Sharing Circle Series: The Reality Of Marriage

This is a tough one.

My wife has asked me to write a post about the reality of marriage.

I’m not sure if this is a trap!

Before I launch into any kind of detail, here is my disclaimer:

I need to reiterate that marriage is not easy, it is hard. But it is hard in the way that anything worth having in this life is hard, and therefore you have to work hard for it.

I love being married to the woman I have chosen to spend the rest of my life with. It will always be one of the best decisions I have ever made.

In a partner, you have someone who is going to dig beneath the surface and unearth the best, and unfortunately, the worst aspects of your character. That intimate relationship is a double-edged sword, at times a weapon to fight for the marriage and at others, it’s a blade that swings against the foundation of the marriage.

My wife can be brutally honest with me at times when I most need to hear the truth, but these can also be at times when I don’t necessary WANT to hear it. As humans, we are very often selfish enough to want only our own thoughts to be a priority. So you can only imagine how at times this causes friction.

Our flaws are raw wounds, and when exposed the pain can sometimes be too hard to bear.

Your wife/partner will always have the ability to expose your flaws and make you feel vulnerable. Yet, your partner is also there to be the hand to guide you through the moments when you are forced to become familiar with the parts of yourself you would rather remain a stranger to.

Learning to re-assess your perception of time is one of the biggest challenges I have faced in our relationship (especially marriage) till this day. I have learnt that there is a difference between being together and “spending time”.

You have to create time in a marriage. Sometimes we forget that, just because we are in our partner’s presence, it doesn’t mean we are present. I used to spend so long lost in thought, thinking about business, dwelling on ideas that I rarely acknowledged that I was not really with my partner, she would at times become an accessory to my desires. I had to learn that only when our time together was protected, treated as a sacred treasure between us, was I truly able to feel connected and find comfort in the relief a loving partner can give you from the discord of this world.

This appreciation makes you take time to focus on one of the most important things in life. We so often go through our existence without appreciating time and its value. Being married has allowed me to do that.

It took me a long time, to admit that I couldn’t face everything by myself. There were some battles in life, that I was unable to fight alone. Battles that required twice the strength, twice the courage and that is where my wife has come in. At the times, where I have not been strong enough, or too tired to lift my feet across the shores of life, she has carried me, she has been the second set of footprints in the sand.

Admitting defeat is scary. I have often found myself, retreating into my wife’s arms in my bed at night in defeat, for her to tend to my wounds. Then I would wake up in the morning to see her gearing up for us to re-enter the battlefield, to ensure victory in the war.

In summary, I think I just wanted to use this article to highlight that marriage is an adventure of many dynamics, positive and negative.

Words by my husband Suli Breaks. Edited by Asklychee.

P.S As you know I retell stories from my life; honest and vulnerable stories. I wanted to do a series sharing stories from other people’s lives, so I will be working with people over the next month or so, as part of this Sharing Circle Series, to help them tell their stories in the most honest and vulnerable way.

Let me know what you think by commenting below, love hearing from you guys.

Love Asklychee

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