Growing up, every little girl dreamed of her perfect wedding. How she might set herself apart from the rest, what gown she’ll walk down the aisle in, the place she’ll get married at, but most importantly, who’ll she’ll get married to.
A little girl isn’t going to carefully analyse each and every individual to see whether they match the perfect spouse they had in mind or not. With age, we realize that we’re probably never going to find that perfect spouse and decide to settle for someone else. Here’s the first thing we do wrong. We settle.
Ever since the advent of romanticism, we’ve believed that there’s surely someone out there for everyone. If only there was a way to go back in time and tell the person who came up with this to add the line, “but they don’t have to be perfect”.
Is there someone out there for everyone? Of course there is! Eventually you are going to find love and live happily ever after just like you thought you would when you were younger. The fact is, we’re completely unwilling to let go of that idea. When flaws start to unravel, we conclude that this person isn’t the right one and we’ll just have to look for love elsewhere.
We might not be that naive little girl anymore, but we’re still looking for perfection. However, have we ever really wondered whether we’re perfect or not?
Who knows us better than anyone? Us. Look at yourself in the mirror and really, I mean really, determine whether everything about you is perfect. We’re not perfect. No one is perfect. Here’s where you’ll find yourself realizing how the title makes sense. “Wrong” doesn’t mean that they’re abusive or manipulative; it simply means that they aren’t perfect. When we’re dating, we don’t really focus on enlarging our flaws. Our first date doesn’t start off with the question, “So, how’s therapy going?”.
However, anything we sense wrong in a budding relationship is deemed as their fault and not ours. These reasons won’t be valid once we’re married. Because, we aren’t living in the era where men and women married because it was suitable to everyone else’s needs.
Today, you can know any and every one just by searching their names on a search engine. If you’re marrying someone then you obviously know a lot more about them. Thus, if or when things start to go sour, you’re left blaming yourself for picking the “wrong” person.
Like I mentioned before, everyone tries their best to mask their flaws rather than highlight them when they first meet. Eventually, you find yourself falling slowly in love with that person and you think of them as the closest you’ll ever come to your dream guy. You take a vow and you’re married.
The stories we read as kids ended with, “and they lived happily ever after”, but that doesn’t apply to the real world where the story only begins afterwards. It’s after you’re married that you realize you don’t know them as well as you thought.
When you two used to date, things could be overlooked but right now you’re sharing a life together. You can’t turn a blind eye to anything. You need to realize that over time things will unravel and you’ll have to learn to deal with them.
Let me put it simply; they aren’t wrong and neither are you. They’re a human being just as much as you are and if you have flaws then they sure as hell do too. The second you’re perfect spouse fantasy got tainted a bit, you can’t just assume that you married the wrong person. What’s a marriage if not hard work?
You need to stick by your spouse and go through everything with them. They have to do the same with you. Your perfect and your ideal are two different people. The perfect person was the one you’ve been fantasizing about and your ideal person is the one who can understand you, care for you, help you and love you. That was the person you thought you needed and this is the person you actually need. There are days life will literally feel like a bed of roses and days those roses are replaced with thorns. You won’t be living the life you dreamt about because there will be fights and things will be said, but you owe it to the man you married to at least understand them before concluding that you married the wrong person.
In no way am I telling you to stick around for an abuser. I’m telling you to not make up excuses for yourself if your relationship isn’t picture perfect. Sometimes there is no valid excuse and this is just the way it was meant to be. Think about it, if you’re having a bad day then surely there was a good day to which you can compare it too.
Marriage isn’t an easy thing.
