by Alexia Wood
What did she say? Is she crazy? Of course you ought to get married if you’re in love? Like she lil mad or wah? Say what?
YOU HEARD ME!
“Oh we’re in love”.
This statement has been responsible for many a divorce, broken homes and dissolved relationships…. because as many as have fallen IN love have fallen OUT of love.
So why would you base your marriage solely on a momentary feeling? Or is divorce the answer for throwing away one moment for another?
Do you even recognize the differences between love and being in love?
Ok.
Imagine a fireplace, a beautiful fire place and the wood and matches needed to light the fire.
Now ‘love’ is like that fireplace. Always there, solid and such a beauty with the very real potential to build a wonderful fire, that warms the heart, soul and body.
Being ‘in love’ on the other hand, is like the wood and the matches. It’s not always there, you have to get the wood, you have to make the matches available, you have to ignite the sparks, you have to create the fire.
And guess what? The wood, the fire, it won’t last always. It will die down, it will go out and its up to you to rekindle it, to put more wood in to keep it burning.
So tell me why would you get married based just on something that doesn’t last always and needs constant refueling, if its not to collapse after the honeymoon period, when life can get in the way? Meaning work or jobs, family and friends, interest and hobbies, children or the want to create them. These are the things that are the real cornerstones of marriages……i.e answers to the hard questions.
The way I see it, marriage is about building a life with someone not just experiencing a moment or the rush of being in love and that’s what being in love is about, moments.
Think about it. If you’ve ever been in love and felt that burning desire to confess “I’m in love with you” or “I love you”….. was it not based on a moment? Something they said, something they did, something you remembered? Or envisioned? You know…the intense or overwhelming feeling in that moment where you just have to say it?
Then there’s the fact that being in love is all about taking. What you want in order to stay that high, what you need to satisfy you emotionally, what you feel, what you think.
Whereas love is about giving . Making you smile and laugh out loud to a shared joke or memory, wanting to give more than you’ve ever had, learning the power of compromise and using it and understanding that if they were perfect, they wouldn’t be the person you love.
SO before you get married, ask the hard questions, think not just about the exciting, strumming of love, but about the life you wish to build together.
If you’re not on the same page when you go to build (especially if you build on sand…you know, the surface stuff rather than the proven strongholds of the rock) the end product of that house, will either bring misery to all or stop you in the process because you’ve both decided to go your separate ways.
SO STOP GETTING MARRIED JUST BECAUSE YOU’RE IN LOVE. Wood and matches alone does not a fire place be….where would all the smoke go? Where would you put the wood? On your wooden floors? Lighting a match there? Really? You must be off your head.
And a house, no matter how beautiful or how costly it may be, if the foundation is not solid or up to code, that baby will fall like a ton of bricks when life happens. And life will happen. That is why there are building codes…..the hard questions you ask before the engagement and most def before you’re saying I do, unless you want ‘I don’t’ catching up with you.
So…..
Have you asked the hard questions?
Can your love withstand the everyday wear and tear of life?
Are you prepared to put effort into rekindling the fire? And not just that one area everyone seems to think is the only fixer upper. You know the one. Involving rose petals and baby oil. Or is that just me? Yup. Oh well.
And last…..
What are you building (what are your goals, what’s the direction…) and what on (sand, rock, money…)?
Figure this out before and stop giving our generation false impressions about marriage and commitment. As my mentor (Shanel Cooper-Sykes) would say, “commitment is doing the thing that you said you were going to do, long after the feeling that you said it in has passed”.
So instead of running to the divorce court as soon as anything happens you don’t like, ‘we just fell out of love’, pull up your sleeves, wash your hands and put some work in. Bring out the boxing gloves if you have to. Mind you, not to fight each other but that ugly devil wanting to come in and kill and steal and destroy your love. Let him know you’re made of stronger stuff and serve a higher God…. amen.
www.foxyliciouslexi.blogspot.co.uk
Alexia Wood, Founder & CEO of bLAIRwOOD International INC, is a Guyanese born Author, Speaker and Poet residing in London, England. She is passionate about using her creative abilities to “empower success-driven young men and women with a desire to build extraordinary lives, to step into their greatness and live their best lives”. For more on Alexia visit her Facebook and her site Lexi’s Smooches.