His Experience: The ‘aftermath’!!

I cheerfully and soooo sincerely said my ‘I Do’ and got myself the sweetest bride on earth! No one could beat the smile and joy in my heart on that day!

Of course the normal things that happen after the wedding ceremony-the byes, a million photos (which stretch your smile till you can’t pull back your mouth to normal), sorting out some immediate gifts, evening party and departure for honeymoon……..they occupy your mind until it all suddenly clears on the day after and voila! You wake up married! Haiya! Who is this by my side? And here for life/good?

Guess that was my first shocker. What did I do? Thank God for the wedding ‘glow’ which carried me thru that question as the reality of the fact that I was married slowly sunk in. Coming to terms that I now have someone with me -to actually love and cherish till death do us part? This reality was so different from all the times I’d said my vows in rehearsal. More so when we got home and started a life together-having to live together through thick and thin, the inevitable fights and none of the parties has an option of leaving to go sleep in their house to cool off-what a lesson!

5 years down the line, I see this time as the time when the sand paper meets the wood at its roughest. It is such an exciting life, learning new things and reveling in the joy of new love but it was also a rough and tough time where we, (or should I say I?) rubbed each other the wrong way so many at times that it made me wonder at times-what did I get myself into? I compare this with two un-hewn pieces of stone rubbing against each other. The friction is at maximum and the easiest way out is to just avoid anything that may cause friction. I thank God for Ems who stuck it out through these tough times and made our frictions lead to more times of smiles and laughter than time spent frowning and in bickering. A decision made early enough to talk about anything, yaani ANYTHING that was causing a rift as soon as possible got us thru many a potential cold look and night!

God’s grace was so abundant……where would we be were it not for Him? Who else would have taught us what it takes (and still is teaching us!) to stay married knowing that there was no rehearsal for marriage?

Of all the things that stand out for me, is the need to get back to God with a humble heart to ask Him to teach us as men how to love the wives He gave us. More so when we realize that the easiest picture to mirror is what  one learnt at the home I grew up in, if not what I’d heard from many sources which suffice to say led to many a squabble. My ego had to make way for grace to abound in my heart. This was the only way I could enroll in the school where I was to be a student for life and learn how to love my wife as Christ loved the church. As long as I remained a work in Christs’ hand, I could learn the ropes of marriage, one tip at time, learn how to say the difficult words- “I was wrong, please forgive me”, learn that my wife is not my mother; doesn’t cook like her, think like her or treat me like her……… and never will be like her. She is just Emmah.

This Emmah rocks my world each day. At times it can seem to be literal when the road is rough and rocky but we are learning not to use any rocks on our way against each other, but to use them to make the muddy/slippery paths passable. Again- she rocks my world!!!!!!

When do you actually get married?

Sometime back I was checking marriage stuff over the net and I bumped into a story by Dr. Phil where he says, he got married four years after he had said “I do”. That is when it hit him that He was actually married to the love of his life and needed to get serious about marriage.

I reserve my comments on that, but I guess we all need to be sure about marriage, leave alone the wedding , those are just celebrations, but the commitment to be married to someone. The covenant relationship that we engage in and we need to know that this is not rehearsal, it is here to stay, and till death do us part.

Good enough, Chris and I had gone out for many years and by the time we were getting married, I was marrying my best friend. This to me really helped me a lot and that has kept us going. But as a beginning to this blog and I would like to share my few shockers that I had to deal with after I said “I do”.

• I had to wake up and make breakfast (this was an expectation from Chris) – No way! This was hard. In my former life, breakfast was yours’ for the grab, you wake up anytime you want and sort yourself out.

• To figure out what we are having for dinner- in my former life I used to buy fries on my way home if I knew that there was nothing at home to eat. Many times when got home (now Chris house), there were no onions and Chris would humbly say – Honey, please start owning this home, start thinking of what we need to be eating. But trust you me, we ate those fries a few times.

• To be honest, I missed home. I cried a few months; I cried miserably, Chris used to get shocked at my behavior, I demanded to go visit my family two weeks after the wedding, I missed my brother and my sister. I felt so lonely yet I was married. He was so sweet to allow me to go home and say hi.

Lesson number one

The first lesson I learnt when I got married is that, you can’t just say” I do” and imagine your have began your life on a new clean slate. A day before you were a sister, a daughter and one day after you have a new title wife!

Take it easy on yourself-the cleaving takes place one day at a time. You slowly detach from your former life and embrace the new life. As you do so, you also embrace oneness as a couple.

Will be sharing lesson two soon.

Let us wait for the version according to Christopher – my lovely hubby!

I do...then what?

Boy meets girl, they like each other, they love each other, they get engaged, prepare for a wedding on which day they say the sweet and timeless words ‘I Do!’ The crowd disappears to await the next wedding whilst the fresh couple proceeds to a honeymoon and ……………….

This story has innumerable variations to it and you can write out yours……….

Then what?

Welcome to this blog!

We are excited to be part of what we believe is God’s doing in this age and era in His quest to restore the society through the family institution, one marriage at a time. Not that we are any experts in this, but all we are is a couple who want to experience the best that God intended when He instituted marriage We do not profess to marriage counselors or marital experts. All we want to do is provide a platform where we can share insights on marriage, fully based on the word of God as the unchanging and un-movable pivot that marriage is anchored on and hold each others’ hand as we walk in this privileged path of matrimony.

In a world filled with divergent views of marriage, with un-ignorable and ever increasing statistics of divorce and separation, we want to raise up a voice of hope and faith in the institution of marriage, a voice that seeks to build rather than destroy, that seeks to choose to work at, rather than give up, that seeks to inspire the next generation by positive example, rather than discourage by ignorant living. We seek to share our challenges, lessons learnt, what we are learning and pray that each couple can be a light in their respective spheres of influence to rightly reflect the picture of man-woman union in marriage that God must have had at the beginning.

To achieve this, we want to invite;

a) Primarily those young in marriage and have been married for at least 1 year and are desirous to make their marriage grow and progress,

b) Those who have been married for longer than 5 years to provide counsel through real experiences and testimonies and provide a mentor-role,

c) Those who are not sure of where their marriages are-whether moving on, barely making it or stagnant-

d) Hey!-anyone who has a heart for marriage!

We invite you to walk this road with us as we seek to sharpen each other with the various lessons we’ve learnt, over whatever length of time, and pray that as an army of God, we can start a revolution that will shape our and others marriages as designed in the Masters’ blueprint. This is not necessarily a bible study group, but rather a border-less marriage care group that is cross cultural, inter-denominational and seeks to be brutally but lovingly honest, sincere and truthful, transcending the borders of organizational, geographic and traditional limitations to foster an undeniable truth-His Truth.

Welcome aboard! Let’s talk!!!!!

Who are we?

We are a couple, celebrating 5 years of marriage this year. We are blessed to have 3 children aged between nearly 4 years to 9 months. We love marriage, we love each other and most of all-we love Jehovah God in whom we live and move and have our being.