As I sat amongst the many guests and family who turned up on a Saturday morning to witness the union of my cousin and her husband, I couldn’t help but to reminisce about my day at the alter. Although, my wedding wasn’t held at the church but I believe the feelings of joy, nervousness and the overwhelming sadness that overcame me for having to leave my family home – the only home I’ve ever known are all similar. Though she didn’t explicitly say all of this out in the open but if you’ve ever been in the same shoes, you’d know.

Someone once said that “getting married is easy but maintaining a marriage is hard“. That couldn’t be farther from the truth. After all the glitter and fancy honeymoon, you’d find yourself having to work twice as hard for your marriage to work; harder than you’d ever had to saving money for your wedding. It’s definitely no easy task.

I’ve sort of come to the conclusion about marriages that don’t lasts. It’s made up of many factors but I believe that the root of the failure boils down to 2 people, entering a marriage wanting different things. And both are either ignorant of what the other wants in the first place or both did know what they want but as time passes, both started to change.

I know this may sound a little naive but a marriage isn’t a goal. It isn’t about eventually getting your dream car or getting that wads of cash when your term life insurance finally reaches full term. It’s a journey; a journey of your lives together. In a journey, just like any others you’ve taken in your life, there are ups and downs, hiccups along the way, smooth sailing at certain pit stops – a journey that is ever changing where only one thing remains constant and that is your partner. Both have to work at getting through the journey of married life in one piece, much the same way you embarked on it in the first place. There will be times where you disagree but there will also be times where you feel like you can finish each other’s sentence. In life, there is no perfection – only compromise and solutions. And in a marriage, it’s a team effort to get through this battle unscathed.

The road isn’t a smooth ride but there is always a rainbow in the end. It isn’t as bad as how you’d imagine it , just how bad you want it to work.