What’s harder: Love or Marriage?

Sharing is caring!

Recently, the Husband and I had a long talk about how things are progressing in our marriage. We tend to have these talks from time to time, kind of like a “marriage tune up.” Because our relationship is an ever growing entity, it needs to be acknowledged as so. We make sure to discuss it in depth every month or two. This talk, however, had an interesting twist to it. The discussion led to the definition of Love and Marriage.

Although they meld together, Love and Marriage are two totally different aspects of life. Marriage is something that is tactile; a contract held in your hand, signed by both parties, and can be used in a court of law. Love, on the other hand, is more like air: you can see the effects of it, you can feel it and it can touch you. Like air, it can also be fleeting. It can build up and blow you away or it can touch you in such a way and disappear before you can figure out what just happened. But which is harder to handle and maintain? He chose love while I chose marriage.

My argument was that Love is easy to constantly provide. It can be unconditional, and open-hearted. Marriage is the one that initiates work. It takes respect, planning, and constant up-keep. My husband’s argument is that marriage is the easy part. You already know that you will be on the same page, so decisions made together should be no problem. You find a partner to maneuver through life with. He says that falling in love is easy, but staying in love takes work.

Now, from his words, I could have easily taken it the wrong way. To say that it takes work to stay in love, made me think that he was saying that it takes work to stay in love with ME. That obviously wasn’t the case. It’s also safe to say that I am an easy lover. When I meet people, I tend to be open and inviting, only cutting someone off if they’ve done me wrong. Actually, I tend to give people 2nd, 3rd, and 4th chances with me because of my loving heart. My husband is the total opposite. You have to earn his trust and love. The only people in his life that he easily gave both to has been me and our children. Although we disagreed on the topic, it did help us understand why each of us does what we do in certain situations. Like most marriages, our different views on life helps the other see situations in a new light. My open heart has helped him to appreciate the good in people, while his stoic and realistic outlook on life helps me toughen up a bit and realize that trust does need to be earned and not given away like candy.

We both see where we need to work harder. With his ebb and my flow, or vice versa, we can make both Love and Marriage stronger within our home.

I’d love to know what you think! Do you see Love as the difficult aspect of a marriage, is the marriage itself the hard part?