Till Unhappiness Do Us Part
Divorce isn’t the only prevalence when it comes to the possible outcomes of marriages. There are no statistics to depict the marital dissatisfaction that plagues today’s married couples, but it’s nonetheless something as, if not more, prevalent as divorce.
Apart from the actual day of the marriage, marriage isn’t all glitters, perfectly white folded napkins, unicorns and rainbows. It’s more like two human beings on the battlefield of life trying to make it out alive and hoping to get some sweet loving in between. Expecting marriage to be a land where constant love and happiness blossoms is like already signing ourselves for divorce before it even started.
It’s important to recognize and break free from the very unrealistic societal expectations that float around regarding marriage nowadays. It baffles me that in today’s age, marriage is almost looked upon as a popular trend. "Babe, all my friend are getting married! Why aren’t we there yet? " Perhaps because I couldn’t care less about keeping up with the Joneses?
To expect ever lasting bliss, sexy times and unconditional love is to shoot ourselves in the foot. This isn’t to say that you ought to expect that your partner will one day become everything he said he would never become (even though this can and does happen), but it’s to hold a realistic vision of what a long-term marriage entails.
We may be endlessly unhappy because we perhaps expect our happiness to come from external outlets, including our partner. What a risky rationale to live by!
Boredom, lack of novelty and sexy times, children eating away at our connection, and so on, shouldn’t be looked upon as evidence that the future of one’s marriage is doomed to failure – but rather as challenges to be solved together, as a team.
The truth is that there’s one formula at making sure misery creeps into your marriage and that is to expect that happiness is to be a constant. You can’t possibly live with someone day in, day out, year in, year out, without expecting to face the inevitable trials of life. Shit will hit the fan.
What matters, isn’t to feel constantly happy within your marriage (which is also slightly impossible), but it’s to feel grateful in spite of it all. If you rest your focus on the irreconcilable differences between your partner and yourself, or on everything that doesn’t go your way, you will miss out on all the nice things your partner may have done for you that you have failed to notice, because of your predisposition to seek for all the wrongs.
Let go of the unattainable ideals of love and perfection that society has tried to implant in your mind, as they can’t be found in the real world. Commit to kindness, empathy, growth and healing, as they surely will bring much more light to your partnership than focusing on the superficialities ever will.