Sometimes we dream, don’t we? Of the beauty we’d love to have, the children we’d want to raise: confident, obedient, responsible children; the family we’d want to have. Those dreams keep us going. For without dreams, what would life be? What would we look forward to?

I shared such a dream with my boss a short while back. I wasn’t expecting the answer she gave, I wasn’t even expecting that she’d mind me. But she said a lot. No. She explained one concept again and again. It stuck.

I had read a beautiful blog post on marriage. My boss had seen it too. She liked it. Then I quipped, “I wish I could relate.” 🙈🥺
“What did you say?” she asked.
“I wish I could relate with the story.” I’m not yet married, such wonderful experiences are beyond me for now.

She understood my plight. My romantic heart was dreaming. And she set her heart to explaining that my dream could come true. I only needed common sense . . . to have a good marriage.

And the common sense she shared with me turned out to be those right-in-your-face, we-all-should-know-this kind! I believe we know it. But how we manage to forget it in the most important relationship, I don’t know! 😨

‘”I can never read your mind,” is what my husband said to me when we started dating, she explained, “so there’s no need carrying your face up (acting all hurt and wounded). You gotta tell me what it’s in your mind. I can’t read it.”‘

Pretty common, eh?
Not quite. 😭

Listening to her, I thought, “Of course, the man I’ll marry cannot read my mind. I cannot read his. We have to communicate! How could anyone not know that?” But I’m glad I kept listening for soon the part I hadn’t seen emerged: we had to communicate because we were two utterly different people.

She proceeded to ask how many siblings I had.
Four.
Do we always agree?
No! 😖

If siblings from one womb hardly agree, personalities and preferences being all different, how could I ever expect my fiance, from an entirely different culture and orientation than mine, to always agree with me? 😨

. . .now I get it! That’s why I just gotta talk. Not only can he not read my mind, even after I share my thoughts with him, we may not agree. Now imagine if I didn’t say anything!

What’s nonnegotiable to me may be optional for him. It’s not about who’s right but about the perspective we’re seeing it with. We just gotta make sure the differences aren’t such that they couldn’t cohabit under one roof.

The solution?
What are the things you can never shift grounds on? Your values. If that person agrees with those, then you can agree to disagree and disagree to agree on everything else.

So here’s the summary of what I learnt from my boss who has her home to boast of:
• know your values. Only get into marriage with a person that values your values.
• none of you reads minds. Communicate. And when the potential cause of disagreement can be overlooked, just agree to disagree.

I’m grateful to have heard this. Because it just shows me dreams come true, with a whole lot of common sense from the people who have gone ahead of me.

What are your dreams?
I think if you find a person who has gone ahead of you, they can teach you how to make it come true.

Signed: a young woman.