I was disheartened to say the least. These two people whose incredible talent I admire, have failed to make their marriage work, over a reason they viewed as a weakness, but which in actuality is a great arsenal if used correctly. Their differences in personality was supposed to help make their marriage last forever.
 
But Irreconcilable Differences is really no news when it comes to divorce. It is the convenient go-to excuse for couples who no longer want their marriage. Do people give up too easily? Do we never learn that marriage requires time, effort and commitment? Does no one ever tell us that the honeymoon phase is not designed to last forever? But marriage is because love is something that we keep working at.  
 
We don’t throw each other away for every whim. That was the person we were crazy enough to go before God and man to take a vow with. That ought to mean something. That ought to be worth the rest of our lives. But forever these days sadly has a shelf life of as little as 55 hours.
 
Married Too Soon?

Some fans speculated that they got married too soon and they should have taken the time to get to know each other better. While I see value in such statements, I wonder if it would truly have made a difference.  It’s not really about the length of time one spends dating or courting. It about the honesty, willingness and readiness of the two individual involved. Marriage is not easy, but you’ve got to make it work, if you choose it. It is a sacred affair.
 
The value and weightiness of marriage does not change simply because we feeble and fickle humans fail to uphold our end of the bargain. Marriage is still the most important institution in our society. Our entire world is founded on  marriage.
 
It pains me deeply whenever we fail at it, especially for the most trivial of reasons. But my pain must surely be incomparable to that of the two persons involved. These were after all two people who were once convinced they could make their love last forever.

The post “Differences in Personality” : A New Divorce Lingo? appeared first on Rachael Sade's Blog.

If only love was all it took to make it work, then we wouldn’t need patience, kindness, faith, endurance and perseverance. There will be no assumptions that I will meet your needs and you’ll meet mine. We’ll just come together to stay together with motives devoid of ego. Not needing assurance, a sense of security and comfort because all we need is love. We’d expect nothing in return for all we give because love has no expectations.

I would not expect you to call me back because I called you. I would not expect you to support me because I support you. I would not expect you to trust me because I trust you. I would not expect you to love me back because I love you. I would not expect you to be there, always and forever.

But we’ve both come to the realization that it takes more than love to make this thing called marriage work. It dawned on us that saying those four-letter words, three words sentence, eight-character alphabets does not guarantee trust, hope and forever. If anything, it means nothing. “I love you” does not mean, I will not break your heart, I will not cheat on you, I will not leave you. But still we toss it around, at times with feelings, but usually so casually. In the similar fashion we say “I love chocolate” or “I love cars”, we allege our love to each other, often without the awareness that those words invoke expectations. They conjure images of happiness, gold jewelries, champagne, roses, laughter, moonlight kisses, and forever.

We profess love perhaps in hope that it means we care so deeply for each other, so much so that there’s no room for an interloper. Just I and you with nothing in between but love. Not I money and you, not I friends and you, not I family and you, not I ego and you, not I things and you, not I ambitions and you, but I love and you. I love you.

In naivety, we boldly declare it believing that is all it takes. We delude ourselves into thinking the Beatles were right when they sang Love Is All You Need, until we got married and we realized love is not enough, because if love was enough, it would keep us together. We found ourselves sinking, desperately trying to hold onto love thinking it is the anchor that will bring us ashore, but we found it not sufficient. Then we began to search for those other elements we needed to keep this ship, this relationship afloat.

We searched for trust but we couldn’t find it. We searched for hope and it was missing. Faith eluded us. Sacrifice was nowhere to be. What about mutual respect, kindness, patience, acceptance, empathy, and courtesy? They were gone, if ever we had them. Then we thought to ourselves, what exactly is the use of love? And why do people place so much emphasis on it if it cannot even make this union last?

Then we concluded that love is useless. But that did not sound right, so we delved deeper and the deeper we burrowed we realized we knew nothing about love. How arrogant we were to think love is an intense feeling or a deep romantic and sexual attraction, so as long as we felt that tug of the heart, that tingling sensation on our skin, and that butterflies in our stomach, we thought we loved each other. But that is not love. What then is love? we asked.
We looked to writers, poets, philosophers and composers for answers. We read literatures, heard songs, and watched films in hopes that we would get an answer but they all failed us. Then we realized love is not a thing that can be stumbled upon, or fallen into, “I fell in love” is one of the biggest flim-flam we ever invented. We don’t fall into love like we fall into a pool, if anything love is like little drops of water that takes years to turn into an ocean.

Love is a tree that grows and if only we have the patience to nurture it, we would see its fruits in due seasons. Love is not enough because it is still a seed when we started dating. We planted it when we got married, but that is only the beginning of a lifetime of sacrifice, endurance and perseverance. But we give up too soon. We lost the motive to be together because love was not convenient. Yes, we got love, but what is love if it cannot keep us together forever? Love is nothing but an abstract.

ife oto. Love is not enough.

The post A Letter to Her Lover: Love is Not Enough appeared first on Rachael Sade's Blog.

I was reading a romance novel when I came across these lines. I haven’t picked up a romantic book in a while, but they are my go to when I need the assurance that true love does exist. Whether in fiction or real life, it matters not. What is central is that if the human mind can conjure up such passion as we encounter on the pages of a good book, then surely it must be within our means to attain it. This conclusion is all the comfort I need as I face my own reality as a single woman living in the real world.

Mad love and undying passion versus affection and comfortable lust, which one is better? This question I grappled with after I read those lines from a dialogue between a man and a woman he is romantically involved with. The woman in question is our romance heroine, while her partner is the man she has been passively dating for a couple of months. It’s no surprise that women are the more sentimental ones. We all want the crazy love and the fiery passion, that is just how we are designed. Women are emotional feelers, while men are logical thinkers. That is not to say women cannot be rational and men emotional, but some traits are more dominant in one sex than the other.

As I contemplated these extremes, mad love versus affection, undying passion versus comfortable lust, emotions versus rationality, women versus men, I surmised that one is not necessarily superior to the other. Of course, our natural inclination is to place mad love above affection, and undying passion above comfortable lust, since one appears to be more intense than the other. But I propose that they are not necessarily antipodes, but rather an extension of the other. Paradoxically, I would argue that relationships built on the idea of affection and comfortable lust, last longer than those built on the idea of mad love and undying passion. If research is true, then couples we are looking to have a long-lasting relationship ought to discard the notion of mad love and undying passion altogether.

But we often do not think about the length as much as we think about the depth when it comes to love and relationships. A lot of emphasis is placed on feelings rather than longevity. We are obsessed with how the other person makes us feel, the tingling sensation in our chest, the butterflies in our stomach, the goosebumps on our arms, and all those other delicious things they do to us. These are all wonderful and great, we should feel this way, we deserve to feel this way, every single human being in a romantic relationship ought to experience these pleasurable sensations! But after these feelings, then what?

The romance novels fail to tell us that these delightful tenderness will not last forever. While they assure us that crazy love, fervent ardor, and strong desire do exist, they never tell us what happens to our heroes and heroines after they dash off into the sunset on their white horses. We are left believing it is truly all happily ever after when we close the last page on the final chapter. The writers are so good, they leave us desiring the kind of love we witnessed on those cream-colored pages. Our reality seems pale in comparison. If you’ve ever read a good romance novel, then you know exactly what I’m talking about. But I’ve become skilled at piecing apart fiction from reality. Attribute this to years of living in the real world. Soon enough, some of us wake up from fairy tale land or are hijacked from it when reality sets in. Nothing wakes us up faster than a broken heart, and most of us have experienced that. If you haven’t experienced a broken heart, you have not yet lived.

Back to my question, what happens after the feelings are gone? Oh yes, they’ll vanish sooner or later. Research reveals that in the early stages of a romantic relationship the critical part of our brains takes a vacation, while all these sex and bonding hormones go to work (testosterone, dopamine, and oxytocin). But soon enough, the critical part of our brains returns and the chemicals are put to rest. Clinical Psychologist, Mona Fishbane, explains it best in an online post, she writes, “At some point the critical part of the brain come back online, and we see our partners, warts and all. The jazzed-up chemicals settle down, and our drug high gives way to a calmer brain state.” At this point, couples can either decide to have an affair, divorce and remarry or settle into a life of affection and comfortable lust. The stage of mad love and undying passion last between a year and three years. Those who stay together are those who have factored this fact into the relationship from the onset. The idea of mad love and undying passion conveyed to us by romance novels is quaint and charming, but it does not last forever. Let’s be realistic, there is no such thing as undying passion. Biology will eventually take its course, our brains cannot keep up with all those euphoric chemicals forever.

So, I decided that I wanted both mad love and “undying” passion and when that is gone, affection and comfortable lust with my partner. Now this idea may not sound too romantic, but I believe that there is beauty in longevity. Whether a marriage is sustained by mad love and later affection or solely by affection throughout the lifespan of the couple, the crucial factor is that it is sustained. I would choose an affectionate marriage with a satisfactory level of lust over a broken one on any day.

I have seen couples who keep reinventing ways to recreate the chemicals and keep the romance sizzling after many years of marriage, and couples we are perfectly contented with their easy affection towards each other. It is entirely up to us to make our marriage what we desire for it to be, or to cast it away when the thrill is gone.

The post When the Thrill is Gone appeared first on Rachael Sade's Blog.

What happened? This is the first question I often ask. Some of these folks are ready to divulge even before I ask. I guess there’s a certain ease when it comes to opening up to complete strangers that stems from the notion that they don’t know us, and our parts may never cross with theirs again, so we are reassured that our secrets are safe with them. What happened? The answers vary from one gender to another, one situation to the next, and one status to another (married, engaged or dating), depending on the level of commitment, how long the relationship lasted, how long ago it ended, how it ended, and who called it off. I analyze each of these cases and try to determine if the couples could have somehow worked it out. The plain and sad truth after my careful analysis is that they possibly couldn’t have. I observed that no one truly desires for his or her romantic relationship to end!

Now I know we often think divorced couples could have stayed married. We believe there has got to be a way to make it work or they gave up too easily. Unfortunately, this is not often the case. Most people see marriage as that bridge of no return, once couples have crossed it, they are expected to remain in it for the rest of their lives. That’s a great outlook to have on marriage. Otherwise, what really sets it apart from other romantic relationships that are more or less treated as drive-throughs? We should have that expectation of together ever after in a marital union, and happily too. But sadly, it is not always so clear-cut.

Now I am not advocating for divorce. It is not the ideal for anyone, but it ends up happening anyways, due to a number of diffrent reasons. But it does not have to. In all of the cases I’ve been privy to, be it a broken engagement, a divorce, or an end of a long relationship, what I have come to learn is that no matter the circumstances of the dissolvement or the reason each person is giving as to why the union ended, it mostly boils down to this one factor, change. Ever heard of the phrase “this is not the person I married?” What is simply being said is that the person changed, and seems almost like a different person. After a relationship crashes or is about to, we would often hear things like “When I first met him, he was this or that, but then he began to change”, Or “I don’t know who she is anymore.” People change and circumstances change and sometimes we do not know how to deal with them.

Many people entering into a life time commitment fail to grasp the implication of what it is to be with a human being— a living, breathing, autonomous agent with a mind, body and soul. I think we too often underestimate human beings, and what ends up happening is that they do some things that catches us unaware, shocks us. But it would not if only we had been more intentional in our approach to the relationship. Sadly, people only tend to focus on the outer shell (body) that makes up a person, we make no inquiry into their interior, their minds and how they think.

People fall in love like leafs fall from trees and are swept off their feet just as the wind sweeps off those same leafs and the love crumbles and die just as the leafs do. We need to be more intentional with our relationship! Treat it like it is the most important mission you will ever embark on. Think of yourself as a soldier about to go to war, prepare for the unforeseen circumstances that may emerge. Expect people to change, anticipate issues that you do not even wish to deal with, (unfaithfulness, childlessness, lack of finances, illness, etc.) and be mentally and emotional ready to deal with them. This is how a marriage lasts! I cannot overemphasize this , a relationship is as good as the two individuals involved. The sad reality is that often, two weak (lacking maturity or emotional intelligence, etc.) individuals come together in holy matrimony but ends up eating each other up like parasites, or a strong individual comes together with a weak one and that person ends up making his or her partner’s live a series of unpleasant roller coaster rides. The perfect recipe for a solid and lasting relationship is for two whole individuals (mentally, emotionally, spiritually, etc.) to come together. Iron sharpens iron.

Back to my “she changed” or “he changed” people, more often than not, these people have been who they were from the beginning and have just evolved into a fuller version of themselves. We just did not see it because we were either blinded by love or because they pretended and we did not have the discernment to see through the veil to who they truly are. But in some cases, a person can genuinely change, they could go from being good to being “bad”. In situations like these, the two partners involved have to make the call on whether to keep the relationship going or to call it quit. It’s a tough decision. Sometimes, one person wants to keep going and the other is at the end of his or her ropes. Besides, everyone have a mind of their own. No one can change anyone’s mind unless the person is willing for his or her mind to be changed. A human’s mind is the most difficult thing on earth to transform. This is what I mean by grasping the implication of what it is to be in a relationship with a human being. Your partner is a free thinking agent. Who he or she really is, is what’s covered up by the body. Stop getting carried away with the outer layer.

The questions we should ask ourselves then are, will I still love after this person does something hurtful I don’t expect them to do? Will I love all the versions of this person to come? Will I love no matter what life throws at us? Will I stay for worst? This is where the choice comes in again. Love is a choice, but not one that can be made by just anyone. We do not need to be in a relationship to be happy or to live a fulfilling life. Marriage is a choice some people make. It takes the emotionally, spiritually, and mentally mature ones amongst us to stick to that choice through thick and thin, and good and worst. Unfortunately, a lot of people jump into relationships lacking these things and then bail out when the going gets tough.

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