How Marriage Broke And Made Me Real

Three generations of love; My lolo and lola on the father side, my mom and dad and Mister & Misus Santiago

"They say a successful marriage requires falling in love many times, always with the same person." Those words coming from a wise person always intrigued me when I was younger. I don't understand why you will marry someone you're not in love with in the first place and I don't get the idea of falling in love again and again when you are already in love with him to begin with. That would be tantamount to being crazy and it would be tiring to do it again and again. For a young mind that was already brimming with so much things to do, falling in love many times over is already exhausting just thinking about it. I felt the old adage is faulty and just plain wrong.

I remember my mom telling me how she met my dad. They've been together for 38 years. The story was funny but almost always she becomes emotional at the end of it all. Being young, I felt confused that she can be both happy and sad while talking about a funny love story with of course a happy ending.

Until I fell in love myself. Oh no, this was not the puppy kind of love or the teenage crush or the you-and-me-against-the-world drama. My love adventure doesn't start with once upon a time or a long time ago, it was a product of a very long waiting and even longer praying time to finally meet the one.

Present day saga. After more than four years of being married and six years of being together, I now know the feeling. Not exactly what my mom feels but I do get her. I am finally closer to feeling what she must have felt. Not yet truly there but getting there. I now know where she was coming from. That’s because in a way, marriage breaks you but then it makes you.
But it goes in waves. First, it makes you giddy. The romance is alive and kicking and everything is rosy and perky. The magic is there, the romance is so strong. Nothing and no one can dampen your spirits. You are both untouchables and on top of world. And then the realization that the world is, well, not always that ideal. That he is not that perfect and that you too are not that perfect. You leave your clothes wherever you change, he never follows your instructions the first time you ask him. You will always have excuses and he will always be late. You are human. You forget things, he likes different things. And you are not always in perfect sync. You each have your own interests. Then it becomes a little complicated as your kid arrives.

That same thing that makes you giddy now makes you snap. That thing that makes you strong now makes you weak. The thing that made you fall in love with him now takes a different direction and meaning. And it takes a new form. It transforms into something that you can't quite explain. The love is bigger and deeper. It does not only depend on the perfume he is wearing or the kind of swagger he is making. It's like a wine that aged well; it's the same wine but with a more exquisite, deeper taste and aroma. And it's better. It's better in time.

Yes, marriage kinda breaks you but it also makes you better. Better at putting the effort of making it work, better at loving someone with all his idiosyncrasies, better at kissing and making up and forgiving, better at remembering why you marry him in the first place. There will be tough times but there will be more amazing moments, awesome feelings and deeper love to assure you that it's worth the journey and worth every effort that you put into.

While marriage breaks you, it also gives you an infinite more reasons to make you into a beautiful thing. And that's not a bad thing.