Marital Bliss: Ten Secrets of Love and Marriage

Marriages are disintegrating faster than they used to. People are breaking up as soon as the vows are uttered. There seems to be no hope left for this social institution that has been with us for as long as we can remember. The youth have lost hope, they do not know where to turn but experience shows that all is not lost, it’s not all gloom and no bloom out there. There are happy marriages and estranged couples too can make theirs a happy marriage. The following secrets can make your marriage or relationship better and long lasting but they all require time to build. The shorter the dating period, the shorter the union: -

1. Trust – Trust more than anything else holds a marriage together. Mutual suspicions more often generated by hidden insecurities usually generate irreparable rifts that can never be mended easily. While it is important to trust, naïve blindness associated with infatuation should not pass for trust. Keep your eyes open for any signs of mischief while trusting your partner to trust themselves.
2. Friendship – Marriage does not depend on love like many people believe, a happy marriage is based on lots of friendship, and this can be cultivated with time. A marriage can survive without love but it can’t survive without friendship and that is why arranged marriages last long despite a seeming lack of love in the beginning.
3. Patience – Marriage requires lots of patience than most of us are willing to admit. We tend to think it is always about love, love and more love forgetting that even objects of love can wrong as at times, objects of love, however deep this love is, can have faults of their own. Patience can see you through the most difficult of times.
4. Respect – You did not marry a child and if you did, it was your fault. You married an adult that needs respect. Disrespecting a partner in the presence or absence of a third party is a recipe for chaos and often leads to graver consequences.
5. Communication – This can break or mend a marriage. Why? Many couples think communication is talking about everything and hiding nothing. Wrong! There are things to talk about and secrets to hold on. Communicate as much as possible but know what to say and how to say it.
6. Distance – Couples need both physical and emotional distance at times so as to generate closeness. Like they say, absence maketh the heart grow fonder and that when you lose something, that is when its true value reveals itself. Always being together isn’t a sign of bliss, it is a sign of projected bliss.
7. Knowledge – Couples need to take their time so as to know their partner’s likes and dislikes. While absolute knowledge is not possible, compatibility is directly proportional to how much you know your partner. This knowledge will avoid the trivial differences that separate rather than unite couples.
8. Acceptance – We all make mistakes. The last thing we need is to expect a perfect partner. While prince charming may arrive on the scene, expect some cobwebs here and there. While perfection is in itself impossible, do not settle for less than fifty percent hoping to turn it around.
9. Forgiveness – You may do a million good things for your partner but one small thing may break an otherwise good union. The key to resolving this is doing good to counteract the bad things and forgiving any mistakes that may arise. Take note of the word ‘mistake’. Mistakes do not refer to deliberate acts of omission or commission.
10. Connection – There must be something holding you together, there must be shared values that can propel a marriage or relationship when things aren’t working for the two of you and it arises out of what each and not both of you want.