Maryam Lemu – THERE IS NO CUSTOM MADE SPOUSE

			People are not science experiments
		

			that you can remove a bit of this
		

			and add a bit of that and create
		

			this bespoke spouse.
		

			How easy is it for you to change?
		

			How easy was it for you to break
		

			your bad habits, let alone someone else's?
		

			And what if they don't change after you
		

			get married?
		

			I can promise you that the things you
		

			want to change after the marriage will most
		

			likely get worse. You see, we put our
		

			best foot forward during courtship.
		

			Yes, we are on our best behaviour.
		

			After the marriage, the masks come off. Our
		

			habits go under the microscope.
		

			The things that didn't bother us before
		

			become
		

			magnified
		

			and all of a sudden they can even
		

			irritate you. I remember when I got married
		

			to my husband and during the courtship we
		

			were so in love. He could do no
		

			wrong. He was faultless.
		

			Then we got married. And after a while,
		

			I'd say maybe just a few months,
		

			I would watch my husband brush his teeth
		

			and I cannot tell you how it irritated
		

			me. And I'd say, why are you brushing
		

			your teeth like that? And he's like,
		

			how am I brushing my teeth?
		

			I don't know what it was. But it's
		

			like certain tiny things,
		

			insignificant things became a big deal. The same
		

			applied to me. I remember when I was
		

			eating food I was like, oh, this food
		

			tastes so good.
		

			And I'd savour the food because it tasted
		

			good. And he would say stop that, it's
		

			so irritating.