Is Love Truly Enough?
I know we love love. We love the idea of having someone by our side who makes us feel secure, heard, loved, understood, cared for, etc. But is love truly enough to make a long life commitment? When we have love, do we truly have everything we need? Through thick and thin? Till death do us part? When you break down the marital vows couples say when they wanna get married, it goes deeper than that. When you look at our society and the rate of divorces we have, you’ll wonder “but I thought they loved each other? Why didn’t it work?”. You’ll hear people say things like “ I love you but I’m just not ready to commit.” “I love you but my family doesn’t think you are the right one for me.” “I love you but we’re not from the same tribe.” Some of you will cringe and ask “Why such backward thinking? We are not in the ice age where we need our parents’ approval and we cared about what tribe you belong to.” Well my dear friends, it still exists up till today.
So, if loving someone isn’t enough, what else do I need?
Being ready:
There was a poll on twitter which suggested that “ Most men don’t marry the woman they love(d) the most. They marry the woman that is around when they are ready to marry”. Many men texted their opinions about the validity of that statement. (screenshots above) So there is a factor of ‘being ready’; be it financially, emotionally, physically and mentally. Preparing oneself to live for the rest of our lives with one person. And it brought me back to my conviction that: Love is a decision. Love is emotional but we cannot solely be based off emotions. And other times, even though we may not fully have all the required resources to make that commitment, we can either use what we have to make things work or let it go so we can work on whatever it is we think needs fixing before making that commitment. And most times, we could lose it forever.
Family:
Simi sang:
Love don’t care, who you be
where you dey from, love don’t care at all.
Love don’t care, who you know, wetin you get oh,
love don’t care at all
Well, tell that to your friends and not your family members. This is usually the hardest part because we have to face everyone’s opinions and mostly stereotypes about what they think of your partner. They will check their financial status, tribe, family status, background, educational status and what not.
I have never been the type to want to date a guy simply because he is from my tribe. If I was in Cameroon, I’d obviously end up with a Bamiléké or an Anglophone guy for that matter because I have literally been exposed to just those (I don’t know if this is a sign but let’s not get too deep into this.) But right now, I am in Canada where there are so many other people from different places so maybe, love will have a different end for me. But recently a conversation sparked and I realized if I ever brought someone from out of my country, it’d be a serious problem.
I celebrated my birthday in March and I have a Congolese friend who couldn’t make it to my birthday dinner and so he made it up to me by inviting me to a restaurant. We met a friend of ours on our way there and he casually whispered in my ear “Just remember that he is Congolese”. HUH?? What is that even supposed to mean? Another girlfriend of mine was dating this Ivorian guy and our male friends were like, “How do you intend to present him to the family? Do you think they will accept him? HUH?? But fun fact is, our guys can date who they want but as women, we somehow have to be careful of outsiders. But why aren’t we so skeptical about sharing our values and traditions with the white man? If I said I wanted to marry a white, there’ll be a celebration. Because they see mixed kids. Because they see the opportunity to travel. But if we dare to marry outside our tribe, we have to invoke our ancestors to seek their wisdom.
It really does get complicated and with family adding to the mixture, love just doesn’t seem enough.
Respect:
If we lose love and self respect for each other, this is how we finally die.
People often say, “you can love someone and still cheat on them”. I say, “you cannot respect someone and cheat on them”. For me, cheating stems from a place of lack of self-love and when you don’t love yourself, you’ll abuse people who normally love you. And for me, love and respect are not mutually exclusive. They go together reasons why when there is abuse in a relationship or when there is no longer respect for one another, we are bound to fall apart.
Love is not complicated. We humans are. And as I look at relationships, marriages and every other type of relationship, I realize you can love someone but if it is not a decision you make every single day, it will fail. If you do not put in the time, effort, communication, sacrifices, compromise, etc, it will fail. It takes the two of you to want it more than anything and if one crumbles, the other should be the pillar. That’s why it’s not a 50/50 affair and dividing chores and having specific roles. You’ve got to build this together. So for me, love is not enough.
So tell me, do you think love is enough?
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