A Car and Marriage

This wisdom story is from my husband who's suddenly inspired when we were on the car.
He was in the driver seat, while I was in the front passenger's seat. I couldn't remember what topic we have been talking about before but suddenly he told me this story.

A Marriage life is like A Car

When we first bought a brand new car, we were very excited. We were so captivated with the sparkling exterior and interior, the performance of the new car. We thought this new car will last forever.
We use it day by day without bother to sending it for maintenance and service, because we always have this thought brand new car will never fail us.

As time goes by, we slowly starting to feel that this car's performance is no longer the same, the power to speed up becomes decreasing and the brake's response is no longer quick enough.
We start wondering whether we should sell this car and exchange with the new one.

In the end, whatever our decision, whether we sell the car and buy brand new one or exchange it with second hand car, the cycle is repeating again as long as we never change our behaviour towards the car.

Similar like marriage, when we had our wedding, we were overwhelmed with the beauty of marriage life. We thought it's gonna be happily ever after marriage. We thought we had very strong love towards each other and nothing gonna change and separate us. 

Day by day, year by year, as time goes by, we feel that our marriage is no longer the same like the first we experienced it. We think that our spouse has changed, the love is no longer there and we start wondering whether we should walk out and end the marriage and start new relationship

Even though marriage in Catholic's eyes is indissoluble, but God always gives us the second chance. However, as long as that our heart and behaviour never change, how many times we are in the relationship, it will end up the same.

To have long last car performance, we should do regular maintenance and service.
Every month or less, we are advised to wash car exterior and vacuuming car's interior to make our car sparkling again and every certain miles for eg 10,000 ; 20,000 and 40,000 miles the manufacturer ask the owner to have major service to check the engine, machine, spare parts and some may need to be changed.

Likewise, marriage also needs regular maintenances and internal services.
We are encouraged to nurture our marriage life by having a couple time, regular communication with each other so that our love is sparkling again.
And in certain marriage milestone for eg 5 years, 10 years, 20 years of marriage life, we need to have a spiritual retreat as a couple to come back to the creator of marriage.
There, our love will be renewed, our hearts will be changed and we will be empowered again to make the marriage ever lasting. Some maintenances we could do ourselves but for internal services we need to come back to the creator because He knows what has gone wrong and what needs to be changed.

If we follow and obey the rules from the manufacturer of the car, our car will always be like a branded new car no matter how long we have been riding on it.

Similarly like marriage, if we obey God and do regular maintenance and always come back to the creator of the marriage, our marriage will be ever lasting.