Merged in one only

I met Mario sixteen years ago. We were classmates in high school.  I liked to laugh about his jokes and he helped me out in English class. The graduation day was the last time I saw him. Seven years later, I got a forward with his e-mail address within the "to" addresses. I was surprised because it had been so long that I hadn't heard anything about him and besides, I wasn't sure that he was the same Mario González I knew. I wrote to say hi and very quickly I got a reply. 

Some weeks later we met with other old friends and it was exciting to see him after so many years. Some months later, he started to work with my dad and they became close friends. Meanwhile, we also kept communication through the internet and discussed interesting topics such as life meaning, universal values, education, importance of family in society… Five months later, Mario decided he wanted to marry me and he told my dad about it. My dad agreed that he asked me if I wanted to marry him too. On October 8, 2003, I accepted to marry Mario in a year. That day we began a relationship whose objective was to establish the first core values of our marriage and to prepare for the foundation of the new family we were about to build. On October 9, 2004, we united our lives for ever in an unforgettable day. 

I cannot say that we have "lived happily ever after". That only happens in fairly tales. Most of the women live thrilled with the idea of marrying a Prince Charming. We idealize the wedding day and life after that. Floating in pinky clouds we imagine how that man will be, how he will treat us, how he will behave, and we dream so much about our illusions that we really think that marriage is like that. However, throughout these six years of marriage I have discovered that marriage is real and it's way more interesting and dynamic than it is the relationship between the Sleeping Beauty and Prince Charming. Our marriage has been full of ups and downs and through each experience we have learned and we have strengthened our union more and more.  One night before I said "yes", I had a deep talk with my dad. I felt so nervous, full of doubts and with a very uncertain future. I knew that tiny decision I was about to make would change my life's destiny for ever. The wise words of my dad encouraged me and gave me the strength I needed to make my decision, and I can say now that it was the best decision of my life. Something he told me that night was: "Marriage is like buying a pair of shoes: you are sure you want them, you buy them and you are happy with them. Although, since they are new, they hurt you and make you blisters. As time passes, and after much walking with them, little by little you get to break them in and they don't hurt you anymore. Finally, they become your favorite shoes and sometime you don't want to take them off.   Your personality and Mario's have the potential to complement well. However, those differences that attracted you are the same that can hurt each other and can be very painful. Everything is a matter of making the decision to unite and adapt to each other until it is impossible to get apart". I have saved that moment like a treasure in my heart and his words continue to encourage me day by day.

During all these years I have confirmed those wise words in my own marriage. I've realized that everything is a matter of decision. Love is a voluntary decision and it does not depend on feelings or emotions. In fact, the rational and conscious decision is the one that makes emotions and feelings to be a reality. In my personal case, that decision has meant to die to my own ideals and expectations that I had also created since I was very young about a husband and marriage. I have to tell myself what I often tell my children when, after having done my best to prepare a delicious meal for everyone, very flippantly they just say: "I didn't want to eat that, I expected something else". In those situations we have to remind them that expectations in their minds do not allow them to see what they do have because they are only focused on what they wanted to have; and that creating expectations leads us to be ungrateful people because we are so blinded by our own wishes that we are not capable to see and thank what we do have in front of us.  

I am learning to visualize the intentions behind the results, even when they are not *what I expected*. I have been surprised about all what I have become to experiment and discover that in reality my husband is much more romantic than what I thought… simply that he expresses it in a very different way than what I expected to see. That's why it was far from my sight. How sad to lose beautiful details in life just because we have our vision so short and narrow!

Some time ago I decided to erase all those expectations that many times blinded me to not be able to see the wonderful man of flesh and bones that is way better than the Prince Charming of my dreams, because I have him by my side, loving me and fighting to make every minute we live together to contribute to our growing; and I also decided not to let life pass without taking advantage of what I do have just because I am yearning for unreal stuff.

I have learned that I have in my hands the power of making the best of that man emerge. That's the mystery of marriage: that two people totally opposite are attracted and can be amalgamated so that they stay united until death. We were created as social beings and everything weak in me is strong in him; and everything weak in him is strong in me. The person who loves us the most is who best can see our defects and virtues, but that ability was not put there to oppress, reject, criticize or humiliate. It was put there to help mature and grow the loved person, not to slave him with correct forms or high expectations. That ability to see his weaknesses was not given to me to get angry and scold him about his deficiencies but to help him overcome them and to complement him just the way he does with me. I was put beside this man to help him to get out all his strengths from his inside and to develop his full potential. He needs a channel, a track into where to flow, and that track is not habits or practices or external forms. The track is love.

Once I set aside my expectations and high standards about his behavior towards me, I have seen  a wonderful prince by my side to be reborn and I have seen how our relationship is renewed constantly. Little by little I have seen emerge in my husband the expectations I had before getting married, but in a totally unexpected and so creative way that I have never imagined. However, as I died to them, I have made room for his genuine way to be to flourish spontaneously  and naturally, without external forms or  protocols.

My lack of expectation has allowed me to have a clear and cloudless vision, ready to receive him just the way he is and the only thing I have found in my very inside is fascination and sincere gratitude to glimpse ahead of me a world that is way better than my childish fantasies. I have surprised to know the true man I married and whose love for me is true and profound. Knowing him truly, without being expecting anything from him, simply observing and being silent has made me fall in love of him more and more. In love of his ingenuity, of his romanticism, of his essence. I feel that every day we have freshness and new motives to be in love and feel irresistibly attracted to each other. I have owned the reality that the perfect man does not exist; but it does exist the perfect man for me and I am very fortunate to have him with me, sleeping by my side.

Today is our sixth anniversary and I feel more complete than ever, just beginning to walk the first steps in this new dimension of our marriage; enthusiastic about continuing to live life by your side, knowing each other, yielding, complementing each other and adapting each time more perfectly to the other one, getting to merge ourselves in one only, during the years that God may want to give us together.

 I love you, boy, you are the man of my life.