I’m in the middle of a book about marriage—borrowed from a friend, like many of life’s biggest questions. Marriage has always stirred something in me. Not just curiosity, but a kind of restless wonder. Among all the existential questions that occasionally camp out in my mind, a few wear wedding rings.

I still remember a moment from my teenage years—one of those imprints that time doesn’t blur. My mother, with her unshakable realism, said to me: “Every marriage looks perfect from the outside. But once you’re inside, there’s no guarantee that your home will ever feel truly peaceful again. Arguments creep in when you least expect them—usually over children or money.”

At the time, I didn’t fully understand what she meant. Now, it echoes louder with each page I turn. Marriage isn’t just about love. It’s about negotiations, mismatched expectations, and figuring out how two people can keep choosing each other through chaos and calm.

And I keep reading… trying to make sense of the mystery.

Of course, there’s always the option of arguing over who’s doing the dishes tonight or who’s finally taking out the trash. Because let’s be honest—there’s no such thing as a perfect couple living in a state of uninterrupted bliss, floating on a pink cloud of eternal harmony. Real relationships? They come with quirks, compromises, and the occasional cold war over the remote control. As long as two humans are involved, you’re guaranteed two unique temperaments, two pasts, two perspectives—so yes, some friction is inevitable. And maybe that’s not a flaw in the system. Maybe that’s the beauty of it.

I recently read Committed: A Love Story by Elizabeth Gilbert, the follow-up to Eat, Pray, Love. This time, she writes about her relationship with Felipe, the man she met at the end of her soul-searching journey. Both had been through painful divorces and had sworn off marriage forever. But then—plot twist—the U.S. government gave them an ultimatum: marry, or Felipe can’t re-enter the country.

So, what do two deeply reluctant lovers do? They take off on a journey through Southeast Asia to unravel the meaning of marriage—historically, spiritually, and culturally. Along the way, they land in a remote Hmong village in Vietnam and meet a family who offers them unexpected insight. The matriarch, an 80-something-year-old woman with a weathered face and bright eyes, radiates a kind of contentment that doesn’t come from fairy tales—it comes from life lived in full color. She wasn’t glowing because her life had been perfect. She was glowing because she had lived, argued, loved, raised children, probably burned a few dinners, and slammed a few doors—and somehow still found peace in the end.

And maybe, just maybe, that’s the real version of happily ever after.

“— Is your husband a good husband? I asked. The old woman had to ask her niece to repeat the question a few times, just to make sure she had heard it correctly: Is he a good husband? Then she looked at me with an amused look, as if I were asking, ‘Are these stones that make up the mountain you live on good stones?’The best answer she could find was this: her husband was neither a good husband nor a bad husband. He was just a husband. It was the same as all husbands. As she spoke of him, the word ‘husband’ seemed to refer to an occupation, perhaps even a species, to a much greater extent than to represent a particular individual, whether he was cherished or annoying. The role of husband was quite simple, involving a series of duties that her husband had obviously performed satisfactorily throughout their life together. Just like the other women’s husbands did, she added, if you weren’t unlucky enough to run into a belt. The old grandmother went so far as to tell me that, in the end, it is not so important what man a woman marries. With rare exceptions, any man is about the same as any other“

In a world as simple as the one this elderly Hmong woman inhabits, marriage carries far fewer expectations than we place on it in our modern, fast-paced lives. Perhaps that’s why these Hmong women seem to live their happily-ever-afters. As an old saying goes, “Whoever sows expectation, reaps disappointment.” In contrast, in our industrialized, modern world, marriage has become synonymous with personal fulfillment. We expect our partner to complete us, to be the source of our happiness, and to provide us with the romantic love we dream of.

Yet, we often forget that not everyone can offer romance on demand. We ask for it, we expect it, and when it isn’t given, we feel let down. Our society teaches us to always ask—expect—demand. But perhaps the key to true happiness lies not in the expectations we place on others, but in finding fulfillment in our own passions and pursuits. True contentment comes when we accept the person beside us for who they are, rather than trying to shape them into who we wish they were.

The more expectations we have, the greater the potential for disappointment—this applies not just to marriage, but to many aspects of life. We often find ourselves seeking more and more, with satisfaction that is fleeting. Before marriage, we dream of a beautiful engagement ring to show off and discuss with friends. Afterward, we may long for the simpler days when we didn’t have to explain ourselves to anyone. Despite this, true contentment still eludes us.

Life seems to be designed in such a way that we are not meant to live in isolation, though it’s important to recognize that living together is not always easy. On the contrary, it can be complex, often requiring compromises and joint effort to ensure a marriage remains on course. But, as they say, the challenges may not be as insurmountable as they appear. 🙂

Committed. A love story quotes I liked:

“People always fall in love with the most perfect aspects of each other’s personalities. Who wouldn’t? Anybody can love the most wonderful parts of another person. But that’s not the clever trick. The really clever trick is this: Can you accept the flaws? Can you look at your partner’s faults honestly and say, ‘I can work around that. I can make something out of it.’? Because the good stuff is always going to be there, and it’s always going to pretty and sparkly, but the crap underneath can ruin you.”

“Desiring another person is perhaps the most risky endeavor of all. As soon as you want somebody—really want him—it is as though you have taken a surgical needle and sutured your happiness to the skin of that person so that any separation will now cause a lacerating injury.”

“Real, sane, mature love—the kind that pays the mortgage year after year and picks up the kids after school—is not based on infatuation but on affection and respect.”

“My love affair with (him) had a wonderful element of romance to it, which I will always cherish. But it was not an infatuation, and here’s how I can tell: because I did not demand that he become my Great Emancipator or my Source of All Life, nor did I immediately vanish into that man’s chest cavity like a twisted, unrecognizable, parasitical homunculus. During our long period of courtship, I remained intact within my own personality, and I allowed myself to meet (him) for who he was.”

“I’d learned enough from life’s experiences to understand that destiny’s interventions can sometimes be read as an invitation for us to address and even surmount our biggest fears. It doesn’t take a great genius to recognize that when you are pushed by circumstance to do the one thing you have always most specifically loathed and feared, this can be, at the very least, an interesting growth opportunity.”

“Every healthy marriage is composed of walls and windows. The windows are the aspects of your relationship that are open to the world—that is, the necessary gaps through which you interact with family and friends; the walls are the barriers of trust behind which you guard the most intimate secrets of your marriage.”