Growing together in a trial and error enterprise called marriage

Just a day after I read DorothyL's "Women...Men...Collision", I had a collision with my dear hubby.

Unlike before when we were on our early adjustment stage that we often had to walk out from each other to ease the tension, I - racing with him to grab the car's key to drive around the village or go wherever I would impulsively think to go usually seeing a friend to release with, he - usually going out to drink with friends as long as he liked,(thanks God he doesn't drink anymore!) now we simply play dumb and deaf with each other in the house. It seems like we're torturing each other but it gives us time to reflect upon the situation amidst the unusual deafening silence. It means we can now control ourselves from walking out and talking it over to friends for an outlet or advice who in return might spread the bad news around which may cause more strain to the relationship at that vulnerable stage of adjustment. Because we learned much from this big mistake of opening up to friends who had all the tendency to spread our conflict around causing more damage than help, we agreed to keep any problem just between us except to very few really trusted friends. So now we rarely open up any of our mess to other people except if it's really necessary. My husband also realized that drinking alcohol would not help in solving any problem at all. It may give us just a momentary relief  or boost to talk it over but the problem remains. When the alcohol is gone, we're back to our problem so it's never a good way out. Now if we have a quarrel, we almost bump each other sometimes, waiting who's going to speak first. It's so thrilling to both of us until we patch things up. 

I'd like to borrow Dorothy's words, "We  need  to spice things up, to know that we are alive and that our partners are also alive. When we have these so called collisions, it awakens our deepest passions which we both need to feel, in order to go into a deeper love for one another."

In situations like this, after we sort things out, we realize how much we love each other even if at the height of feeling so annoyed, I come to think of dumping him (and he also thinks the same) but when I think of all our ups and downs  together in all our entire marriage, I later realize that oh... it's too late to part ways when we have more happy moments together to count than the odds. He thinks the same way, too. We have invested for each other so much emotionally for so long that during our misunderstandings, if I imagine myself without him even if I consider myself strong, life won't be the same. When we come into terms, he honestly admits he feels the same way, too. How deep love grows in time against all odds!


Indeed, "no matter how good or bad the situation is, it will change". In any relationships, however, if a situation turns good, we have to aim to make it much better so we won't bore each other and if it turns bad, we will do our best to make it good. If we do this, we can reduce the divorce or separation rate and abandoned children in the world .

It's so challenging to discover ways that work and eliminate those that don't work for both of us in our relationship. It feels so good to think that we have both grown in this "trial and error enterprise" called marriage.  

P.S. *Enterprise is defined by Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary as "eagerness to do something new and clever despite any risks".