“We have got the gift of love, but love is like a precious plant, you have got to keep watering it. You have got to really look after it and nurture it” John Lennon, The Beatles.
The theory of 7 year itch started as a movie by Marylin Monroe, this term refers to the phase in marriage when divorce is most likely to happen. In our modern time, Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston divorced after having spent 7 years together, so the timing of Brad’s itch was consistent with this theory.
It used to be the “seven year itch”, but it has drastically lowered to anywhere from six months to four years! Nowadays divorce is at a much higher rate. Couples watching out for the 7 year itch should be on their guard a lot earlier these days. They are far more likely to separate after about two years of marriage.We see people around us who are not divorced; they share one place which is no longer called home. Common sense suggests that when married couples get a divorce, that means either there wasn’t much love to begin with or love was strong at the beginning but then gradually weakened.
People just don’t seem to rate marriage on the high end these days and if there is a problem in the marriage (there will always be that bridge to cross no matter how wonderful a marriage we have) one of the two will often walk away instead of sticking it out through.
Love and marriage are two different things; marriage is the needed atmosphere for the love to flourish. If marriage is at the stake, so be sure that the love had been sacrificed a long time ago.All along you saw signs but you ignore them or you were too busy to act on them, and after seven years you finally realized what you missed and try to change it.
Economist Robert Frank has suggested that romantic love evolved to provide the ultimate solution to the commitment problem, the only one that can ensure that two people stay together. Love is an irrational force that makes people want to be together no matter what the circumstances are, no matter how bad the cost-benefits ratios are. Nowadays we are perceiving things upside down; we care more about keeping the home up and running, but sometimes over the love’s dead body,and its not even working this way.
Sometimes we wonder what happened to the great couple whom we used to see in college.They were perfectly matching soul-mates. We could not imagine that in a few years they are no longer able to stand each othersome of us started to doubt the validity of marriage itself due to the numerous divorce cases we see each day but the ugly truth is; it is not the marriage’s fault.
When we get married we should know that things won’t work just fine because we have been in love for so long, and this accumulated love will be able to survive on its own. When we do such thing we subconsciously stop giving, when we stop giving we live on our reserves. We keep withdrawing from the emotional bank account that we have gone through so many hardships to build and we rarely deposit a thing in there. All this happens while we are either unaware or unfocused, which makes no much of a difference because the end result is the same.
So if you really care about your marriage know/do the following;
- Know love will never run on its own. The accumulated love is not enough, you have to keep watering it, otherwise it will vanish.
- Love and marriage are two different things, and love is more essential.
- Marriage is not the start of joy ONLY, yet it’s the start of giving.
- Don’t take your spouse for granted.
- Marriage is not the end of our love story, yet is the start.
Dr. Mohamed Wadeed
Marriage and Family Counselor
Associate Member at the American Psychological Association
Tel: 0106 4877447
0111 1244294
www.mwhope.com