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When he loves
When she loves
IS THERE love after marriage? In this season of love, perhaps
more women readers quiz themselves with this question than
enjoy a candle-lit dinner with their loved ones.
Just in case you're basking in the glory of love now and are
looking forward to marriage, it won't harm you to know that
life ahead is not a bed of roses.
Nothing kills love faster than unwarranted expectations of
what it can do. The more levelheaded attitude is to ask yourself
what you can do for love.
It is interesting to know that men seldom ask help in times
of marital trouble. Many of those who call or come to me for
advice are women. (I have to explain to my wife, who is perhaps
hard put to find a counselor herself sometimes, that I do
not relish nor call for this role.)
Professional marriage counselors confirm that women are usually
the first ones to seek advice. I remember an article entitled
"Unconditional Love" in which a newly married wife
invited her husband for them to take a day off to think about
what they do not like about each other and work out ways to
improve themselves and their marriage.
When the time came for them to face each other, the wife brought
out a long list of her pet peeves about her husband. When
it was the husband's turn, he only replied with tears, showing
an empty list and saying he loves the wife just the way she
is.
The implied beatification of the husband as the benefactor
of unconditional love in that story sparked a lively debate
among members of the Filipino e-group based mostly in Tsukuba
University.
I joined the fray by recalling a similar exchange between
me and my wife, when she asked me in one of her best moods,
"What don't you like about me? "Like the wife in
that story, she asked it out of the blue, and like the man
in that story, I was caught off guard.
Expecting an eventual turn of the conversation to acrimony,
I tried to lighten the topic, "Let me just tell you what
I like about you: your flat nose, your dark skin... ."
I thought I heard my wife laugh, but she punctuated it with,
"Hindi talaga kita nakakausap ng matino."(You never
take me seriously.)
Sans the drama, that conversation was pretty much like the
refrains of the newly married couple, the wife crooning, "We've
only just begun," and the husband, "Just the way
you are."
Truth is, the man did not place as much importance on the
wife's proposal for self-examination as she did. Men are not
very comfortable talking about their sensitivities and are
wont to dismiss a woman's feelers for a serious conversation.
He had an empty sheet because he did not think about the subject
seriously. In other words, he did not work on his assignment.
He was jolted into tears because he was hurt to hear the "heavy
charges". Having probably watched baseball in the other
room the other day, when his wife was deep in her thoughts
of him, he was surprised to hear her enumerate "bad"
things about him.
My moral of the story is not in determining whose attitude
has the moral high ground. One can draw more insights by looking
at the post-wedding mental profile of the male and female.
Male: Man thinks he has already made an ultimate expression
of his love for the wife by getting married with her. After
all the sweet-nothings and the lovey-dovey days of courtship,
the marriage vows are his graduation ceremony. For him, going
back to the rudiments of "how we can love each other
better" is like a regression to kindergarten. Providing
for and looking after the needs of the family are his confirmation
of his love.
Female: Woman tries to recover the "ideal man" in
her husband as she sees him unfolding into his true self:
wanting in words and response. She longs for the spoken assurances
of love and the small gestures confirming such (roses, hugs
and kisses). Marriage is not a graduation from, but is a continuation
if not an intensification of, courtship.
Man and woman express love for each other differently. The
first step is to recognize these differences. For most of
the marriage life, the woman will probably have a long list
and the man a blank one... But it doesn't mean one's love
is greater or more unconditional than the other. It is failure
to recognize these differences that will undo that love...
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