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Falling in love is an emotional upheaval of any age, but for young people, the feelings are likely to be even more difficult to manage. Hormonal changes, triggered by brain and body developments, are strongly implicated in the passionate feelings of attraction, and falling in love.
In my case, I fell for the first person who presented the fantasy of love to me.
He was 24 and I was 22 when we had been engaged for 2 years. I left my Mrs. degree short to join him for his Ph.D., holding his hand in marriage to face the challenges of life together.
Challenges of love
The first year of our marriage started with a bumpy student life my husband’s Ph.D. professor left him and now he had to do everything on his own, continue his research and look for a new professor.
In the meantime I got pregnant and the pregnancy came with nightmares of its own. The pregnancy started with me having chickenpox. I had to go to several tests to find out if the infection had effects on the baby. Then I suffered from pre-eclampsia after hospitalization for over a month.
I gave birth to a premature baby girl just at 27 weeks. Our tiny baby weighed 1kg. She was in the Neonatal unit for months. Bringing the tiny baby home was another challenge.
Meanwhile, the social media Facebook and Instagram were flashing with friends and colleagues getting married to well-settled husbands.
Showing off their achievements and apparently fulfilled love lives with a new couple picture every day and elaborated Valentine’s days and occasional surprises.
Where I found love
I was also looking for those love-filled fantasies but I found love in a very different place.
I found love in our struggle together. When we took turns to look after our tiny baby. When we went together on all her appointments and found she was doing well.
When I traveled back home alone to live with my husband’s parents so that he could concentrate on his studies. I found love in the emails he wrote to me while we were apart. Then when he finished his Ph.D. and we got back together again.
The struggles did not end neither did our love
In the early years of our marriage, we lost two tiny babies before they were born. Later I was diagnosed with Lupus, and with years that followed, I had several lupus flares, a stroke, a hip replacement, and an ASD closure.
I prefer not to go in detail of these because they do not define my life, me, or my relationship.
What defines us is that we were never alone in our ordeal.
No matter what hardships came in our life we were there for each other and that is exactly what love is all about.
Now as we celebrate our 15th wedding anniversary this year with our 2 beautiful kids I look at our life spent together like a dream worth living.
“Those who overcome great challenges will be changed, and often in unexpected ways. For our struggles enter our lives as unwelcome guests, but they bring valuable gifts. And once the pain subsides, the gifts remain. These gifts are life’s true treasures, bought at a great price, but cannot be acquired in any other way.”
― Steve Goodier
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Photo courtesy iStock.
Previously published on Medium.
