Marriage: In Tough Times Remember Why You Fell In Love With Him BUT What If You Weren't In Love With Him When You Got Married, What Do You Do Then?????

Was recently speaking to a friend who's having problems in her marriage, and we got talking about true love and knowing the ONE and all that. They always say, when you are having problems, remember the reasons why you fell in love with him and married him. That's fine but what if you were not in love with him when you married him.
I certainly wasn't in love with my husband when we married and I know he wasn't in love with me either. There was no love at first sight, butterflies in the stomach or fireworks going off at our first kiss. In fact if I'm honest I couldn't stand him because I thought he was too tall, loud and came from another planet whose inhabitants had now become extinct because he was do different to me in his mind-set. So why did we get married? I hear you ask. Simple, we were in love with the idea of marriage. I guess we were also fond of each other to a certain extent but still it was a disaster waiting to happen.

To him marriage was a display of maturity and meant he could have sex whenever he wanted to. Mine was a little more complicated. My mother had already chosen someone else, that I didn't like or know, for me to marry and was against me marrying my husband. So for me getting married was a kind of a rebellion to show everyone that I had grown up and could make my own choices. I didn't really think too much about the person I was marrying, he was just the person I was dating at the time. He represented liberation from my mum and cutting of apron strings, and I could have sex "legally", in the spiritual sense. 
The first few years of marriage, when I say first few I mean 7 years was a freaking nightmare. You name it, we went through it but thank God we came out on the other side crazy in love with each other and happier than we ever imagined possible. He is the love of my life and I can't imagine sharing my life with anyone else. Well enough gushing and back to the discussion.

My friend, like me wasn't in love with her husband when they married but she hoped the love would grow and develop but no such luck and she is now feeling so discouraged. I guess it’s a gamble to go into marriage without loving the person. She believes that perhaps things would be different now if she had waited to have fallen in love with him before marriage or married someone she was in love with.
I often wonder if Seyi and I would have such a happy marriage now if we were head over heels in love with each other when we got married because I believe the challenges we have faced in our marriage helped our feelings for each other develop and could have only grown through those issues.
Whilst I wouldn't change anything about my experiences and 
marriage, I often wonder how things would have turned out if I had 
had the fairy tale beginning.
My conclusion is marriage is challenging however you start and it changes you.  On the wedding day the bride is happy and can't stop smiling and even for a year maybe 18months tops is on cloud 9 and then she gets what I call THE LOOK. That look that says why didn't anyone tell me this is how marriage is? Observe it for yourself. It's not a sad or surprised look, it's more a stern serious look. At this point I usually say, “You are very welcome to the club". 
So in the tough times look to the future and remember how you want to end not to the past remembering how you started because the end should always be greater than the beginning.

Copyright June's Secrets 2015