The saying you never really know someone until you start living with them has never held so much meaning to me until now. After my introduction ceremony, as the culture demands, I went home with my husband and we began life as one that night. We haven't done the church wedding yet, so by the end of the summer I will be going back to my parent's house, but for the meantime that I have been here, I can say that I truly have learned a lot about living with a person. I've never required so much patience until now. If I count all the times I've had to stop and take a deep breath before acting, I might fall asleep from all the counting. It's kind of like when I was in college and lived with roommates. It was not easy, and most times I acted the way I wanted towards them because they were not my family members and I did not really have to deal with them on a personal level. But in the case of a significant other such as a spouse, they are someone you share everything with. You deal with them on the most intimate level, and you stick with them always. This means you can't deal with issues concerning them as carelessly as you would a roommate. Even if you choose to turn your back and ignore them, you still wake up to see their face first thing in the morning, they still have the keys to your house and know where you keep all your valuables, and at the end of the day they still have your heart. A lot of times your partner will surprise you by doing things you never thought they could do. A lot of them will be good and we always pray for that, but as human beings some of them might not be so pleasant. The same way our partners surprise us, we also surprise our partners. There are a lot of things we do that take them by surprise, and sometimes has them begging the question of whether they truly know us or not.
At the end of the day patience from both sides is highly required to cope with the big change, and with patience comes understanding, which is the key antidote to live in peace.
-Lady G
