People will say, "I love you forever" and "I'll always want to be with you," but sometimes they don't understand what that really means. They understand the current value of "I love you" and "I want to be with you" as an expression of infatuated love, not taking into account that certain life experiences will happen that will test the power of that love and the power of your will to stay with someone.
When you have a mindset that you are dating to marry (not everyone has this mindset, and I'm not knocking anyone who does not want to date with the goal of marriage), you have to take into account that things will happen, like I just said.
When you commit yourself to someone, you aren't just committing to their body and bubbly personality. You aren't committing to their romantic gestures and their deep blue eyes. You aren't just committing to their velvety voice or the way they wake up and automatically throw their arm over you first thing in the morning.
No, you're committing to their problems. ALL OF THEM. You're committing to their crippling depression. You're committing to the medical problems. You're committing to the possible equipment they have to use in order to function like the rest of the able-bodied society. You're committed to their diet. You're committed to their quirks. You're committed to their OCD, ADHD, Tourettes and every single disorder in between. You're committed to their family history of alcoholism and drug dependency.
You're committing to waking up in the morning with their butt in your face.
You're committed to every single thing wrong with someone as well as every single thing that is right about them.
If all of this overwhelms you to the point where you don't know if you can picture yourself with them in the long term, then you aren't mature enough to be getting engaged. And that's OK. You have to have a mature mindset to accept everything about a person. You can't commit yourself fully to a person on the basis of his sleek body and shiny personality. It just isn't possible.
Marriage isn't all puppy love and vacation trips to the ocean. Not completely. Don't trust the pictures you see on Facebook and Instagram that show completely happy marriages because that isn't the whole picture. I'm not saying marriage is bad (or else I wouldn't even be writing this article), but it's not sunshine and rainbows. It takes work, dedication, and compromise. It takes eating like a peasant most nights so that bills can be paid. It takes sleeplessness so that you can work your 9 to 5 job plus a couple others just to make ends meet.
Marriage is a harsh yet very fulfilling reality. It is what you make it. Don't let social media fool you into believing that it is fairy tales. It's so much more.
