Love and War

A year ago today, Rob and I got married at Holy Trinity Brompton Church in London. Many friends had warned us beforehand that the wedding day would simply fly past, and that we should savour each moment.

True enough, that day came and went. When we cycled off (yes, on a bicycle!) into the street in Sloane Square trying to find our friend's hired car which was waiting for us, our adrenaline levels were still soaring high. We kept laughing our heads off as we dragged our luggages towards the train to Gatwick Airport at almost 1am, me in my turquoise Chinese cheong sum, and Rob in his T shirt and jeans (for easy cycling).

Friends (mostly girls) have asked me over the past months - so, how is it like being married?

They almost always get shocked when they hear my answer, which goes along the lines of:

Marriage is the most amazing thing that's ever happened to me, but it's also the hardest thing I've ever done.

(Now, before any male reader gets a bit defensive for Rob, I can confirm that he agrees with me too)

Marriage is hard. And I'm not sure why we (most people) still find that surprising.

Perhaps it's because of the far too often endings in romantic films, where the hero returns from somewhere and gets united with his beloved, or when the confused young woman finally chooses the "right guy" (by ditching her boring fiance for the exciting new kid on the block) and they proclaim their everlasting love for each other, and so on and so forth.

You get the idea.

For some reason, we human beings have been conditioned to think that when such romantic scenarios happen, they lead to a state called Happily Ever After which incidentally does not involve anything mundane or inconvenient like washing up after a meal, arguing over who should take out the trash, being too exhausted and stressed out to say nice things to your exhausted and stressed out spouse, or the more serious issues (which are very real possibilities) like the pain of rebellious teenage children, long term sickness, infertility, depression...

We have been fortunate that we haven't experienced any serious issues in our first year of marriage, but to say that it has been a cruise like what Hollywood movies and popular music often imply will be a lie.

We love each other, but we have also found loving difficult at various points. Our selfishness, our seemingly never ending capacity to hurt each other, even unintentionally, and the realness of feeling like we're enemies instead of lovers, become increasingly apparent, and painful to face or admit.

We are often amazed at how much happiness we can have in our marriage, but equally how frustrating and hard it can be.

Too often we think of marriage as the end to romance (for men mostly) or the start of eternal bliss (for women mostly). I would say both perceptions are misconceived.

Marriage is the start of the real adventure of life, where in the safety of life long commitment (if you choose to anyway), you grow to know the other person more and more deeply and learn to love him or her above yourself - which is extremely easy to say but fabulously hard to do.

Choosing to live like this definitely comes with a cost, but the rewards are, though they may not be immediate, unimaginably wonderful.

PS In case it's not clear, I totally recommend marriage!

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