Choose marriage. Choose well. Choose to work on yourself first, choose to figure out who you are, choose to be healthy. Choose to believe that you are worthy of a good love.  Choose to come together not as two halves to form a whole, as if marriages were meant to repair you, but as two wholes to form a partnership. 

Choose to overcome your fear of getting hitched. Choose to give up your list of what you want in a man, because lists are for groceries. Choose to relinquish your insecure belief that you should hold out for someone better to come along. Choose to give her a chance. Choose to give him a chance. Choose to believe that you’ll know when you know.

Choose to learn to give up your inherent selfishness. Choose to let her into your life once filled only with other boys, Playstation games and soccer. Choose to let him into your world once known only to yourself. Choose doing things they like because it’s important to them. Choose that, because what is important to them is now important to you.   

Choose to believe that you will not end up like your parents did. Choose to believe that you will end up exactly like your parents did. Choose to see a better version of them. Choose to stop trying to change him. Choose to change naturally because that’s what a good love does to you.

Choose against massive public displays of affection because what really matters is how you treat them when no one is around to see it. Choose dinner dates and long walks in the park. Choose unawkward silences. Choose knowing glances. Choose inside jokes. Choose to laugh at the same old jokes, with rolled eyes,  even though you’ve heard them a hundred times before.

Choose to be each other’s sounding board. Choose to talk about your day even when you don’t feel like it. You won’t have a choice, but you will get used to it. Choose to be soothed by her reassurances when you are convinced that the whole world is about to explode. Choose to pull her close and tell her that it’s going to be okay.

Choose not to carry the world upon your shoulder because now that weight is shared. Choose to share the housework. Choose ironing because she hates it. Choose doing the dishes because you love her (and won’t subject her to your cooking). Choose to be great at eating what she cooks. Choose to be a dog person. Choose to love cats. Choose her waking you up when she can’t sleep so you can talk. Choose to stroke her head to soothe her to sleep. Choose to unconsciously inch your body towards her warmth when you sleep.

Choose arguments. Choose threshing it out with each other in the safety of your love. Choose anger, choose honesty, choose your words carefully. Choose forgiveness. Choose to say sorry even if it is not necessarily your fault. Choose to give up your right to be right. Choose to make up and make peace and make love.

Choose trust. Choose to be secure in your love. Choose to believe that she can hang out with other men and not threaten your love. Choose to be able to hang out with your own friends and not have her feel threatened. Choose to come back to each other at the end of the day and quietly renew your commitment to each other with ‘I love you because…’

Choose to worry less about what other people think about you because at the end of the day she still loves you. Choose her knowing you almost better than you know yourself. Choose her loving you anyway and encouraging you to do what makes you come alive. Choose to give her the space to do what makes her come alive.

Choose love. Choose to commit to that love, in sickness or in health, for richer or for poorer, for better or for worse, till death do you part. Choose marriage.

People throw around ‘happily ever after’ as if all marriages could be summarised as such, as if it were a foregone conclusion. It is not. It is something that needs to be guarded and nurtured, it is a sum total of all our choices. Choose well.