Effective ways to make your marriage work!

“It’s the little things that keep us together. Those little things will make me love you forever.” -Sonia Schaad

Marriage is an intricate relationship and it needs sustained contribution of love and care from both to make it a success. Even a slight lag of adjustment can make it difficult for you to find happiness in your married life.

There are times when you unknowingly make mistakes which ruin the happiness you enjoy with your spouse. Do you know that mistakes in married life can never be one sided? You and your spouse have your own share of slip-ups which make your relationship stressful and tiresome.

You marry out of love, don’t you? Then how is it after a few years of marriage, your expectations about your spouse are shattered? You are upset that you have married a wrong person and work yourself up that your marriage is a confirmed failure. Instead of trying to understand your spouse, you withdraw away from him\her to spend aloof hours at home.

Why do you want to aggravate the tense situation in your married life by the making the small faults of your spouse appear as major destroyers of your marriage? It is a fact that modern marriages have lots of complaints and less of love. You feel your spouse does not love or respect you and your spouse has the same complaints about you! This can make you to gradually lose interest in each other.

Do you want to overcome such misjudgments to make your marriage regain its lost love?

If you do want to make your marriage work, the magic formula for successful married life is very simple!

Did you have an argument with your spouse? Do you feel it impossible to forget the harsh words spoken? When you do not forget the bitterness caused by your spouse and harbor resentment in your mind it is impossible to be happy in your relationship. Work related tension creates havoc in your temperament and you utter words without knowing the hurt it evokes in your spouse.

But if you pause for a moment and hold back the harsh words waiting to burst out, you save a lot of unnecessary acrimony and hatred in your relationship. You should not keep thinking about the harsh words spoken by your spouse and read a new meaning into it. Harsh words are mostly superficial show of anger and have no real depth.

But if you bring it again and again into your day to day interaction with your spouse, it cuts deep into your relationship to destroy the roots of your marriage. Your fight with your spouse should end then and there and the bitter words spoken should be taken as shallow display of meaningless anger.

I had a servant maid whose husband was an alcoholic. He fleeced her out of the meager money she earned and her life was a classic example of the Indian lower middle class women.

‘I want to go away from him. It is for the children I am staying with him’ she used to tell me.

One day there was a fierce fight between them and he literally snatched the money she borrowed from me to pay her son’s school fees.

She cried inconsolably and said ‘I am leaving amma. I cannot live with him any longer’. I could only pity her.

But what surprised me was when she came two days later, all smiles and bedecked in a beautiful sari.

‘He apologized and I forgave him. He is my husband. What is the use of harboring bitterness against him as if he was an enemy’? I could only gape at her in wonderment! She was an uneducated girl, but she knew the true spirit of a good marriage- forgiving!

There is yet another important ingredient for a happy marriage!

You should apologize when you do something which hurts your spouse!

Do you make your spouse unhappy by doing things which he\she dislikes? Do you utter words that inflict deep hurt in the mind of your spouse? Do you go about your work callously without apologizing to your spouse?

This makes you to drift away from each other and makes your marriage very apathetic and boring. But what happens if you apologize sincerely? It makes your spouse forget the hatred he\she felt when you did things he\she disliked. Your apology makes him\her love you even more and this is what your marriage needs for its survival.

It is so easy to let go your marriage, but very difficult to reconstruct it. Your married life can give you immense happiness and fulfillment if you strive hard to make it work with your share of love and patience. Your spouse should be cherished to make him\her feel that he\she is the most important person in the world for you.