books across the land. My purpose is simply to impart my own experience of this feeling because it is unique to every couple who come to know it. Before meeting Mohamed, I struggled to reach for the words that make up the complicated world of “when two become one” (thanks, Baby Spice), but now I am on this journey, I am excited to share this blessing as a continued experience of growth, learning, and reflection.

So what is the takeaway here?

For me, compromise is rooted in mindfulness and an exercise in self-reflection that I am working on with clumsy sincerity each day. When we talk, I try to pause more often, because in the weighted seconds of a pause, I am able to lean out of the noise that sometimes muffles true communication, and I remember that we are working on a union that is the result of two individually successful people, making a conscious choice to step out of ‘ME’ and step into ‘US’.


Want to get your life back on track? Visit www.nadiadalbani.com and book a free consultation today.

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Nadia Amer

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Content Creator | Sharing my thoughts one story at a time | Hire me at nadiadalbani.com

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