Marriage

2 conversations about marriage stuck in my head this week. While I don’t profess to be an expert on this topic, I guess I can write about it since I have been in my first and only marriage for 24 years with 2 wonderful kids.

I had a very nice home cooked dinner (uni and pasta with a nice bottle of white) with a good friend and colleague on Wed evening at his place. He was preparing for his marriage to a nice lady after 6 years of getting to know her. It will be an elaborate wedding on a small island off the coast of Sicily. My wife and I are invited and we are excited to explore that part of Italy which we have never been to before.

He is currently in his late thirties and he started to express some reservations about the marriage, their differences and having a family. The complicated wedding is probably weighing heavily on his mind now, with the large financial undertaking. He is also currently into his most important job in his career, being a CEO of a company.

In my blog about the various stages of life a few weeks ago, I mentioned about the worries the 2 men in their late thirties who are wondering where life will take them next. Marriage is the next big step for one of them.

I shared with him some of my marriage life experiences, how we faced them and provided some tips on the wedding preparation. So many things are now happening in his life concurrently now that I think he is only human to be stressed out and getting worried about too many unknowns. Hopefully, my listening ear during that dinner would be of some help. Thinking back, I was also fully into my career at that time too, being in my late thirties and the kids were also quite young and a handful then. Maybe during that time, there was not too much time to think and reflect on the situation but I guess one just has to carry on and plow through it.

The other incident was an update from my wife on a catch up she had with friends on a couple we know who had recently divorced. It was not an easy marriage in the first place as she was more than 10 years older than the groom. Their differences grew bigger over time and it resulted in a lot of unhappiness. One was always insisting on spending more time with the bigger immediate family while the other preferred more couple time. The needs of the younger man were also apparently very different from an older woman. Perhaps it was in both their interest for their future to split up because staying together had become untenable.

Marriage is about compromises with a lot of give and take involved. The result is that 2 persons can grow old together. It takes an effort to sustain and to keep fresh, to be rewarded with the rich memories we share together and the little pieces of life we created together, our kids. What one puts into it, one will hopefully receive multiple times of abundant happiness in return. It takes two to tango.