“It’s easy to find a girlfriend, but difficult to find a wife.”
This line was spoken by someone I know seeking advice on finding commitment.
I’m not entirely certain that I’m one of the right people to write an essay on a topic like this. I had written one some time last year, but upon reading it back, it sounds dry, hollow, characterless, and overly prescriptive. Therefore, I decided to begin again, scrap the old, dusty thesis, and simply share the lessons I’ve learnt in life to let anyone who reads decide what they’ll take from it (whether anything at all).
Many of the thoughts outlined here came to me initially when my spouse asked me for advice to share with their friends who were seeking committed relationships at the time. Since then, my understanding of many aspects of relating to others has changed, evolved, or even decayed, as I’ve humbled myself in my own marriage. I’m not an authority, but I have experience to share, and I can only hope it brings value to at least one other person’s life.
1
I’ve been an alien for much of my life. I don’t mean an expat—though I have been, and currently am. I also don’t mean I’m a literal extraterrestrial, though it unquestioningly feels that way at times. From a young age, there always appeared to be something different about the way I operated; an android not quite on the same frequency as everybody else, or a stranger in a land where everyone else spoke a language I couldn’t understand. Yet, one thing I knew of myself from early on is that I loved people, and nothing intrigued me more than connecting with others, and thus I strove my life over to do that.
Yet, something wasn’t always right; many attempts at speaking or acting produced unexpected results. Interactions oft ended differently for me than for others who were tuned in to the correct frequency, such as my older sister who was someone naturally vivacious, social, empathetic, and inherently likeable. At each failed attempt, I’d analyse my mistakes, correct, then try again, treating relationships as systems to be optimised or machines to tinker. There were times where my experiments ended in success, and the trial and error approach produced results that gave me a normative framework for functioning somewhat like a human. Often, however, they were disasters, leaving me with memories that make me cringe as strongly now as they did then.
These experiences, to me, were both frustrating and captivating. Like a meta-anthropologist, I resolved from a tender age to investigate the species we call “humans”, studying them with exceptional scrutiny and hoping to unravel the mystery of humanity’s social nature. Fortunately, my personality is hardwired to observe, record, and half-consciously analyse my every experience.
2
Until recently, I believed it imperative that one knows themselves before approaching relationships with any seriousness or an eye towards commitment—something I’d concluded from blaming my own social failures on simply lacking self-awareness. I was certain that I would have to understand myself, my values, and my principles, to find people with whom I would match, and then friendships and relationships would begin working smoothly. Now, this seems naïve, almost quaint, to me. Never mind that self-focussed navel-gazing in actuality moves us away from others, but people are not clothing to try on and discard when they don’t fit quite right in the first place. This attitude is a sure-fire way to throw away unique and interesting people who know how to love others and may bring a lot of growth to one and one’s life.
A crucial flaw in my theory of Know Thyself was that I, like many others, struggle enormously with emotional self-awareness. Until the past year or so, I’ve neither understood my emotions in hindsight, nor recognised when I was experiencing them in real-time. Funnily enough, that makes it rather hard to estimate where one stands with others and indeed to figure out what one values and believes. In my older essay on relationships, I misguidedly advised others to figure themselves out before entering a relationship. In hindsight, that seems a tad dishonest, given that I discovered my values and principles through finding the right person and growing with them.
There were, of course, some things that were important for me to understand before finding my now-spouse. For some people, these crucial lessons are learnt through family, perhaps work, maybe travel, certainly varying life experiences, and for me, a string of poorly matched relationships, including a rather baneful one. The most important lesson I needed to learn was what I needed from a relationship, which was something I could only learn by trying to persevere through its absence. It turns out, what I needed looks a lot like what almost everyone needs from a healthy relationship: an irreplaceable best friend, someone with whom I could share everything without threat of judgement or abandonment, on whom I could mutually rely. Someone who would forgive my failures, but support me in becoming better, and would also strive to grow in virtue alongside me. An ally who will always be honest, even when it stings, and not condemn me for the same.
The right person, so to speak, is someone who encourages you to become your most virtuous self, and lets you encourage them to do the same. Quite deliberately, I didn’t say “best” self, but most virtuous self; too often we allow ourselves to become beholden to ideas of what is “best” that don’t reflect reality, nor a healthy perspective. Many people believe that others (especially their partners) should push them to become materially successful, to hoard accolades and achievements, to collect expensive or exhausting experiences, or perform at perfectionistic human-made expectations, and they become frustrated and resentful, later blaming their spouses for not realising these hollow (and often arrogant) goals. A spouse is not an instrument to reach success, or a tool to use. Material achievements or experiences are merely consequences to certain actions that don’t necessarily cultivate good character or a loving heart. But a person who helps us to become more patient, more compassionate, more forgiving, and holds themselves to the same standard for us, that’s a person who loves us.
3
All of this isn’t to say that understanding one’s values prior to entering a relationship isn’t valuable or important, because it certainly is and can be. It can save quite the headache, and sometimes heartache too. If both partners enter into the relationship knowing their values, it’s far easier to assess whether they align. Not necessarily coincide, but align—that is, their values complement each other in spirit, even if they aren’t identical. For example, if one partner fiercely believes in free speech absolutism and libertarian governance, while the other passionately defends authoritarian principles and censorship, the two jigsaw pieces aren’t quite going to fit together, and the polar-opposite attitudes towards authority are going to bleed inevitably into childrearing in myriad complicated ways. Meanwhile, a partner who values collectivism and social harmony may understand with ease another who vehemently values family and church.
Much of my own past romantic failure was caused by, at least in part, terribly mismatched values. The most poignant example I can give is the relationship where having children was always an unresolved contention. In an attempt to be prudent, I raised the topic on our first date of having children (we had known each other several months before this, however). I made it clear that I wanted children and it was important to me since I’d come across a story of a long-term couple who never discussed it in all their years together and ended up sadly parting ways over it when they realised that she was rigidly against children, while he had assumed they’d be raising a family directly after marriage. I’ll dodge that bullet, I thought. What I wasn’t prepared for maturity-wise was an uncertain reply. “Maybe, not right now. I’m not ready now. But maybe in the future. One day, I might want them. Let’s not think about it.” What my gullible self heard was that they simply needed a little time and then they’d want children. I should have taken their hesitation seriously. (Never expect the other person to change their mind about major issues.)
In hindsight, it was painfully obvious that this person would never change their mind; they weren’t fond of children, loathed responsibility, didn’t value family, and prized their personal space and “freedom” more than anyone I’d personally known back then. Nothing about them indicated that parenthood was a viable choice in their eyes. For years I ignored the issue, believing it would change, but it never did. And while this was the major pain point in our relationship, I realise now that we had very little in common outside of the superficial interests; we were constantly, heatedly disagreeing on worldviews, politics, social values, lifestyle, responsibilities, and even how to treat others. And these arguments happened before I realised what truly mattered to me.
Values can change over the course of life due to myriad factors such as life experience, new relationships, fresh family dynamics, acquired and discarded hobbies, career changes, faith conversions, and even locality changes. Family can become more important once one starts their own, or after a painful loss brings clarity, and something of life-or-death importance at 25 can seem utterly trivial at 45. But sometimes we think that the values of ourselves or others have changed when the truth is closer to being that we simply hadn’t realised before what mattered to us. It matters who’s by your side as you age, and whether they’re truly beside you—what seems like a small difference in trajectory now can become a painful obstacle or unassailable distance later if the foundations of the relationship aren’t strong.
Speaking of strong foundations, I firmly believe there are universal values that anyone who desires a close and loving marriage should value. Trust, loyalty, honesty, respect—nothing revelationary, yet we often neglect them all the same. And these qualities should not merely be demanded of the other, but something we ourselves persevere in providing our other halves in turn. I oft see misunderstanding surrounding these values, where people believe they will happen naturally without thought, but they often, in fact, necessitate conscious effort. Trust, for instance: we believe we are trustworthy people, yet may suspect others of poor intentions, infidelities, white lies, and hidden motives; that is not trust, and the constant suspicion placed on others typically justifies their own suspicion of us. Similarly, it’s difficult to justify being upset at lies, when we may moralise and rationalise our own “little white lies” all the same.
People are quick to justify themselves, and yet much quicker to condemn others, when really it should be the opposite way around. I think it helps to breed love when we are careful to hold ourselves to high moral standards in our relationships without justifications, excuses, and exceptions, while assuming the best in others and forgiving them. It’s difficult, yes. Awfully so. And I’m not suggesting, say, ignoring blatant betrayal or enabling harmful behaviour (because enablement is not love but self-preservation), but what I am suggesting is that mercilessness, cold-shouldering, assuming the worst, acting the victim, lies and omissions, and so on, are the ensured destruction of love and trust.
4
Another lesson I’ve learnt from both my own experience and that of others is just how easy it is to become careless and complacent in relationships, especially long-term. I’m too tired to eat with you tonight. I’m taking overtime again. It’s only one more weekend I’ll be with friends instead of you. I don’t feel like watching the film you want. I’m busy today. These are the sentiments that seem harmless one-time statements, but they’re the insidious poisons that lead from being a loving married couple, to the dynamic of roommates, ships passing in the night.
In my experience, couples who genuinely enjoy spending most of their time together appear the closest and most fulfilled, and I know it’s true of my own marriage. One of the strongest signals that I had found the right person was that it seems impossible to become tired of each other. Everything that happens to us, we can’t wait to discuss it with the other. Every book we read becomes something to chat about over dinner. Problems with friends or family, issues at work, failures and successes at projects, and even personal realisations are all shared with ease. Of course, there are days where one or both of us is simply exhausted, and those are generally quiet (despite both being chatterboxes), yet there never comes a time where either of us wants to sit alone. Even silence together is better than being apart. Granted, time will be the true test, but for now this is what I see in every couple I know that are inseparable.
It’s not that we don’t argue or sometimes drive each other mad, and it’s not that we don’t sometimes struggle to understand why the other is interested by something, but we both consciously, deliberately, with great effort, work on things that lead us there. And we can still talk for hours without rest, we still crave spending time together, we enjoy many of the same activities and interests, but most importantly, we respect our differences.
I’m the extrovert: the dog of the marriage that becomes restless when I don’t get out for walkies, grumpy when I have nothing to do, and restless when I’m left alone for too long. My spouse is the introvert: the cat who likes to lounge inside on rainy days, that needs time to recharge after seeing people, and becomes overwhelmed by invasions. This can, predictably, be a source of contention at times, but we actively try to put the other one first and respect their needs. Sometimes, no matter how much I want to splash in puddles and take photos of nature, I recognise my spouse needs downtime to stay sane, so I compromise and suggest doing something together at home. And sometimes they realise that I’m going to snap and burn the apartment down (probably not truly) if I don’t get to see the sea at the weekend, so they offer to go for a dreaded walk in the overstimulating outdoors, where we chat about anything and everything. Since we both intentionally try to put the other one first (most of the time, anyway), many of our debates are not in trying to coerce the other to do what we want.
5
Respect comes with the added requirement of understanding the roles of each partner in the household. I’ll describe how we approach things, but this is not prescriptive. We approach almost everything as a team; we each have our own “domain” in which one of us retains the final say, but overall, decisions are made in tandem. Our domains, so to speak, were divvied up by considering a few factors: what are our strengths and weaknesses, likes and dislikes, what energises and drains us, and for what do we personally feel the most responsible. Much of this emerged naturally when we had started living together, though a lot of it ended up discussed over time regardless to ensure we were reading from the same book. Those factors are not binds though; my spouse takes care of repairs and building furniture even though it’s more my forte because they enjoy it and I simply don’t care enough to get it done on time. But if they’re busy or unwell, then I take it on because it needs to be done. And though my spouse has a natural aptitude for sensory-related topics, I’m the one who cooks; I’m more experienced and find it fulfilling (despite having no talent for it, I’ve laboured to get where I am with it). And crucially, when one of us is struggling to manage our own duties (due to illness, stress, emergencies, et cetera), the other one temporarily picks up the slack and carries the other until recovered.
Having separate domains, duties, or responsibilities does not make us separate managers unaware of what’s happening in the other department. We still make decisions together, respecting the opinions and seeking the input of the other. Together, we decide where to live, how to live, how to raise children, how to approach solving problems, and so on. When there are disagreements, we try to understand wherefrom the other person is coming instead of merely arguing for our individual correctness or will.
6
Many of us hold unrealistically high standards and expectations—either for ourselves, others, or both. Yet, humans are inherently flawed, and it takes us much time and effort to change or grow in any meaningful and positive way. This is where patience and forgiveness can’t be forgotten.
I’ve had friends in the past who would reject or leave what appeared to be suitable relationships based on rather petty criteria. Her eyes are too far apart. His job doesn’t pay well enough. Her clothing taste is strange. He watches movies like a zombie. I wish I were joking. But sometimes the criticisms have been less absurd, even valid, yet the person is never given the chance to overcome them, and in many cases, is never even made aware there’s a problem.
There’s another side to this ruthless coin: when one person sees flaws in the other—which may or may not be true flaws at all—yet doesn’t acknowledge their own shortcomings. I see among these people relationship scorecards, feelings of superiority, infantilising partners, and justifying harmful behaviour. I’ve heard of someone in this position that he’ll be happy once he gets a woman, yet he doesn’t seem to be willing to put in the personal development required to make himself “relationship material,” so to speak. Indeed, I predicted the outcome of his latest relationship due to his attitude towards the girl. This person often treats others poorly, acts impatiently and self-focussed, doesn’t acknowledge his own flaws or weaknesses, antagonises others for sport, and treats much of their communication as a war to be won. It seems rather unfair to place the burden of making one happy on another person while relinquishing oneself from the responsibility of reciprocation. To be clear, I don’t attempt to judge this person; we are all this person in some way or another, even if not a mirror of him. There are many weaknesses and flaws in each of us that we either neglect due to ignorance, or bury due to fear. But it’s important to open our minds in this way, because it doesn’t make much sense to be mystified when others treat us poorly, or perhaps walk away, when we are blaming only them.
7
In one of my previous relationships, I was oblivious to important red flags in the beginning, the most conspicuous being that the person complimented me quite a lot, a little too much, which was uncomfortable, but I assumed they meant well (as people often do). What I was praised for, however, were things that didn’t say much about my character or value. The person would tell me about my appearance, tell me I was “out of their league”, praise me for not being a “dunderhead like everyone else” and for liking similar music to them, having a shared hobby, and having “a sense of humour”.
After much time, as our relationship was supposed to be evolving and becoming deeper, I had once asked them why exactly they loved me. The answer was the rundown of all the initial compliments with which they showered me. Being as naïve as I am, I ignored that something felt a little wrong about this, and assumed I was overthinking it. It was after I had left the relationship that I started to realise that I had been a trophy, as it were. This person would tell me to style my hair in a way to “show off” what they called my “nice face”, and tell me to wear clothes that emphasised my physique (even suggesting they wanted others to look at me and become envious). They put the spotlight on me to tell others about my ideas so they could see I allegedly had a brain, and would tell others how much money I had spent on them and brag about gifts I’d bought. Worse still, they would shatter my trust by sharing work they thought was skilled when I had asked to keep it private. I was naught more than a performing monkey. It’s clear now: this person didn’t love me. They loved the idea of me; the status they mistakenly believed I provided, and the comfort they felt that I would be too beholden to these standards to leave. Some nights, the person would confess, “one day you’ll realise you’re too good for me and leave”, yet most nights tell me, “you’re lucky to have me because nobody else would tolerate you.” How could anyone believe that this is love? Yet we often do. A cautionary tale, for those willing to listen.
8
Relationships come with hardship. That’s an unavoidable fact. No matter how well-matched or how mature either partner is, there will be arguments, stress, and moments where we won’t be proud of our own behaviour. It may become exceedingly difficult, but the most important action we can take in these times is to resolve to become more loving, more patient, more understanding, more compassionate, and importantly, merciful. This is usually the hardest time to exemplify those virtues, but it’s the most crucial time to do so. Asking for copious space, sleeping separately, holding resentment, keeping score, holding the relationship hostage—none of these solve the problem, and may lead one or both of you to drastic decisions about the relationship that perhaps create more pain than relief.
This is where I’ll afford myself the luxury of being prescriptive: Work to resolve things. Listen to understand, not to be understood. Don’t assume you understand. Seek the ways you could be doing better. Take responsibility for your own actions, even if you believe you’re blameless. When someone is overwhelmed and raising their voice at you while you attempt to remain calm and refrain from anything regrettable, it can be easy to forget that you are still responsible for the outcome of this situation as much as they are, and so feel even half-consciously morally superior. Blaming the other person won’t make the problem go away, so try to seek ways to ameliorate the conflicts, especially the persistent ones. Love is indeed a choice, and it can be an arduous one when times are tough.
On that note, I’ve learnt that being loving sometimes means apologising even when I think I’m not wrong. There’s always something we can do better. Defending oneself and deflecting responsibility places the burden solely on the other person, but they are not responsible for your behaviour any more than you are for theirs—what you both are entirely responsible for is reaching a resolution in the most respectful and loving way feasible. Self-righteousness makes this impossible.
An important saying my grandmother repeated oft-times: “There are always three sides to every story: what he said, what she said, and the truth.”
End Thought
What my experience (so far) has taught me is that the most critical lesson to learn in a committed romantic relationship is this:
One must see their partner as being like oneself, being an extension of oneself, not separate from oneself. A marriage is a complementary union between two halves that make a whole, not an “us vs them” game.