Never Marry For Love Only
Relationships such as marriage have been a topic of discussion since I was born, with little or no changes to that. The rising cases of marital separations has become more and more of a constant feature. Which has given rise to the topical issues of love and marriage.
People obviously go into marriage for different reasons, with love being one of the foremost of them. Love is a powerful binding emotion that comes with deep affection and care. But it is quite misleading to fan the idea that love is everything in a marriage and love is the only ingredient required for a sustainable marriage.
One source has it that there are two broad types of love in marriage: the Eros love and the Agape love. The Eros love is the kind we see portrayed in romantic movies, books and songs, while the Agape love is the unconditional, the divine, the humanistic or noble love. But such kind of love is increasingly becoming a rarity. The more familiar and prevalent love we practice is the Eros love, and indeed this kind of love should not be the sole reason for entering into marriage. A number of reasons supports this claim:
first is the fact that love itself is simply an emotion—even though it could be seen as a stronger or deeper emotion. But just like every other emotion we feel, it can be fleeting, transient or temporal. In time emotional yearnings can begin to wear off or fizzle out, thereby bringing about distrust, disappointment or dissatisfaction. In such cases love does not come to the rescue.
The beginning part of love comes with the whole euphoria, the bubble or excitement that looks like it may never cease, but we are not just embodiments of emotions: our entity includes reasoning and understanding. Therefore, in time and passing events love can possibly begin to show signs of cracks—cracks that were not noticeable gradually begin to suffice, and faults that were not initial faults gradually become faults. The love that stood gallant gradually becomes jittery and weak before ghosting sorrowfully into the blues. This happens when unforeseen or unplanned circumstances begin to test or ravage through a marriage that was simply built on love. Therefore, for a marriage to work love won’t be the only answer. Sometimes simple and practical knowledge needs to be applied to prevent a possible disaster from occurring in the marriage. Example, if a man is an ‘AS’ carrier, he checks for a female counterpart who is not an ‘AS’ in order to avoid the possible birth of an ‘SS’ child. This is a simple application of biological logic that could inform couples against going ahead with such union simply because of their love for each other. Else, they increase the chances of giving birth to miserable children.
Sometimes people also have this utopian idea that trust is easy to feel as long as there is love, but it gets trickier when the trust is broken for the first time by one of the couples. Trust as we know is hard to gain but easy to lose. When trust is broken for the first time, it takes conscious effort on the part of the couples involved in the marriage to build another form of trust, therefore aspiring couples need to consciously imbibe the character of trusting one another and living up to such trust. And not just holding onto love to save the day when trust is eventually threatened or lost in the marriage. Else, they risk the chances of following the short route to marital separation.
Never marry for love only without the character of forgiveness: we can also argue that when there is love there is forgiveness. But this applies to individuals who generally find it hard to forgive, some individuals have problem with letting go of ills and offences perpetrated by other individuals to them. One has to be wary of entering into union with such individuals as their lack of forgiveness could also threaten the love the couples so much hold dearly. This should be duly noted by anyone and everyone who wants to have a long lasting or symbiotic marriage. Love without forgiveness breeds distraught and discontent, together they beautifully combine together to produce resentment and malice, both of which are among the quickest ways to quench a marital union.
Never marry for love only without deliberate decision to sacrifice: some folks could argue that as long as there is genuine love there will be the zeal for each of the couple to undertake sacrifices when the need arises. Sometimes this could be true. But such notion is put to test when the love existing between them have gone beyond the early or waxing stage. In such situations making sacrifices becomes relatively difficult as the fire that was burning brightly has gradually began to quench. Therefore, there is need for the couples involved to judiciously consider the sacrifices (be it time, money or life) they can make or will be willing to make for one another. And not simply claiming to be true followers of love. Such kind of reality where sacrifice is portrayed as something that is easily done are mostly seen and read in romantic movies and novels. Which should not be conflicted with reality.
Sacrifices in marriages is not a subject to be trifled with, or taken lightly. Love won’t undertake the sacrifices, but the individuals involved in the marriage.
Never go into marriage without respect: marriage without respect is definitely a breeding ground for clash of egos. In such union of disrespect, disunity follows suite. If such is maintained consistently it is only a matter of time before both couples find their way out of the marriage. Therefore, both should take note of their willingness to display an immeasurable amount of respect for one another, and not simply seeing themselves as lovers.
All these is not to say that love is inconsequential in marriage; in fact love holds a special place among all possible reasons to get married but marriage is like a meal that requires more than one ingredient with love being one of them. In marrying for love only, we risk coming across the innumerable marital issues and challenges that might abound, therefore never marry for love only.