Growing up watching my own parents fight each other on a daily basis, I swore to never get married. Ever since I could understand the concept of marriage, I’ve put myself in this mindset. Perhaps because of some unpleasant childhood memories, loud bickering, confrontations, and even silence, make me a bit uneasy.
Traditional Chinese girls have a “dating philosophy” which says that dating should eventually lead to marriage. In other words, if marriage with the date were unlikely, then they would not waste a minute of their time dating. In that sense, I’m not at all a traditional Chinese girl, since marriage was out of question for me. I thoughts dates were okay because if something didn’t work out, I could just no longer date that person. But if I married, and something goes wrong, all is doomed. I didn’t want to ruin my life that way.
Last month, I got married.
For someone who doesn’t believe in marriage, I married quite early, at 22. The average marriage age in the U.S. for women is 27. I cannot spot one person among my family and friends who isn’t shocked. To be frank, I’m rather surprised too.
I met him during my senior year at Harvard, on his birthday (I didn’t know it then, of course). For someone who doesn’t believe in marriage, naturally, I didn’t believe in love at first sight. I mean, it never happened to me. After all, to disbelieve what they have not experienced for themselves is but one of the many attributes of men. That day, I found out that it never happened to me because it probably happens only once during one’s lifetime. I was elated that it happened so early, but also at the same time, I was annoyed that I didn’t meet him earlier. The idiom 相见恨晚 perfectly described my feelings.
Through our time spent together in the past year, I changed a lot, because of him. Those who know me used to tell me that I need to work on my anger management skills. Nowadays, though I still have a short fuse sometimes, I don’t blow up quite as often. Aside from that, I’ve become more responsible to others and to myself, I like myself more, and I make fewer stupid mistakes. I started developing new hobbies and started liking things that I disliked in the past, such as cooking.
I remember reading something like this in some Chinese romance novel, “If you really love me, you’d never try to change me because you’d love me for who I am. But if I truly love you; I’d want to change myself, because I’d wish to become a better person for you.” Though the novel was boring and I don’t even remember its title, from time to time these couple lines creep into my mind. It’s probably because I really agree with it. I changed a lot for the person I love, and that includes my attitude toward marriage.
So yes, I no longer think that all marriages are destined to fail, and I no longer think that love will die in marriage, as long as it’s with the right person. And if something goes wrong in my marriage, I’ll fix it. With that mindset, I stood in a white gown holding a bouquet in my hands before the judge of the NY State Supreme Court, and accepted from my beloved the ring that I will be wearing for the rest of my life.