The Challenge of Reviving a Dying Marriage

By Oluseyi Obasi

Maintaining love in marriage is indeed a decision. Please help! Why did my husband change? Who is This Person I Married? Did I marry the right person?

If you have been married for longer than six months, I suspect you may secretly have asked yourself this question at least once. I may be wrong but I think that the answer is probably ‘Yes, you did marry the right person.’ How do I know that?

Because I asked myself that same question more than once in the course of my marriage and after all that I went through, I have now come to the firm conclusion that I did marry the right person.

So how did I go from questioning to being certain?

I was very much ‘in love’ with my husband before we got married. We spoke for hours, spent almost every day in each other’s company and couldn’t keep from staring at each other’s photos when we were apart. It was almost a heavenly experience.

We hated leaving each other at the end of the day and couldn’t wait till we were married so we didn’t ever have to leave each other again.

Nine months after our marriage, the story started to change. I realized he was a normal human being with flaws. I couldn’t stand the way he chewed his food noisily (how come I didn’t noticed that before?), he was sloppy at times and that irritated me endlessly. And to make matters worse, my love for him had started to fade.

Two years into the marriage, our conversations become a bother (if we found time for them at all), his touch was not always welcome, and his habits were driving me nuts.

I started to panic. What had I done?! My God, did I marry the wrong person?

I went from panic to anger to regrets. And as I longed for the good old days when we were in love, I began to desire that experience with someone else.

I knew I was stepping on dangerous grounds……then something happened that made me question my feelings.

One day, an acquaintance of mine (mother of two and married for 5 years), announced to a group of women I was with that she was divorcing her husband. We were shocked at first, and then everyone started talking at the same time. We all offered our support to her and asked a lot of questions, but I am ashamed to say that not one of us suggested that she try harder to make her marriage work.

Not one.

I wanted to, but I did not have the courage. It seemed every woman in the room was secretly thinking about her own marriage and wondering why she had not had the courage to take that same bold step.

And so, I was silent. But deep down in my heart, I felt that divorce was not the answer and that she had not
tried hard enough.

And then it hit me! Here I was blaming my husband for my unhappiness, and taking no blame myself. Yes, my husband is not perfect, but neither am I. I realised that the answer to this dilemma did NOT lie outside my marriage but it lies within me.

Of course I could fall in love with someone else (temporarily) and it would make me feel better alright. But for how long? I bet in a few years from now, I would be in the same situation I am right now.

This is because the key to succeeding in marriage is not just finding the right person, but being the right person. It’s making a decision to love the person you found.

I am not an expert in marriage but my heart goes out to all those who are unhappy in their marriages and still waiting on their heels for the magic to return. The magic can return, but you need to make it return. Sustaining love is not a passive or spontaneous experience. It'll NOT just happen to you. You have to "make" it happen one day after another.

It would task you. It would take time, effort, energy, and a bit of wisdom. It may take you learning a few tips and tricks. It may mean doing things that don’t even come naturally to you at first. But it is worth all the ‘labour’ it will take.

It's a direct cause and effect. If you make the efforts to revive your marriage, the results are almost predictable.

Try it and see.

‘’Maintaining love in marriage is indeed a "decision".... Not just a feeling’’ - Anonymous.

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Seyi Obasi is the creator of Realities of Life. You can get a free copy of Seyi's eBook - '47 Habits That Prevent You From Ever Becoming Successful'' when you subscribe here.