Introduction
They say that love is elusive and not everyone finds love. They say that true love exist only in fairy tales.
Our world has been filled with stories of heartbreaks, third parties, unrequited love, forbidden love and many other love miseries that people have become disillusioned with the concept of true love. Many scoff at the idea that it is possible to find your soul mate, right from the beginning. Many find it hard to believe that it is possible to end up marrying your first love.
I disagree.
I believe that true love still exist in this world. I believe that your first love can be your last love and you can end up married with that person for life. I believe that love, when properly nurtured, is meant to last forever. I believe in the beauty of love.
Why? Because it happened to me.
Our love story started with a phone call back in our college days. He was my schoolmate but he already knew me since we were in high school. I had no idea he existed as he watched me from the distance. As I bloomed into a woman, he started to pursue me.
Mustering enough bravado, he asked for my number. At first I was hesitant but then seeing his sincerity (not to mention feeling flattered) I eventually relented. It was the start of our journey together.
Ever since he got my number, we never stopped talking to each other. Our fondness for each other blossomed. He was witty and full of spirit. We found ourselves talking about a lot of things – things common to us and things we differ about. I found him exciting and truly enjoyed his company. After two months, we became a couple.
We knew we were meant for each other. There was a healthy love brewing in our hearts that we wanted to last forever. We knew we were young but we could never imagine a future without the other. Every moment, we wanted to spend together and every experience we wanted to share with each other.
It was not easy. We had our ups and downs and our commitment has been tested many times over. After nine years of a roller coaster ride with him, we finally decided to make it official: in paper and in the eyes of God. We are tying the knot this year, on my birthday.
Everything is set. We have our own businesses and investments for the new chapter of our lives as we become one. We are excited as we take our journey to the next level. Our relationship, which began as what some may call puppy love, grew and matured to be a love that can now tackle the biggest issue of marriage: commitment.
How did we do it? How did two college sweethearts who found love at such a young age made that love mature into marriage? They say young people don't understand the gravity of love. But I disagree with them. Our love is a living proof of how young love can blossom to marriage.
In this book I shared the wisdom I have learned in my relationship. As I share the secret ingredient of our long lasting relationship, my hope is you realize that there is no secret. Making love last is not as hard as many people think. Yes, it involves hard work but it is hard work you will definitely enjoy!
So whether you're a young couple starting out in love, a seasoned couple who've triumphed through love's many challenges, or a single person wondering how to find love or make the next love journey work – then this book is for you. The wisdom contained are timeless and proven.
Happy reading!
Finding the One
How To Know He's Your Soul Mate
Falling in love is not easy. Falling in love is not like an apple falling to the ground from up above an apple tree. It is not magic. It is not hocus focus.
There are certain protocols to follow in order to find love. Falling in love is not really something that happens without order. Sure, you think that it is all chaotic when you experience it: a sudden rush of heat to your face; your heart beating so fast you think it will pop; your throat turning dry as if you swallowed sand and the world seemingly stopping for a second putting everything into slow motion.
It feels like there is no order when you fall in love. But that is a myth. Finding The One indeed can be magical. As the song goes – "You got to believe in magic. Tell me how two people find each other in a world that's full of strangers." But, actually, there is scientific order involved in finding The One.
Know What You Want
Creating a Checklist
Finding The One is not easy when you don't know what you want in the first place. Love should not be trial and error. If you know the kind of partner you are looking (or waiting) for everything would be easy as a pie.
Young girls usually love fairy tales and always imagine themselves as a princess in a faraway kingdom. One day, Prince Charming will come, sweep her to her feet and marry her. I used to think that way. Guys, meanwhile, when they reach a consciousness of the opposite sex start to picture out an ideal woman who would nurture them, please them and make them happy. That is the start of us knowing what kind of Mr. or Mrs. Right we would like to have when we grow up.
At a young age, we create our criteria on who we want to be together with when we grow up. At first, it is full of ideals. We begin creating the perfect partner. As we grow older, these criteria change. Reality bites us and we discover that our perfect partner will possess certain flaws we have to accept and live with.
My tip: create a list of negotiables and non-negotiables. Negotiables are characteristics your partner may or may not have. Non-negotiables, on the other hand, are characteristics your partner must have or else you won't consider him or her at all. Example, I wanted someone who can play the guitar but it was a negotiable factor for me. However, I wanted someone respectful to his parents since it would mean he would respect me and my parents too. This is a non-negotiable factor.
Our criteria will change and evolve over time and as we learn more about what we want. Don't worry; this process enhances the chance of us meeting Mr. or Mrs. Right.
As we create our standards, we attract those who fall into our criteria. We surround ourselves with people who matches our list. But be cautious, our list is only our guide. We must not depend on it too much that we must satisfy everything in it; that every item must have a check mark. If we do, we might miss out on the great person already there beside us just because there are certain things he or she lacks from our list.
Testing the Waters
Dating The One
Once you already know what you want, dating will commence so you could really get to know the other person. There are 3 phases that you have to go through.
1st: The FIRST DATE
This is the first time you'll go out with him so you have to put on the best YOU. Put on your best dress, best shoes, best smile, etc. This is to let him feel that you really put an effort to get his attention during the entire duration of your date.
Warning! NO PRETENTION please.
Being your best is not pretending to be someone you're not. Go with the flow and enjoy each other's company. This is where you talk about your likes and dislikes. This is the time you share the things you wrote in your classmates' slam books when you were in your elementary days.
2nd: The SENSING DATE
This is the time you enjoy each other's company more often. There are no definite rules to follow. No specific declaration of your status. This is just simply discovering more the person inside each one of you. You just frequently hang out and adore each other's uniqueness.
Your dates are not exclusive. You are still open to meeting other people in a romantic way. This is the moment wherein you feel and think a thousand times if the person you are dating is Mr./Mrs. Right OR Mr./Mrs. Wannabe Right.
3rd: the OFFICIAL DATE
You are now dating exclusively as a couple. You finally decided to bring your relationship one notch higher. In this phase, you have known one another well enough that you could finish each other's sentences.
You could already identify what each gaze means. You can read each other's body language. You practically know everything about each other: his deepest secret, her greatest fears, his ambitions in life, her monthly tantrums, his masculine scent, her soft touch, his signature look and many other small and big details. Although there is still a lot to learn and discover, you have decided to accept them and bear them for the rest of your life. You were now able to determine, that he is The One.
He or she is your Mr./Mrs. Right. You finally made the choice to let him be the one whom you'll spend your entire lifetime with.
Sticking with the One
Tools to Keep a Relationship Strong
Now that you found The One, the real journey begins. This is the start of knowing whether you actually found The One or you assumed you did. The love journey begins with a spark produced during the dating stage but it is during the actual relationship years when that spark is ignited into a fiery ember or dies down a natural death.
To keep love alive, there are 3 C's you need to practice: Commitment, Compromise and Communication.
Commitment
The Glue in a Relationship
Commitment is like a glue. It binds a relationship together.
Love is not a bed of roses always. There will be ups and downs. Once the relationship starts, you get to know the person more. As you start to spend more time with each other, you start to see the flaws in each other's character. Flaws that you decided to accept right from the beginning. Arguments start and storms test how strong your relationship is.
How do you keep yourself from running away when the storms in your relationship starts happening?
The answer is commitment. Commitment is sticking with your partner, no matter what, because you said you will, right from the beginning.
Love without commitment is futile. It will not grow. It will stray easily. For love to be kept solid, each one should be committed to each other. Both should be faithful and loyal to one another. It means not letting one's emotions tumble to someone else. It means being always there for the person you entrusted your future with.
How do we stay committed to each other?
If your love for one another is so great, it will come naturally. Love is the source of everything. Commitment is just one of the foundations of your love. It is like climbing the summit of Mt. Everest.
You will do whatever it takes to get there; no matter how cold the wind blows in your face; no matter how icy your hands and feet feels. You will still continue to climb until you reach the peak because being at the top of the world is your ultimate goal. Just like being with your partner, your ultimate goal in life is to keep your relationship strong and sturdy.
Compromise
The Band-Aid in a Relationship
Comprising is a providing a band-aid or temporary (yet acceptable) fix to a relationship.
But what happens if a storm comes during your climb to Mt. Everest. Everyone in your team decided to retreat and not continue to the peak because it is dangerous. Everyone, except you, would like to go back to the camp and postpone their dreams of reaching the peak.
Will you follow?
If your ultimate goal is to reach the top in a safe manner, you'll have to compromise. You have to go back to the camp and let the storm pass. Then you will be safe and after the storm you can climb again to reach your ultimate goal.
The same is true with relationships. Partners do not agree with each other always. There are moments when they will argue and have opposing opinions.
Why? Because we are unique human beings.
We are created in such a way so that we will not bore one another. In this way, we can challenge, argue, debate, deliberate, examine and even scrutinize each other's objectives and reasoning. This is healthy for any relationship.
However, some put this off as an argument or misunderstanding. But this only happens when the other person stops listening to what the other is saying. This happens when partners decide to hear only the tone of voice and not understand the meaning of the words coming out from each other's mouth. When both listens and understands, and reaches a point of recognition, acceptance and equilibrium, then compromise happens.
Communication
The Oil in a Relationship
Communication is what keeps a relationship functioning smoothly like a well-oiled machine.
To achieve compromise both parties must always be open and willing to communicate. Just like in any other relationship, communication is vital to keep a strong, sparkling, solid, and joyous partnership. Without it, a relationship will surely end up in the garbage can. It will not succeed. Parties would end up hurting each other.
Communication is vital. But it is not limited to just the words spoken – it involves the actions, even the silent ones, which supports the spoken words. You cannot say I love you and yet be insensitive to your partner's needs. You have to mean what you say. Communicating is also letting the other person know exactly what you mean. Do not leave your partner guessing.
When we say open communication, it means that the message being communicated is understandable. It means that both you and your partner is willing not only to talk but also to listen to what each other have to say and accept it no matter how funny, ridiculous, insane, crazy, imaginative, unbelievable or painful the truth is. This is one way of trusting that your partner means no harm to you but only the best for both of you.
When delivering your message, be mindful that it should be the words that must be heard and not the voice. Simply put, do not shout or raise your voice no matter how heated the argument is. This is to avoid hurtful words from coming out. If you can't restrict yourself from raising your voice, breathe. Allow yourself to cool down first. If you are the kind of couple who talks about everything under the sun, for sure you can talk about your differences and be open to accept whatever they may be.
If you truly believe you found The One, then both of you must do everything in your ability to keep the relationship. At the first sign of a storm, you must not be easily frightened and bend over. You must fight for your love. Fighting for your love doesn't always mean fighting against external forces like an unsupportive family or misguided friends. While these things do happen, mostly it's just in the soap operas when external forces against love are glorified. In reality, the biggest threat to love are internal forces – misunderstandings, pride, being uncooperative, suspicion, jealousy and so forth.
The reason why my relationship lasted for so long was because me and my fiancé always talk things through. We will discuss everything that happens to us – even the reasons behind our fights. We do this with a clear head every time. We compromise on certain situations and endeavor to make everything a win-win situation for both.
When you truly love someone, you will do whatever it takes to overcome these challenges. You will be willing to open communication lines to resolve differences, make compromises, and stay committed no matter what.
When The One Doesn't Feel Like The One
Facing the Big Question: Staying vs Leaving
What happens if one day you woke up and you start to get fed up on your partner's inability to comprehend your usual mood? You start to feel you cannot understand the situation anymore. You start to feel unheard. You feel that your partner is like an alien from outer space and you don't know him/her anymore. What happens when you start to feel indifferent towards your partner?
Will you give up easily? Or will you try to work things out?
Most of the time when we find The One, we want to believe that he or she is really The One. When we have spent months and years investing in the relationship, it becomes hard to make the decision of staying in the relationship or leaving it for good.
How do we know we need to stay and fight for our love? How do we know it's time to give up and move on?
It is important to make the right decision because making the wrong one can be fatal. If we choose to stay and the relationship wasn't really meant to be, then we could end up bitter and sour for the rest of our lives. If we choose to leave and it turned out that the person we left really was the best that could've happened to us, we will end up forever regretful for what might have been.
Fortunately, there is a solution to our dilemma. The first step is to learn how to handle each other's differences.
Handling Differences
Deciding to Stay
Our default should always be to stay in the relationship. As mentioned earlier, when storms arise, couples should not always run away and leave their partner. They should endeavor to survive the storm together. This means learning how to handle each other's differences.
Majority of storms in a relationship happens when the differences set it. He likes take-out pizza, she likes fancy restaurant dinners. His idea of a 3-day vacation is a movie marathon; hers is a beach getaway. He finds it ok to spend Christmas at home, alone. She thinks Christmas is best spent not just with immediate family, but with the entire extended family. He believes kids should be schooled in the best school money could buy. She believes kids can excel regardless of what school they go to as long as the parents' guide them in their studies. He believes money should not be discussed at home. She believes money should be discussed and planned strategically. He believes in observing religious traditions. She don't.
There are one hundred and one ways where couples can differ. The situations listed above are just some of them. Differences arise because of each other unique upbringings and life values. When people enter into a relationship, they bring these life values with them and mesh them together with their partners.
This is where communication and compromise comes in. When two people are openly communicating their beliefs and values with each other, they will be able to determine what makes the other tick. When they have open communication, they can talk about where they can compromise on certain values and beliefs they are different in.
I remember a time when my fiancé (then just my boyfriend) and I had our differences. We were together eating at a restaurant and a waiter kept coming back to check on the status of our food. I told the waiter mine was ok and dismissed him. Apparently, my fiancé was not satisfied with his food. He was angry I dismissed the waiter and promptly left the restaurant. I was shocked at his attitude and when I followed outside I was further shocked to see that he left without me. I was both angry and hurt. When I went to his house, I found him playing video games and I confronted him about it. A fight ensued. I kept nagging him about his behavior and he was angry at me for doing so.
I realized soon enough he didn't want to talk about it so I let it slide and left him. We both needed time to cool off. Before the day ended, we talked about what happened. He was under stress and the incident at the restaurant merely triggered his emotions. When stressed, all he wants is to unwind by playing video games. On my end, when stressed, I want to talk about it. We have different means to cope with stress. We discussed them and we reached a compromise. He promised to listen to me whenever I want to vent out and I promised to leave him alone whenever he's stressed out.
When you decide to work things out despite all your differences, make sure that you stick with your commitment to your partner. Make sure you know what it will take to make the relationship work. Most importantly, check with yourself that you want the relationship to work because you love your partner – not because other people says so; not because you feel sorry for the other person or because you don't want what you invested in the relationship to go to waste.
When you are able to work through your differences, the rewards are great. You'll end up with a relationship that is strong and tested. Nothing will be too hard for you to accomplish as a couple.
Accepting Differences
Knowing It's Time to Move On
But what happens when despite all your efforts to keep the relationship going, you still fail? What happens when despite all the communication and compromise, you feel that you really cannot stay committed with each other? What do you do?
First, you need to accept that the person isn't really The One you want to marry and spend the rest of our lives with. Even though years have passed, couples should not stick with a relationship when clearly it is no longer working. When both parties have done everything they can to save their relationship, but clearly the love is gone and there is nothing else they can do, then it's time to move on.
By ending the relationship, you are doing each other a favor to be able to move on and find the person who will really make you both happy in your lifetime.
This is not an easy decision to make. Couples tend to be blind about the glaring differences in their relationship and many choose to become apathetic towards each other rather than deal with the differences directly and make a decision. It is said that the opposite of love is not hate but apathy. When you start to no longer care for each other, then that's a clear sign that the love is gone.
When you don't even have the stamina to fight about your differences, and you just end up passively accepting the other's stand or opinion, then clearly the love has faded away. Soon enough, you'll find yourself drifting apart, no longer happy with each other's company, yet trapped in a commitment you both want, but can't, end.
Before this happens, make the painful yet beneficial solution of ending the relationship. It all starts with an honest conversation. Talk about your differences, without malice, name calling or error finding. Talk to resolve things (either by staying or leaving). Don't talk to try to pinpoint who to blame. You'll just end up unhappy and won't be able to accomplish anything.
Even though it is painful, it is something you need to do. The earlier you have "The Talk", the sooner both of you can move on. Who knows? You might even end up as friends with a healthy respect for each other. The couples who end up with a bad breakup are those who haven't had the chance to properly talk about their differences.
Letting go is never easy, especially when you built your hopes and dreams together. But staying, when you know it is no longer working, can be a nightmare you'll have to live with for the rest of your life. Be brave and make the right decision before it's too late.
Saying "I Do"
Finally Marrying the Man (or Woman) of your Dreams
The end goal of every relationship is marriage – that is having someone to spend the rest of your life with. In the average lifespan of a person, he or she will spend more than two-thirds of his or her life married to someone, presumably, the woman (or man) of his or her dreams. All the dating, relationship, breakups and everything in between was to prepare him or her for the ultimate time when he or she will finally start his or her life with the person he or she loved the most.
Some people, including me, are lucky enough to find this person early on. I have spent a good portion of my life knowing for certain that my fiancé is really the man of my dreams, the person whom I wish to spend my lifetime with. Some are not as lucky yet still their courage in exploring the world of love has led them to finally find the person they wish to marry.
So how do you know he or she is truly The One? How do you say "I do"?
Being Sure
Knowing You Want to Marry Her (or Him)
At this point, you already know you have found someone for keeps. You've battled many storms – internal and external. You've talked through your differences. You've compromised. You have mastered the art of communication. Your commitment has been tested through and through and have proven solid.
Now it's time to take it up a notch higher. It's time to get married.
Getting married should not be scary for both of you. It will come as a natural by-product of your relationship. Some get married after years of being in a relationship, like us. Others get married after only a year or so into a relationship. Personally, I don't believe you can marry a person if the relationship is less than a year old. The relationship hasn't gone through enough tests yet to be proven solid.
Another clue that you are now ready for marriage is when you've set and prepared everything in place. This includes your finances. In fact, this is one of the major pre-requisites for getting married. Once married, you are now telling the world that you are capable of raising a family. Being financially prepared is the first step to prove this.
If you are clueless how to be financially prepared as a couple, there are many seminars and online resources you can refer to. Make it a project that both of you will undergo together. This way, you build a deeper bond, not to mention you get a glimpse of how each other values money.
Taking the First Step
The Start of Being Married
A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. The same is true for marriage. It all begins with one question.
"Will you marry me?"
Once you are certain that you are now ready to get married, don't prolong. For guys, pop the question. For girls, if the guy won't pop the question, try to give hints but be patient. Perhaps he is just waiting for the perfect timing.
When my fiancé realized that he truly wanted to be with me forever, he popped the question. It happened during my birthday. It was his surprise but knowing him I could already sense it. But I did not pre-empt the proposal. I patiently waited for his plans to unfold and it was a romantic thing when it happened. It was a simple proposal during my birthday dinner. Nothing too fancy but none the less it was memorable.
When you are both ready, don't be trapped into waiting for the right timing. A simple proposal after a romantic dinner, as long as it's heartfelt, can be as effective and memorable as a grand proposal worthy of a viral video. A simple engagement ring can be as precious as a diamond-studded ring.
The important thing is, the proposal is from the heart.
Conclusion
As the song goes, "love is a many splendored thing". People kill and fight for love. People go crazy and mad for love. Love is a powerful emotion that can make or break a person. Finding the person you will love for a lifetime is truly a joy and a blessing. It is, no doubt, the best thing that could happen to your life.
It is also not just a fairy tale. It is a reality. A combination of faith and rational action can land you the person of your dreams. Believe that you are meant to fall in love. Look for love and let it find you. When love comes knocking at your door, work on it. Love is something you develop. Fight for it. Love is something you defend.
And when your love has withstand the test of time, take it up to the next level. Marry the one you love.