On Being Married--Part Two

They say the first year (some even say, first five years) of marriage is the hardest and most challenging. I have encountered many "wise people" saying this over and over again.

"After the honeymoon is over, you'll start to quarrel over small matters. It's true. It happened to me," one of them said.

Well, well! How can something be a truth, when you experience it? True, it works in your case. But it doesn't mean that it'll work that way for everybody.

How many books and magazines that have written about this? I don't know, I lost count. But why and why many people seem to think it's the truth?

The adaptation time can be challenging, I grant you that. Once you are married, you'll begin to know your partner's daily life. He might snore, have an annoying habit you're dying to break (it could be a simple matter--maybe like, walking the house naked, wearing pyjamas upon receiving guests, forgetting that he is married to you, spending more money for the car and computer, etc.), like to eat the same fast food from morning till night, prefer watching soccer matches than making love to you, and so on, and so on. But it only matters if you think it matters.

Plenty of books, movies, sit-coms portray quarrels between a husband and a wife because of one trivial matter--the toilet seat. He leaves it up, she leaves it down. To my partner and me, it's a simple matter. Whenever he wants to use it, he raises it up. When my turn comes, I just put it down. It's not much of a story (I know, viewers from home and readers of book love "exciting plot with conflicts and twists"). Maybe that's why most people prefer to quarrel approach when it comes to toilet seats.

Maybe to others, the first year (or five years) of marriage is hell.

It can be, if you allow it to happen.