A few days ago, there was very devastating news from Indonesia. Known as one of the most harmonious celebrity families, this couple was successfully made all of their Indonesian fans felt brokenhearted. What happened in their family? From what I got from social media, they will divorce soon. Why? Well, rumors always lead us to an unexplained conclusion, right? The good thing is, once someone brought up a speculation, there would be other people remind him to stop creating a rumor. Even more, they ask them to pray for the best decision for the family. One thing I can assure is they all are facing the same cloudy times. None of married couple wishes their ‘ship’ anchored in a court.

        Sadly, many people aren’t completely understood about how SERIOUS of MARRIAGE COMMITMENT is. Not to mention that although I still in a ‘honeymoon stage’ of a marriage or too-inexperience-to-talk-about-marriage-life, at least I’ve got the right and complete information about this. I’ve observed many couples who had been facing their hardest moment in marriage life and they have successfully overcome it, while some weren’t. Of course, there are a lot of reasons to follow. We never know people’s matter, especially they who seem constantly happy in their social media, right? 😊

        In Christian, the church where we are equipped will ‘require’ us to join PREMARITAL COUNSELING. What is that? Premarital counseling is a type of counseling usually provided by marriage and family therapist/counselor and given before a couple officially gets married. The purpose of this counseling is to prepare the couple for a long-term commitment such as marriage, to identify and address any potential areas of conflict in a relationship early on, before those issues become serious concerns, and teach partners effective strategies for discussing and resolving conflict (for more details premarital counseling). Is it clear enough? 😃. Based on this brief definition, do you think it is easy to start a marriage life along with all of the consequences? Hehe, I guess not all people open their eyes, mind and heart once they are still madly in love 😌. So, do you still madly in love Esta? DEFINITELY! Since we start everything by consideration, long discussion and final decision to get married, we know the strategic lessons even though sometimes it seems challenging to deal with our partner’s bad habits/attitudes. That’s how we maintain the effective communication that we got from premarital counseling 😉. Then what about this couple? Do you think they aren’t passing through this counseling? Hahaha, how do we know guys!

    What I remember the most through this counseling is about how we reveal our personalities in front of the counselor. Have you ever heard about THE FIVE LOVE LANGUAGES? There are five different types of actions and expressions between us and our partners. How do I know mine and my partner’s? You can check here The Five Love Language. Once we check ours, it reveals that I am a Quality Time and Receiving Gift person (I like to give a gift too, btw), while for Jeff, it reveals that he is Acts of Service and Physical Touch person. Haha! That is why we both really enjoy our quality time and he shows how caring he is to me indeed (especially in terms of making sure my food nutrients) 😛. Yes! He really likes to cook, while I like to eat (just kidding!). Since he is a cooking-person, I am a cleaning-person at home, which is totally different character from Jeff. But once we had our premarital counseling, it reveals how to deal with everyone’s preference in doing house chore and build teamwork in raising kid later on.

      Dommaraju and Jones (2011) implied conducted their research by using CDR (Crude Divorce Rate) in each Asian country. It showed the general demographic of divorced couples. Surprisingly, the number of divorces in Indonesia from 2011 to 2017 (in thousands) is considerably high from year to year. In 2017, approximately there are 374,520 divorce cases in Indonesia. Isn’t it miserable? 😥. Back to the reason why people decide to divorce, sometimes the reasons are irrational. For instance, different political preference will lead them to a divorce. Ironically, most of the early adults who are facing the quarter-life-crisis even think getting married is the BEST SOLUTION to BE HAPPY. Oh well, honestly I had the same thought before, but I decided to share and ask for guidance to the RIGHT PERSONS, such as parents, Christian community friends even friends who got married first. The more I listened to their stories, the more I am being fully conscious in making a decision. If you ask me again, are you happy? Of course, I am! Are you happy recently? Yes, especially when I can write about this topic ✌.

        “But he is being intolerable, I can’t make him listen to me as he always argues,”.

       Now the question is, have you ever try to listen to him? Have you ever being tolerant of him too? Remember to always TREAT YOUR PARTNER AS HOW YOU WISH THEM TO TREAT YOU 😇. Sow and reap, as everything comes from you will be back to you, so does in a relationship. It seems hard, isn’t it? But we cannot expect something without starting. If you expect them to respect you, respect them first, vice versa. People say, if everything comes easy, it will go away easily too 💥. So work on your expectation consistently, you will see the positive result soon 🙌.

    Marriage always started by LOVE not LUST. LOVE leads us into a MATURITY. MATURITY brings ACCEPTANCE and TOLERANCE. How far you can tolerant your partner? How far you’ve accepted your partner? You could see from how you both grow together in daily life. A solemn commitment revealed by acceptance and tolerance in communication pattern, while a failing oath revealed by immaturity and consistent mistrust.