The reason people say the first 5 years of your marriage will be the hardest is because we underestimate how redundant being married is.I was telling my friend the other day that marriage is the only consistency challenge where you either show up or show up. There is no giving up or I don't want to. You MUST!

It begs the question-How many people have stayed consistent at anything for a full year before getting married? You showed up every single day no cheating, no rest in between. I don't think it exists. Because right from when you are born, you have never directly chosen anything. A good majority of decisions were made by your parents( unless you were rebellious). You follow a timeline till you become an adult then you start making choices by yourself.

Marriage is one decision you are expected to make for yourself and whatever choice that is, the next 5 years of your life depends on it.

You can quit your job, you can skip classes, you can even decide to quit school and start afresh.But as a married man you can wake up and say “Omo I want to rest from being the provide or I can't run this house for this month.”Everyday you have to show up. If you don't feel like cooking you still have to find alternative for the family, if you don't feel like working you have to find a way to pay the bills.So even if you enter your marriage under pretense the redundancy will shed off whatever you are hiding. That's when it becomes hard. If you don't have a solid foundation the dominant personality will overshadow the submissive one.If the dominant personality is the person with bad character by the 3rd year you have clocked out.

For instance if you marry a malice keeper and you are always trying to make peace. You can't survive 365 days of that.In 6-7 months you will start keeping malice too because there is nothing as sweet as revenge in marraige. Because I want you to feel how hurt and betrayed I feel whenever you give me the silent treatment I will start it too.

If you marry an abuser the same pattern will repeat itself. If you can call me a fool because of a mistake I will wait for you to make one too so I can even call you a bigger fool.If you marry someone that beats you one day you will throw hands too and if your hands are not enough you will find an object that can inflict same amount of pain.

In those 5 years there is a big probability that children will come into the picture and the stakes go higher. The responsibility on each person will triple and then the comparison starts. I did this, you didn't do that and if the foundation of the marraige is faulty you will understand truly that not only adulthood but parenthood stuns you into an even bigger silence.The husband becomes focused on how to meet his new found responsibilities, same with the wife and suddenly there is no husband and wife anymore just father and mother because the friendship/companionship which is the primary reason for marriage die with it.

So, when you are trying to decide on what to manage in marriage ask yourself can I tolerate this for 365 days with zero breaks.