I have been happily married since 2013 with someone who I love so dearly. I’ve never loved someone like this before. It seems that I finally met my soulmate.
I know that there are a lot of marriages which are longer than ours; many happy marriages & unhappy; & many divorces.
From our marriage, as a mixed couple: He is from Belgium, and I am from Indonesian, We have learned to compromise the differences between us.
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What does compromise mean?
Does it always mean “we meet in the middle”?
In my case, a compromise could be seen in 4 different scenarios. Read this post: How to have a happy marriage 2 for more about compromising.
Now, before I can even compromise things, I need to know what those things are. What we are talking about what needs to be compromised, which we don’t agree or don’t do.
The key to know is communicating & understanding. Both parties should try to communicate and understand first. Communicating is the willingness to tell/explain & understanding is the willingness to listen.
I want to explain what I mean by communicating & understanding through examples from my personal experiences.
I come from a big family with five children & my husband is the only child. I often missed my siblings. I missed the noise in the house. My husband couldn’t understand this feeling, because he has never had one.
We talked about it a lot. He then met my siblings & watched how we were there for each other.
He now understands better but still not 100%.
I also couldn’t understand much if he talked about privacy, about being alone in his own space, being able to sleep in the silent.
At first, I made a lot of noise if I woke up in the morning. I would shake his body & whisper, “wake up. I am hungry, and it’s breakfast time”.
He got cranky and didn’t understand why I did this. Also, I didn’t get why he was so furious about me woke him up in the morning for breakfast. I still can’t feel the same feeling & have the same needs, but I try to understand his needs to sleep longer at the weekend and to wake up slowly at his own pace.
Why did I come to this understanding? Because he talked about it & I tried to listen, not to answer, but to understand.
See, even pretty small things can be a source of a fight for us.
How about you? Do you have this little thing which is important for you and not for him/her?
With Love
