This piece feels like someone speaking from lived experience, trying to make sense of why love so often collapses under the weight of what we never say out loud. There’s a quiet ache in the way it describes how marriage can turn into habit, into entitlement, into two people assuming the other will stay simply because they once promised to. The questions cut gently but deeply, asking whether we truly love the person in front of us or just the comfort of having someone there. The text exposes how easily we stop choosing each other, how easily control replaces tenderness. Beneath the critique, there’s a longing for relationships built on presence, honesty, and daily care rather than obligation. It mourns how many of us were never taught how to love, how to communicate, or how to grow alongside another human being. The piece urges us to know our limits, speak our needs, and refuse the blindness that leads to quiet misery. It’s not cynical it’s protective, almost maternal in its clarity. And at its core lies a simple, human truth: love survives only when both people keep showing up, not just once, but every day.
“Do I really love them / Or is it only expectation that I am marrying?”
oof. that’s the question that quietly flips the table. love as a living practice, not a lifetime subscription with fine print. uncomfortable, necessary, and very awake.
Yes, all of those are unavoidable prerequisites. The different personal backgrounds and expectations can only be lived with, resolved (not necessarily changed) if that full sharing is agreed upon before hand as expressed in the sentence ('till death do us apart').
Usually, in a married couple, one person tends to do more of that work than the other, but, ultimately it means that both need to be able to put the other before themselves.
If you loved somebody, you would at least try to see them from their perspective. Though even in a parent child relationship, we are never able to understand what pains a child is going through unless and until we experience it ourselves.
How then could we expect another person to put us before themselves all the time. Each of us, assuming we are here for a purpose, have to learn to understand that first while trying to be loving to our neighbor. Nobody can truly put another person before themselves. I do not think that is anybody’s purpose either.
Are you/we willing to share EVERYTHING with that close other AND receive ALL that they have to give? Time length is, from that point of view, irrelevant if such extreme willingness is not really present.
The point i was trying to make is: are we willing to accept the person as he or she is, even if that means they are most selfish in the relationship.
Asking if we are willing to share with them or they with us is also another kind of expectation. We need to know what to expect from the commitment first and foremost. Most problems can be solved when the expectations are clearly stated before getting involved.
Sharing everything with another person can happen once the base is established. But it’s the base that is the most problematic as everybody comes from a different level of conditioning and therefore perspective just like you stated above! There’s nothing wrong with it because when you are sharing your very life together, what’s wrong in sharing everything else, right?
But then, would you share your tv time, your phone time, share your time with your besties and so on for your other half, and for some that would be money, inheritance, etc. just a perspective!
In a relationship (of any type but more so in marriage), the more one of its members finds his/her expectations met/fulfilled, the more they realise other (new or old) expectations will/may be met or fulfilled by their husband/wife in future. Such build up of individual expectations met or fulfilled allows for increasing stability, trust and reciprocated love (attention to and prioritisation of the other in the relationship) thus making it possible for both to know and truly live what 'relationship' is all about.
This piece feels like someone speaking from lived experience, trying to make sense of why love so often collapses under the weight of what we never say out loud. There’s a quiet ache in the way it describes how marriage can turn into habit, into entitlement, into two people assuming the other will stay simply because they once promised to. The questions cut gently but deeply, asking whether we truly love the person in front of us or just the comfort of having someone there. The text exposes how easily we stop choosing each other, how easily control replaces tenderness. Beneath the critique, there’s a longing for relationships built on presence, honesty, and daily care rather than obligation. It mourns how many of us were never taught how to love, how to communicate, or how to grow alongside another human being. The piece urges us to know our limits, speak our needs, and refuse the blindness that leads to quiet misery. It’s not cynical it’s protective, almost maternal in its clarity. And at its core lies a simple, human truth: love survives only when both people keep showing up, not just once, but every day.
Amen! That would be all! Thank you Adriao!
“Do I really love them / Or is it only expectation that I am marrying?”
oof. that’s the question that quietly flips the table. love as a living practice, not a lifetime subscription with fine print. uncomfortable, necessary, and very awake.
I am so glad you noticed it. That’s the whole point of this post. You have eyes Asuka. I hope they lead you to wisdom!
Yes, all of those are unavoidable prerequisites. The different personal backgrounds and expectations can only be lived with, resolved (not necessarily changed) if that full sharing is agreed upon before hand as expressed in the sentence ('till death do us apart').
Usually, in a married couple, one person tends to do more of that work than the other, but, ultimately it means that both need to be able to put the other before themselves.
If you loved somebody, you would at least try to see them from their perspective. Though even in a parent child relationship, we are never able to understand what pains a child is going through unless and until we experience it ourselves.
How then could we expect another person to put us before themselves all the time. Each of us, assuming we are here for a purpose, have to learn to understand that first while trying to be loving to our neighbor. Nobody can truly put another person before themselves. I do not think that is anybody’s purpose either.
Yet, it happens all the time.
You mean the expectation or the action?
Are you/we willing to share EVERYTHING with that close other AND receive ALL that they have to give? Time length is, from that point of view, irrelevant if such extreme willingness is not really present.
The point i was trying to make is: are we willing to accept the person as he or she is, even if that means they are most selfish in the relationship.
Asking if we are willing to share with them or they with us is also another kind of expectation. We need to know what to expect from the commitment first and foremost. Most problems can be solved when the expectations are clearly stated before getting involved.
Sharing everything with another person can happen once the base is established. But it’s the base that is the most problematic as everybody comes from a different level of conditioning and therefore perspective just like you stated above! There’s nothing wrong with it because when you are sharing your very life together, what’s wrong in sharing everything else, right?
But then, would you share your tv time, your phone time, share your time with your besties and so on for your other half, and for some that would be money, inheritance, etc. just a perspective!
Action of course. Such actions bring greater expectations and the stability of knowing and living what the relationship is all about.
I don’t understand. Can you paraphrase what you wrote ?
In a relationship (of any type but more so in marriage), the more one of its members finds his/her expectations met/fulfilled, the more they realise other (new or old) expectations will/may be met or fulfilled by their husband/wife in future. Such build up of individual expectations met or fulfilled allows for increasing stability, trust and reciprocated love (attention to and prioritisation of the other in the relationship) thus making it possible for both to know and truly live what 'relationship' is all about.