“And they lived happily ever after”. That is how fairy tales usually end, but that is how real marriages begin. Fairy tales end after the couples had overcome all the opposition to their union. Marriages must live through all the hard times that will ever come. When people talk about having a happy marriage what do they mean?
- A happy marriage is not one without problems. It is one in which the couple learn to solve their problem, or to live with it for as long as they live. Life itself is a problem solving adventure. The solution to some problems is to decide to live with them. Problems will continue to exist. What matters is how they are handled.
- There is pain in a happy marriage. True love is one that survives after hurts and wrongs. The real test of love is hurts that it forgives. Without wrongs love is not real. Love that surmounts no wrongs is not yet love. Just as we need darkness to appreciate light, hurts make us know whether we are truly in love or not.
- A happy marriage is a creation and not an accident. It requires commitment from the wife and the husband. Nothing good comes by itself. People make them happen. So it is for marriages too. It requires a lot of investment, in time and money. Just like any other investment, this one also takes time to yield the expected results. Therefore the earlier it is done the better.
A happy marriage is not a movie. It is real life.
