What is love and marriage all about, actually? I was asked that particular question by a very good friend of mine over our chat session. While I have a very steady and healthy relationship, she’s still searching for Mr. Right. Conversing with her sometimes makes me feel weird, as I have to revert back and think like a schoolgirl who just had her first crush. She’s a good friend of mine, but sometimes, I really could not stand her musing and questions, as to her, love for her partner usually only last for a few month.
When she decided that the guy is not ‘the right man’ for her, she’ll go through breakups and search for a new guy and be ‘in love again’. And I will be forced to endure the same questions and silly musings all over again. Sometimes, I really wish that she could grow up.
She really can cry at the top of her lungs when she go through her break up episodes, and sometimes, I really wanted to tell her that what she felt was not really love, but mere infatuation. What else do you call a relationship that usually can only last at most only 3 month and can be easily replaced after that? Love, is not supposed to be easily replaceable, is it? To me, love is not like buying a wrong bra that is not suitable for you and you can return it for a refund like most of my friends would have me believe.
Answering her questions and making her understand the concept of ‘love and relationship’ could have been easier if I was a young teenager with a mush as brain, but I had to think quite hard before answering her question. To me, love is not just about flowers and romantic courtship at the beginning of a relationship like many would believe. It’s something more than that. It has deeper meaning. It’s supposed to transcend through time, not just last for a few month. Love is supposed to be like one of those elder couple who still holds hand and care for each other even though they are counting the days to leave the world. Now, THAT is love.
To couples who just started their relationship, love would be about holding hands, stealing a peck on the cheek, spending some time together in a cinema and not to mention lavishing one another with flowers, gifts and chocolates. Some even think that love is about how much money his or her partner have in their savings account. I think that is not real love. It’s mere courtship. If one doesn’t work hard to stay in love, there are possibility that a couple can fall out of love. To still be in love after many years of marriage takes a lot of effort and patience. To still be in love after years of relationship, one would need to fight for it.
Real L.O.V.E. is not a bed of roses. Well, at least for married couple, love is not a bed of roses. It takes a lot of work to make a marriage work and stay together until death do them apart. One would have to accept and love the spouse unconditionally, not to mention that to make a marriage work, there are a lot of factor that will determine the success of it. Money, sexual relationship and intimacy, family, children, devotion, commitment … all those are thrown together in marriage. Those element needs to be in harmony, or else you’ll be looking at at marriage like a bowl of rotten salad, or a divorce for that matter.
Money may not buy happiness, but it does make one’s marriage easier. No matter how un-materialistic a wife or a husband is, marriage definitely cannot survive without having a roof over the couple’s head and decent food on the table. In this modern world, money is essential for survival. It’s definitely not be easy to maintain a relationship without having a stable finance, no matter how much people say that love is not about money. Love is not all about money and how much someone have in the savings account, yes, but then again, money is needed to maintain a comfortable and stable relationship. A couple do not need to be filthy rich to get married, but still, it’s necessary to have some money to support and build a family. Feelings or flowers alone does not feed your grumbling stomach nor it makes your car moves without petrol.
Sex, sex, sex, sex. Love is also not about sex and romance alone, but, truthfully, can a marriage survive without passion and affection towards one another? Can a husband or wife stay in a marriage that practice celibacy? Maybe sex would be out of the window when you’re in your sixties or seventies without the assistance of hormones and stuff, but can one live in celibacy when the marriage is still young and at prime? Sexual frustration among couple who could not or would not voice it up honestly to their spouse may also lead to the downfall of their relationship as sometimes, infidelity may happen when a husband of wife is sexually frustrated.
Then comes children matters when we talk about love. Marriage itself is created for breeding prupose. I used to call love and marriage is a mother nature’s trick to get human to reproduce. As I grow older, I no longer believe that love is mother nature’s trick to get human have sex and reproduce, but I do think that the existence of children of lack of children in a marriage determine marital bliss. Some couple may be able to accept that they could not have children, but most would feel that children is actually the one that bind their marriage together.
Wise man says, three is a crowd. Three is definitely a crowd in a marriage. The existence of a third party may also ruin a marriage, so please, please, stay devoted to your spouse. Do not bring a third person into your marriage and make your marriage a hell of a disaster. Infidelity may not only hurt your spouse and children’s mentally, but also physically if you gets STD( AIDS, etc) as a result of your infidelity.
To me, love and relationship requires a lot of hard work and effort. If one do not make an effort to harmonize those element that co-exist in a relationship or marriage, love would definitely go down the drain. What is love and relationship to you?
Cleffairy: It’s not easy to stay in love for a very long term, but it’s really easy to fall out of love.
hey ah jie….love is care and concern and longing for one another’s companionship and some lust and some cheekiness and some responsibility….lol. correct or not? why stay up so late….or rather, why wake up so early? i need to hit the sack now, tmrw got lotsa work, need to go to amsterdam too tmrw. emmm, hey, i wana tell u 1 thing…dutch really hs no real cuisine of their own….bland bland bland!!! i need my dose of bak kut teh!!!! lol/ bye babe. i love u….hehehehehehe.
Ktx… I din sleep. LOL. Woke up in the middle of the night again and have nothing better to do. =.= I always liddat wan la, got insomnia. Unless I’m damn tired, I wun be able to sleep well. Ahaha… love is a lot of things mix up together, I guess. 😀 Aiyo, you travel around so much, must take care ohh…still can think about BKT. LOL.
you cant sleep last nite? i was sleeping like a bear in hybernation…lol.
kids nowadays fall in love too easily. what is love to them? love is like being in a movie. most of the time, it ends with happily ever after. but that’s not true in life. one has to tolerate with his/her partner (to a certain extend) and be sensitive towards each other’s feelings without thinking of only one side. those who are in and out of love (especially teenagers) mostly arent mature enough. some adults are also the same. to some, worldly materials that you buy for them reflects your love. what if you do not have the means to buy a particular present? what would be the consequence?
before my marriage, i attended several counselling courses on how to make or improve the couples bonding. one particular subject that i love is that in whatever you do, be it in sports, movies, shopping or what not, do it together, as a couple. there is no one me or herself. there’s no more individuals but there’s two of us sharing our lives together until death do us part. but im not saying that you cant give room to one who needs it at times.
and yes, love and marriage do need a lot of hard work, effort and to add….attention. you cant expect to plant a tree by just looking at it. it will wither and die. you need to make sure that there’s enough water, no caterpillars eating its leaves, enough sunlight and sufficient fertilizers for it to grow and be fruitful. cheers……
Calvin, I very pity wan la… always cannot sleep at night. Old habits are hard to break… I sleep very less when I was still studying. So unless I’m exhausted, I wun be able to sleep like a pig. 🙁
How true. I found that these days, young people(damn, I sound so old!) have their heads in the clouds. When they are in a relationship, they think everything will be all right as long as they ‘love’ and lavish one another with presents. Actually, once they jump into bed or marriage, they’ll discover that not everything is made in heaven, and real love actually requires a lot of efforts on both party. Sometimes, I see some of my friends still have their heads in the clouds, even though they are older than me. Love, to them is like changing clothes. See their on and off relationship also can shake head la…summore can believe that that sort of relationship is ‘real love’.
Again, I share same sentiment with you. In relationship and marriage, there is no such thing as ‘I’. There’s only ‘WE’ and ‘US’. And maintaining ‘US’ take a hell of work. LOL. 😀 I’m so sure that your relationship with Rachel is not always a bed of roses too, as marriage itself is a challenge. 😀
clef, yah. there are many obstacles in life and its been only 3 months since we’re married. constantly praying for god to sustain us as a couple.
i think watching movies like sex and the city……bad influence. branded goods, sleeping around, fall in and out of love, looking for rich men..come on lar, where got such thing in the real life. how many rich men are there in town. cant they be realistic about life and not dream and be on cloud nine? someone has got to slap them back into reality……you up for the job? 😛
Calvin… wah, 3 months only ah? Aiyo, still honeymoon stage lah. Still got so many thing to explore about each other. LOL. Still not much nonsense come out yet. Marriage is like an obstacle course, needs a lot of endurance. Ahahahaha….most important thing, love and marriage also requires a lot of faith. I’m very sure about it. No faith, den a relationship is in impending doom 😀
So far, I did not watch Sex and The City yet, cuz I heard a lot of part is censored. *grinz* Cleffairy is never a supporter for censored stuff. Whahahaha… I din know what Sex and The City is all about, but I know a lot of girls make a huge fuss about it. A lot were saying it’s really a cool movie to watch, but now you gave me the review on it, i dun think I’ll be spending my time watching it. I’m probably better off watching some corny superhero movies like Superman or Ironman. At least they are pure fiction. 😛
I don’t usually restrict myself to watching only those Hollywood junks. I watch all sort of movies, even Philippine’s movie. There’s one that I came across that teach me a lot of things about a relationship. Might be boring and insufferable for some people, but I find it quite inspiring to watch. I learn from this movie, that even if i love myself a bit more, doesn’t mean I love my other half less. 😀 And also, love can never be planned. ONE MORE CHANCE. Got me thinking really hard, man. LOL.
Hmm, sure. Slap them *SLAP!* LMAO.
Love is commitment…responsibility…sacrifice…giving and taking. Sex? That’s just a fringe benefit! There can be a lot of love in platonic relationships.
Suituapui, welcome to my blog. Thank you for visiting and commenting. Hmm… not having sex included in a platonic relationship is definitely possible, I agree with you. But I am not so sure if married couple can live in celibacy. LMAO.
Everyone should vote for sex intimacy!!! LOL best selection =X
LMAO, Seng… today so free ah? Nonid to work? Jie hungry aaaaaahhhhh! Go cook for jie! 😛
halo ms insomniac :0 wah serious question. I agree with u that it takes a lot of hard work to maintain a relationship but it’s got to come from both parties. Money is rather important cos when fight about money, love flies out de window. LOL so typical that guys wud vote for sex!
not me not me….me good boy.. 😛
no one will be 100%,
only both 50% to become 100% match!
Fergie… ahaha… last night I didn’t get insomnia. Slept like a pig til 8am. Whahaha… feel so refreshed in the morning. 😀 yeah, Fergie, of course it takes two to tango. 😀 if one make an effort to make a relationship work but the other refused to do the same, the relationship will be at peril too. It takes constant attention. 😀 Ahahaha… yeah, for almost every couple, when they fought about money, love not only fly out of the window, but takes flight and land in a foreign country too. LMAO.
Calvin…you’re really a good boy meh? Whahahahaha… must ask Rachel about tis lorrr…. wait she say you’re a naughty boy. 😛
Kikey… yeah. I agree with you. 😀 good metaphor on that too.
Hemm… i do think that love is an outflow of God’s love for mankind. If not, our natural strength to love is not able to withstand the frugality of our mind and each other’s quirks.
Anyway, on a more interesting subject of BKT .. when?
🙂
Huh… BKT? As in Bak kut teh? LOL.
add a little bit of spice, and a little bit of laughter, and honest sex into a relationship i think that is suffice to have a good relatioship.
oops without forgetting, go and get involved in a sport that both like, and some beer drinking session at night, that will be heaven liao
I think people get addicted to the highs and lows of relationships. They are not comfortable with the relationship starts to feel comfortable. They like the beginning and end of the relationship but the middle part is too boring. There is nothing wrong with this if you are knowingly choosing this for yourself but when you trick yourself and your friends into believing that you are looking for long term when your actions clearly say you are not it is a huge form of denial that drives friends away from listening to you after a time.
well said woman. totally agreed. i never buy those silly things ppl call love, cuz i always look back at my parents who had been together for 28 years, 6 children to boot, and still call each other sayang and hold hands, and lots of pecking on the cheek.
haha. thats what i want.
Eugene, lol… relationship is a little bit of everything. But, like everything else, if overindulge also not healthy. Whahahaha.
Maia, yes, you’re right. I have to be honest. I am sick of my friend’s rendezvous. She seems to think all of her relationship is ‘real love’. Sadly, her actions belied her words.
Pamina, these days, love is quite commercialize lah. Back then, our parent’s times, where got such things lah. LOL.
Just chanced upon this article.. very well written and I agree with everything you have written!