What!?! How?! When? Really? It is no 25 but 9 is still a big number, you know. Just saying.
I should say upfront – I have no marriage advice for people out there. I rarely give advice. Well, maybe my family will disagree. Because they get a lot of unsolicited advice from me. But for the most part, I am rarely the one giving advice.
But I observe plenty. Different things are important for different people in a marriage – love, respect, commonality, strength, patience, loyalty, understanding, friendship, faith, confidence, independence, interdependence, humor, trust, freshness and many more such attributes. People value each of these traits differently and in different proportions. All these attributes make an appearance in what is important for us in our marriage too. But both of us don’t bring every single thing to the table. We kind of divide and conquer it all.
For example, patience has never been my forte. It never was, and how so ever much I try to inculcate it, it never will be. And that’s where Siddharth comes to my rescue because he has the patience of an elephant...if there is any such thing. I just assumed elephants must have plenty of patience. The slightest thing has the absolute potentially of irking me to the point of no return. For the most part, Siddharth is pretty unperturbed by things around him. He is a high energy and a very animated person – so it is easy to mistake that energy for impatience. But it takes a lot for him to lose his patience. No situation or person or behavior bothers him enough to act on an impulse or in an erratic way. In fact he has so much patience that it annoys me sometimes. I could be extremely mad and angry and upset but Siddharth manages to respond with so much calm and patience that I feel like he doesn’t get it. It’s almost like I expect him to be just as aggravated as I am. But he doesn’t get that way. His weakest point probably is his inability to withstand absolutely any sort of mess or dirt. Very literally. And that’s one area in which I have plenty of patience. So we zig-zag in our characteristics enough to balance each other and it all works out in the end.
Honestly, I can’t believe it’s been 9 years of marriage for us. Our wedding day feels like just yesterday. I like to believe that we have seen the worst of the times and the best are yet to come. But the underlying aspect that keeps us going through all our ups and downs is our friendship. We were best friends long before there was any chance of us getting together. Siddharth could answer a question I hadn’t asked yet and he could finish my unfinished sentences. It was kind of scary. But we knew each other very well. And somehow over all these years this is the one aspect of our marriage that requires least work. There are lots of other aspects that require a lot of work. But not the ‘friendship’ part. It comes very naturally to us. We don’t have to act consciously on it. We don’t have to remind ourselves or each other of it. It just happens. It stays. It grows. It brings us closer. It keeps the humor alive. And it makes us stronger. Go post-marital-friendship, I say!
I should say upfront – I have no marriage advice for people out there. I rarely give advice. Well, maybe my family will disagree. Because they get a lot of unsolicited advice from me. But for the most part, I am rarely the one giving advice.
But I observe plenty. Different things are important for different people in a marriage – love, respect, commonality, strength, patience, loyalty, understanding, friendship, faith, confidence, independence, interdependence, humor, trust, freshness and many more such attributes. People value each of these traits differently and in different proportions. All these attributes make an appearance in what is important for us in our marriage too. But both of us don’t bring every single thing to the table. We kind of divide and conquer it all.
For example, patience has never been my forte. It never was, and how so ever much I try to inculcate it, it never will be. And that’s where Siddharth comes to my rescue because he has the patience of an elephant...if there is any such thing. I just assumed elephants must have plenty of patience. The slightest thing has the absolute potentially of irking me to the point of no return. For the most part, Siddharth is pretty unperturbed by things around him. He is a high energy and a very animated person – so it is easy to mistake that energy for impatience. But it takes a lot for him to lose his patience. No situation or person or behavior bothers him enough to act on an impulse or in an erratic way. In fact he has so much patience that it annoys me sometimes. I could be extremely mad and angry and upset but Siddharth manages to respond with so much calm and patience that I feel like he doesn’t get it. It’s almost like I expect him to be just as aggravated as I am. But he doesn’t get that way. His weakest point probably is his inability to withstand absolutely any sort of mess or dirt. Very literally. And that’s one area in which I have plenty of patience. So we zig-zag in our characteristics enough to balance each other and it all works out in the end.
Honestly, I can’t believe it’s been 9 years of marriage for us. Our wedding day feels like just yesterday. I like to believe that we have seen the worst of the times and the best are yet to come. But the underlying aspect that keeps us going through all our ups and downs is our friendship. We were best friends long before there was any chance of us getting together. Siddharth could answer a question I hadn’t asked yet and he could finish my unfinished sentences. It was kind of scary. But we knew each other very well. And somehow over all these years this is the one aspect of our marriage that requires least work. There are lots of other aspects that require a lot of work. But not the ‘friendship’ part. It comes very naturally to us. We don’t have to act consciously on it. We don’t have to remind ourselves or each other of it. It just happens. It stays. It grows. It brings us closer. It keeps the humor alive. And it makes us stronger. Go post-marital-friendship, I say!
It is just a bonus that my 9 years have this outcome so far :).
No comments:
Post a Comment