"Willbourn"

By: Nina Elicano

Being married is not just about the celebration. It’s about commitment. When you get married, the two of you become one. You will share everything, including your sufferings. He will become your responsibility, and you will become his responsibility. When he or she gets sick, it is your job to take care of him or her. When he or she has a problem, it also becomes your problem. When he/she suffers, you suffer with him/her. It doesn’t sound so hard. But why do many couples nowadays have a problem with committing to each other? There could only be one possible reason: They don’t love each other. Love is the key to a successful marriage. But unfortunately, the true meaning of love has been forgotten nowadays. Do not be fooled; attraction is not love. Love is despite knowing all the traits of your partner (including the bad ones), you still choose to see your partner in the best way. Which is why most marriages start to crack when one leaves all their clothes on the floor, or when one refuses to wash the dishes after eating.

Love is also being willing to share your sufferings, and being willing to help one another go through it. Most want to get out of the marriage because when he or she counts on them to help him/her, they’re not willing to. It doesn’t matter whether you have money, or have good looks. How can you trust someone you don’t love?  In getting married, I want him to be my closest friend, and not just a love interest. I want us to understand each other. I don’t care whether he’s rich, handsome, or gets my chemistry jokes. As long as we truly love each other, and are willing to cross oceans and climb mountains together, I would gladly share my life with him. Which is why I pick Willbourn Cabulisan as my partner. We went to the same school elementary and high school. We were both weirdos in school. People kept making fun of us; him for his shrill voice and his need to sing every few seconds, and me for my very unusual looks and character. 

When we met, we agreed to help each other out. I helped him with his homework, and he taught me to be tougher. We developed a very strong bond over the years. We didn’t have anything in common (except our love for Broadway plays and Hayao Miyazaki films) but we were able to relate and understand each other. I wouldn’t have survived school without him. He’s been there for me during the hard times, (like when Benedict Cumberbatch got married, though he constantly teased me about it). He became my closest friend. We went to different collages, but we still communicated with each other. It was hard since both of us barely had time to communicate because of studying. But because our friendship was strong enough, we remained close friends. But we developed an attraction to each other. We were very awkward when we were in the flirting stage. Because we are both awkward potatoes, we didn’t know how to react, or flirt properly. We didn’t confess our attraction for each other until we were watching Downton Abbey with our mugs of Hot Chocolate. We agreed to be in a relationship together. After 10 years, we wanted to share our lives together. So we got married. 

Preparing for the celebration wasn’t hard. We agreed on most things. At first we had a hard time because we were considering what everyone wanted. But it was our wedding. So we made our decisions. It was preparing for our married life that was difficult. We were both very worried. But the priest gave us very good advice. He told us not to worry when we fight, because fighting is normal. But we have to understand that when we fight, there is always two sides to the argument. So we must express how we feel afterwards. Then, we see what we need to correct. The celebration was magical. When we got married, we experienced many difficulties. Getting sick of each other was never a problem. I did have a problem of him not keeping his clothes in the right place, though. He thought I was just nagging him. Then we fixed that problem. 

After, we experienced the real challenges. We had fights about the house, money, etc. But because we understood that in fights, it is always a misunderstanding, after we fought, we’d explain our side of the argument. It was easy for us to understand and listen to each other. Then afterwards, we try to see what is wrong and we improve ourselves. For a while, we were both hesitant to improve ourselves because we are both stubborn, and we thought that only one person was at fault. But when you have a fight, both are at fault. Both of you started it. Both of you are doing something wrong. So we tried. Later on, it wasn’t so hard for us to improve. We were always worried that fighting was a sign that later on, our relationship would crumble. But we remembered what the priest said; it’s normal for couples to have friction. What is important is that you know why something’s wrong, and you correct yourself. And we did. After those first couple months, we fought occasionally, until we had our first child. I got very tired and cranky, so I took it out on him. He was very worried about being a father, he didn’t talk to me for a while, and was very grumpy. We were arguing about all sorts of things. Names, room color, what books to buy, how to teach our children, what to teach our children, chores, etc. He told me to stop working because I needed to take care of our children. We both thought we were being very insensitive. After a while, we realized there was more than our side of the argument. So we talked about it. As usual, we corrected ourselves. Because of our experience, it wasn’t as hard when we had our second child. At first, we didn’t know how to teach them. We knew how to teach them academic subjects, but we didn’t know how to teach how important their life is, and how to make the most out of it. When we were in Church, we heard something that hit us. “Teach your children to die, so they will learn how to live.” So we did. And now, they are successful, and doing things they are passionate about. After they moved out of the house and got married, we were very worried about them. We were also very lonely. We’d go to their houses all the time and give them advice, which resulted into big arguments. Then we talked about it. Our children realized what we were saying was right. And I realized we shouldn’t be criticizing everything they do. They visited us all the time. But when we were alone, we decided we’d just watch Downton Abbey, Sherlock and Doctor Who while drinking tea. Just like the old times. In the end, we were very happy. We didn’t doubt a single fight we made, because without those fights, we wouldn’t be together until now. Nowadays, all we fight about is who our favorite Doctor is. 

It definitely wasn’t easy for us. We faced a lot of challenges, and we had many fights. But because we trusted each other, and never doubted our love, we were still together. We were willing to correct ourselves when there was a need for us to. In the end, we were happy, and so were our children. Discussing our ideal marriage helped me prepare for the future. It helped me analyze if what I want is right or not.