How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
When my ex-boyfriend swept me off my feet 30 years ago, it happened at the UP sunken garden just before sunset. I screamed in delight as Butch kept twirling me around and around. Put me down now. I wanted it to last forever but a crowd of onlookers oogling at us from a distance brought us back to reality. We had no shame. Truly, madly, deeply in love. We were optimistic that whatever flaws we had could easily be worked out. Such an idealistic thought. A friend told me that the thing I loved most from my boyfriend is the thing that I’d hate about him when I get married.
Is it true?
This conversion chart for dating is meant as a joke but in reality, there is some truth about it.
Yes, we had our problems.
More than 20 years later, I never imagined I’d literally break my foot as I tried to run away from our marriage. I guess being swept off my feet in an accident brought me back to the reality that a marriage crisis is never a hopeless case.
I had no choice but to live with him and work things out. Truly God works in mysterious ways. It was as if God said ” you can’t run away from your marriage. Try to fix it”.
Today, I wear the stitches on my right ankle like battle scars with a badge of courage.
Smiles, tears, of all my life! — and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.
There is definitely some grain of truth to this meant-to-be funny chart. We’re still 3 years short of the milestone 10th , but , I admit there are days when I realize that what I used to love about my better half irk me now. (sometimes lang ha =P)
Your linked entry (28 years together) is such an inspiring story , esp. to those who thought/ think that they have ‘fallen out of love’.
Keep sharing your stories and sharing lessons learned from them.
More power to you and your writing Noemi.
Happy 30th year of love and togetherness to you and your husband!
Sabi nga “Let no one separate what God has joined.” Pwede ring sigurong “Let nothing separate what God has joined.”
Pero an-sweet ninyo talaga. :p
Happy anniversary, and may it last 30 * 30 years more!
Happy 30th Anniversary!! May neither one of you suffer anymore broken bones just to prove that you are truly MFEO 🙂
Be happy and madly in love….Always 🙂
@Gina- the first few years were not too good for me either.
@ederic- you’re right. Nothing and No one!
@arbet- I will be 80 years old. Okay na yun!
@cookie- Ay no more broken bones. I couldn’t walk well for a year.
Awww… this touches me so.
Me and my husband had countless separation threats too. But we survived them all. We just marked our 27th wedding anniversary last March 8. 🙂
Happy anniversary ma’am and i hope your marriage grows stronger each day.
oh yes, i know im too young to be married (at least) and aint ready yet for such kind of responsibilities. 🙂
but a story like this will surely inspire young adults (omg!) like me (what the…) to give importance to any relationship.
happy anniversary miss noemi!!
aawww. so touching. your posts, esp the ones about marriage, never fails to inspire me.
Congratulations on your 30th year !
happy 30th! about your foot — God obviously didn’t approve of your plan 😀
@rhodora- yes I had many almost separations.
@kingdaddy- though my story sounds like a soap drama, I wanted to share it so others will know that marriage is hard work.
@ladycess- I saw it as divine intervention.
with the many stories about staying together ’til death, yours will be one of our inspirations. happy 30th anniversary!
we’re only in our second year, not much to boast but definitely working to sustain what we have now.
continue to inspire =)
What a pity!!…… I was never in the same thinking as I have now. My pride dictated me that I dont need a man who will only be my burden.
That was about 18 years now. We are having our own life na, yet sometimes we both looked back and say a bit of “sayang!”
We should be humble pala dapat in order to keep the relationship.
Happy 30th Anniversary to you and Butch. God really finds ways, sometimes in the most unexpected ways, to help us solve our problems in life.
Wishing you many more happy and fruitful years ahead. God bless.
I am wishing you and your husband more happiness on your marriage and I just want you to know Miss Noemi that this article of yours really made me very happy knowing the fact that marriages nowadays are just like whims and caprices that fleets with time. I just wish that those who are wanting to get married be AWARE OF THE COLD REALITY that marriage is not all ROMANTIC LOVE because ROMANTIC LOVE IS VERY MUCH SUBJECT TO WEAR AND TEAR and it is absolutely physical. God will not command husbands to love their wives if love really lasts otherwise, God will turn out to be making a fool of himself commanding husbands to love their wives if what they feel initially towards their wives lasts forever. ROMANTIC LOVE IS AN ILLUSION AND LIFE CAN BE LIVED VERY WELL WITHOUT IT.
happy anniv to you and Butch… Marriage is one wild ride. I’m still learning to stay on the saddle, that after 7 years!