Meeting my spouse made me feel as though I had stepped into a fairy tale, with him serving as my shining knight and me the helpless damsel in need. When I was younger, the “all you need is love” fairytale concept served as the foundation for all of my romantic and marital aspirations. I struggled to survive for so many days, months, and years as a single mother. merely attempting to survive till tomorrow. I would daydream of having a husband, a nuclear family, and someone to share the financial and practical responsibilities with.
It has been lovely and wonderful to be married.
My marriage really did save me. I pledged, “You have given me the family I so desperately sought.
Most significantly, you have provided. I’m incredibly lucky to have a spouse who will continue where I left off. He not only supports our family but also concentrates on the house and parental responsibilities, giving me the chance to finally concentrate on my goals and profession.
Oddly, though, I’ve noticed that I often think about my time spent being a single mom. Although it was isolating, lonely, and frequently taxing, there was pleasure in returning home to a quiet house; not having to share my space or make accommodations for others. I could make decisions for my child and myself based only on what I wanted, not what other people wanted, without having to make compromises.
I reflect on the days when I naively believed that “all you need is love,” but now that I know better, all you really need is a tidy home. You only require respect. All you require is faith. All you require is delegated tasks. You don’t need only love; you need more. It demands much more.
Marriage is work. More work than I ever thought it could be. Some days I feel like I’m suffocating from the weight of motherhood and marriage. I feel like there are not enough hours in the day to be the perfect wife, the perfect mom, and the perfect employee—and some days I wish I could just sacrifice being a wife and go back to the days when all I had to worry about was myself and my child.
When your children are little, they depend on you for so much. Motherhood is an unspoken acknowledgment that you are giving up any semblance of yourself and your life that you once knew to raise these little humans. Responsibilities around the house pile up, the workload piles up, and your marriage just kind of ends up on the back burner. They say the key to marriage is to constantly date each other, but who has time and energy for that, really?
