Growing a marriage? Keeping a marriage? Or whatever you call it!

(I posted this last March, in time for our wedding anniversary. But I took it down because I mistakenly shared it in runroo or aktib's social sites. And, just remember now to put it back.)

Last week, March 6, was our 9th wedding anniversary. We we're boyfriend-girlfriend for 5 years. So we're together for 14 years in total. Maybe 14 years gives me a right to talk about marriage and such. But anyhoo, 14 years or not, no one can stop my self-righteous mouth to talk about marriage and such.

Growing a marriage? Keeping a marriage? Or whatever you call it!

I think you do not grow the marriage or relationship. It's more of you grow individually as a person.

And, I strongly believe that you should not burden your partner or make him / her responsible for you to be happy. The best gift we can give to another person is being a happy individual.

And, we do not grow when we're too focused on the relationship, of ourselves, of him, of us, of what should be an ideal marriage. 

And, I don't know how to explain this part.

So maybe I'll talk about how it happened on us.

A jolt of growing up happens to us when Mark took a "managerial" task. Mark has always been the "leader." But unlike before that it was only among his few friends that if ever Mark made some stupid decision, friends would understand.

This new "managerial" task is a totally different ball-game. It's no longer just about his few "friends." It's about other people who have family and maybe a few relatives to take care of. That whatever silly decision he will make, it's just not about me and our kids getting hungry or being homeless or going to debt.

Being in this situation, when we start to look outside our own circle/family's comfort, our own misery seems to be trivial. With 101 issues to deal and different personalities to work with, a forgotten date / birthday is just a very welcome misery to deal with.

I may be too fake to be saying this but our dream has become of seeing others' dream come true. So I don't get sad when people leave because it means their taking actions to make their dreams come true. The only sad thing was that Mark was no help to them. (When someone asked me about people resigning.)

And, this is what I mean NOT being too focused on the relationship.

It's not being a hero or overly-generous. It's actually self-serving. I believe in karma. That when we start to think about the welfare of other people, I believe that they or others would do so with our kids. It's a more sustainable inheritance for my kids.

So about marriage? Seriously, I don't know. It's something we don't think about.