Recently, a single friend asked me an interesting question, “Does marriage always eventually become boring?”
My answer was, “Yes and no, because it’s a matter of perspective.”
Let me share with you the perspective of a person. Well, from my perspective, that is!
I will assume that many people will get married around theirs 20’s or 30s. Maybe not for some. But stick with me anyway.
It is your definition of exciting (and boring) that evolves. It may cause you to reflect or feel that married life could be boring by comparison to being single. But it’s like comparing apples to oranges. Your post-single life is probably more complex because of an increased set of responsibilities, but there are a number of positives as well.
When you are single, you are really only responsible for yourself. You might have a significant other and you could sever the relationship quite easily if you wanted or needed to. Your decision process probably involves only yourself. Things like…. I’m going out tonight. I’m staying in. I’m quitting my job. I’m moving across the country or out of the country, and etc.
When you are married, you and your spouse are (supposed to be) jointly involved in making decisions, because each decision has some sort of impact on your other half. Quitting your job has an impact on your spouse. If you can’t make the rent or pay your mortgage, then both of you will be evicted, not only yourself.
On the brighter side of things, you have someone to repeatedly share interesting or exciting experiences with for a very long time.
Married life is exciting if you both work at making it exciting.
Add married with kids to the mix. Now, exciting further evolves into a brand-new definition that no dictionaries in the world can explain. Unquestionably, you have an even further increase of responsibilities, but parenting is rarely boring. It will be crazy exciting if you try to make it exciting. The lame times will vastly outnumber the good ones. This, I was told by some friends who are parents.
To cut a long story short, marriage will become boring if you let it become boring. They become boring when the people involved choose to make them boring.
The trick is not to change the person, but RATHER, to change what you are doing with the person. And yes, in case you were wondering, marriage is not only about sex and intimacy. There are many more things one can share with a partner in a marriage.
Marriage can get boring only if you are married to the ‘same’ person. But on the brighter side of things, do you realise that you can be married to one person and your spouse can actually be different people in one person!
When you cuddle your spouse on the bed and take pauses between the intimacies to breathe, you are in conversation with your lover, who is absorbing all your desires while simultaneously simmering with his or her passion.
When you discuss with your spouse about the politics in your office and listen to his or her work targets, you are in conversation with an employee from another company.
When you are travelling, and both of you open the Google map on your phone and simultaneously check with your spouse, the places on his or her laptop, you are in conversation with a travel-buddy.
When you are searching for words to patch things up after a nasty fight last night, you are trying build a conversation with a friend who understands your silence.
Perhaps a decade later, one Sunday evening, when you discuss about whether science or arts would be better for your son or daughter’s future, you are in conversation with a co-parent.
Later into the sunset years, when you complain of achy joints and backaches, and your spouse comforts you by giving you medicines, you are in conversation with an old age companion.
So, marriages may not always be boring, because you are not with different people, all in the same person.
Marriages can become good or bad, which is a completely different thing. But bland and boring is a rare phenomenon.
Simply because…
Your partner grows. His or her personality changes, perceptive changes and the roles he or she takes up change. His or ger intelligence and wisdom heighten.
You grow. Your personality and perspective changes as well.
And then, life sprinkles some new surprises occasionally, and that bring out different reactions from both of you.
Everyone is different.
There is a need for mutual respect and having patience and be able to support your spouse. So, a lot of factors go into it.
Marriage cannot and should not be based on what the television defines on what a perfect love is. It is just not reality. So, it’s best to accept that and make the best of the situation to understand each other and try to keep moving day by day.
By the way, I’d like to point out here, that you would have to choose to repeat the same old boring stuff until you found yourself to be equally boring. Who the hell chooses to be boring?
