Leave and Cleave – Make Your Marriage a Priority

During one of our night talks, me and my husband had a conversation about being lucky that we are not living with our parents. We are lucky that we can decide freely on how we live our lives as husband and wife, and how we raise our kid/s. It’s not that we do not like our parents but we both believe that living on our own can help to strengthen our married life – leave and cleave as they call it.

Leaving and cleaving must be the first step in marriage. As stated in Genesis 2:24, “Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.”

Very self-explanatory. First you must leave. Then you must cleave.

Loving between just the couple and without involving anyone else is very ideal in a married life. “Cleave”, as defined by Merriam Webster means, “to adhere firmly and closely or loyally and unwaveringly.” As a couple, you should be deciding and doing things together. When you cleave to your spouse, neither of you must stop, sulk, nor quit when things are not going right. You must cling to each other and trust that you’ll get through any ordeal together.

A lot of things happen right after our matrimonial ceremony. Suddenly, I became more than just myself, and less of myself at the same time. I was transformed overnight from being a carefree, easy-go-lucky gal to an acquiescent and chary wife. Suddenly I no longer want to decide alone. I became one with another entirely different human being – my husband. We became more than just husband and wife but also partners in life, in business, in everything. We are essentially glued to each other and be ought to stay together for better and for worse, as we promised to each other.

It wasn’t easy. The process of leaving our parents, the people who nurtured us since we were born, was painstaking.  And although it is not taking place in many marriages, we chose to live on our own. It was difficult at first especially in my husband’s end. He’s a unico hijo who have depended on his parents for 30 years when making life-changing decisions. I did not force him to leave, recognizing the fact that we have just been married recently and that he needs time. I saw that he made a lot of efforts on severing his dependence on his parents and that made me appreciate him more.

We acknowledged that some of the choices we must take will be very difficult, but the health of our marriage must take precedence. We must give topmost priority to our union and accept that we created a new family, and this new family must come first up and above our previous family.

Leaving our parents does not mean we permanently stopped communicating with them. We left with honor, love, respect, appreciation, and affirmation for their sacrifices and efforts in raising us. From time to time, we seek their wisdom on certain issues, but we still make the final decisions. We are both lucky that our parents were able to understand our need for privacy, and leaving them did not separate us from them completely but rather served as a healthy realignment of our parent-child relationship. 

We still make connections. We still develop other relationships. However, if these connections and relationships have the chance of creating distance between me and my JimBry, we cut the ties. One thing we make sure we do for each other as husband and wife is “being there” when any of us requires. No ifs, no buts.  We are fully committed to each other. I can find a best friend in him and him to me.

Our unsolicited plate of advice: Always try to consult your spouse before seeking input from parents/others. This does not happen overnight so give yourselves some time to become good at this. Also, it is important to note that whatever happens inside the marriage must be kept within. As long as neither party is being abused, do not discuss flaws of your spouse to your parents or to anyone else.

Thank you for dropping by! Be part of Love. Eat. Wander. Facebook community  and share your marriage and parenting journey with like-minded individuals!

Missy of 

You might also wanna check this article – Tagaytay Wedding Guide

********

Should you want to add/dispute something in this article, please leave a comment below. We would love to hear from you!