..........Today makes it exactly one year, 4 months and 6 days since I got married. I have tasted love in marriage, I have had the usual and common expectations every single person have when they think about love, marriage and finally being with their lover. There is more than there is..............
Love is not exactly what I thought it was or what most people claim it is. Now I understand better that to know love, especially in marriage, one would need to experience it personally, not just romantic love but all kind of love that exists.
I fell in love with the the kind of woman I always pray to God for: most beautiful and calm woman I've ever met. I remember vividly how I was unable to stop thinking about her the first 3 days I met her at a tech summit: this woman filled my thought through out the summit. I just knew it was stronger than "love at first sight". I made few really slow but precise moves to know just a bit of her during the summit. We had conversations about the summit and I got her contact: I made sure to we had a pending conversation on the last day of the summit before everyone departed.
We got close, the long video calls, endless texting and usual lovers outing began. I couldn't stop thinking about her, always longing to hear her voice and see her face when we were distance apart. This is the woman I always crave for, to hold her hands, touch her beautiful face, hold her close to myself not wanting her to leave me even for a second. We grew into each other within the space of 3 months, I was so intentional about proving my love to her in words and sincere actions: it was slow and gradual but it was worth it because she fell in love with me in her pace (of 3 months). We are now married.
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The first truth I learnt was that you have not known your spouse enough during the courtship days, there is so much to learn about each other in marriage. In this one year old marriage, I and my wife have had to adjust too many times just to please each other: and each change and adjustment had to be intentional else we find ourselves going back to default. I saw the annoying part, funny sides, the caring and so emotional sides, the intelligent and rich mindset sides, I have seen it all but the shocking truth is that we still adjust every day: it is not that easy to stop how you love to do certain things, how you want certain things to be only to please your spouse and make your new home happy regardless.
We still laugh and have great time together but it is too little and not frequent, my wife often initiate them.
Right now, I don't feel the spark and rush of feelings in me towards my wife. I doubt it and take time to say "I love you baby" and I don't even say it first. The love has waxed cold, the fire seems to be reducing as each day passes by, I barely smile at her sincerely except to just disguise in an attempt to make things not look more awkward than they seem to me.
More frequently, I find myself lost in thoughts about this uncomfortable situation, how does it make sense to say that I no longer feel the love, the longing to have her by my side every second. It is crazy and unbelievable that I have fallen out of love..... "no, it can't be" I say this each time I snap out these endless thoughts.
The frustration that comes from having these thoughts and me fighting them often make me cry silently because it is overwhelming to know that I used to love this beautiful and calm woman so much and now, I can't even tell if I still love her or I am being delusional because she clearly still loves me, putting in all expected efforts: but I have withdrawn more than half the attention, genuine care and support this woman deserves.
I finally came to a conclusion to discuss this with my wife. I can't keep running and shying away from the truth if I still want this marriage to work. So, on a Sunday morning after getting home from church, I rushed to the kitchen to make fruit juice from the fruits we bought on our way home from church. I served her a glass cup of the fruit juice I made. Then, I went further to make her favorite, my own special home made bread with lots of fried eggs and a bottle of chilled fruit juice. She had just taken a shower and was sitting in the room when I brought in the food and juice. As expected, she was happy, kissed me several times all over my face then sat down to take her first bite. She loved it and didn't hide how happy she was as she ate it all.
This image was generated by my prompt on ImageFx
Three hours later, we were both crying softly on the bed. I had just narrated how I feel towards her these past months. I was shocked when she told me that she saw it all, including my effort to hide it, trying to make it feel normal. She told me how difficult it was to keep up with the cold moments around each other: she confessed that she also is overwhelmed with the whole adjustments and having to change some things, do certain things my way because I love it more that way just to make me happy. She acknowledged the adjustments and changes I have made for her sake also and how I was intentional about each one.
I suddenly felt a heavy burden was being lifted off my heart, I felt so relieved and sighed loudly, my wife sighed too immediately after mine..... we both chuckled. I stared right into her bright beautiful eyes, "Babygirl, I am sorry for being away from you emotionally, denying you all you should have from me as your husband. Thank you for handling it better than I could, thank you for being the strong woman I needed to make this work better. I love you more than I thought". I said to her: she hugged me tightly, I rubbed her back gently with my hands as she sobbed on my shoulder.
A month later............
We are planning our 4th trip to another amazing place of her choice. We've had three trips already, the first and second trip was her place of choice, the third was mine and now the fourth one is hers.
It seems that my wife is getting much prettier than ever each time she smile at me now. The love is fully back and even growing bigger and better each day as we spend it intentionally with each other. We don't hesitate to share our thoughts and disagreements no matter how "uncomfortable" or "unbelievable" it might be. We watch Instagram reels together at night, send to each other during the day when we are not together. I make her her favorite meal once or twice every week.
We have found our own definition of love again and we are still learning based on our everyday experiences.
We visited our parents and narrated what happened, they shared their own experiences with us telling us how they passed through some common marriage challenges. We got plenty of advice enough to keep us going.
Thank you for reading this long post till the end
This post is fictional