Discover the True Essence of Marriage

Marriage, or a relationship, is built on the backbone of the three pivotal aspects; Mutual Trust, Mutual Respect and understanding and Mutual Cooperation. If any one of these gets disturbed then the entire spirit and essence of marriage gets disturbed too. These qualities need to be developed and nurtured within every individual who wants his/her marriage to be an eternal journey. Let us see how each of these aspects can be cultivated in a marital relationship:

Mutual trust

If you want to be trusted, learn to trust first. It is as simple as that. In order to build trust in your marriage, you need to be each other’s friends first. A friend with whom you can share even your wildest and weirdest experiences and thoughts without any inhibition. I have seen this rarely present in couples. The greatest mistake they do here is they become judgmental instead of being genuine towards each other. If you become judgmental then obviously your partner may not feel comfortable in sharing his/her thoughts with you. And when inhibitions peep out in marriage, this becomes the first step of breach of trust. Even if we have our own ugly sides, love, affection, understanding and trust can make us beautiful and bright. It’s a matter of giving a chance to your marital relationship before breaking it into pieces.

Tip: When your partner shares something with you, try to see it in a genuine and non-judgmental manner. If you cannot do so, then try to step in your partner’s shoes and see things and situations from his/her perspective. This will foster a better understanding and act as a buffer to nurture the greatest virtue of trust in your marital relationship.

When you feel an urge to breach trust, try to visualize how you would feel if your counterpart or life partner breaks your trust? You would not want that to happen to you, right?

Mutual Respect and understanding

The best way to achieve this is to treat your beloved spouse in the way you want to be respected and understood. All of us have our own imperfection, differences and incompetencies; “A great marriage is not when the ‘perfect couple’ comes together. It is when an imperfect couple learns to enjoy their differences” (Dave Meurer). So if you look at the positive sides and qualities rather than breaking your head on the negative qualities then mutual respect and understanding will shine automatically in your marriage.

Tip: Try to be empathetic towards your partner. Everything that he/she is doing or feeling has a reason. Once you understand the reason it becomes much easier to accept, respect and understand.

Mutual Cooperation

How many of you believe that cooking, taking care of kids, cleaning dishes, washing clothes, moping, dusting, etc are a wife’s duties? While doing outside work, paying bills, fixing leaking taps, etc are the duties of the husband? Frankly speaking if you think like this, then forget about the word mutual cooperation. No work is gender-defined guys. In fact, if my husband does some household chores for me I give him an extra hug that day. :) All of us get churned in our day’s work. And we need someone to help us and support us. So bifurcating between duties and work within a couple will worsen the situations and make life boring, overwhelming and unbearable.

I came across a couple in my Clinic. The husband had a lot of complaints against his wife. He always said that “My wife is lazy, she is always at home and she is a housewife”. I asked him, “What do you do all day? As in, what is your daily routine like?” He said: “ I get up at 8-8:30 in the morning, do my routine activities, get ready for the office, have breakfast, leave for the office, come back in the evening, watch TV, have supper and go to sleep by 10 PM”. Then I asked what does your wife do? He answered: “Oh my wife is a house wife. She gets up at 5 in the morning, finishes her routine work, cleans the house, washes dishes, prepares breakfast for the family, prepares the kids for school, drops them at school and picks them up after school, in between she prepares lunch for the family, washes clothes, irons it, takes care of the kids, helps them in their studies, attends guest, then she prepares supper for all of us, completes the day’s work, makes the kids to sleep and she sleeps by midnight”….After the husband narrated all these, he himself burst into tears! There was nothing for me to do or say. He himself realized about the importance of his wife when he paid close attention to her part of the world.

Tip: Share your work and duties together. That will divide and subtract the labor and time as well as multiply your love and cooperation.

How to make your marriage an everlasting bond of love, affection and belongingness

Remembering and practicing the 3R Technique will help you add magical effect to your marriage. They are:

Marriage is one of the strongest bonds on the Earth. A successful marriage is not only a boon for the couple itself, but each and everyone related to it. However, if a marriage becomes unsuccessful for some reason or the other, it destroys everyone related to it or coming in its way. When you feel that your marriage is falling apart, it is high time to reflect back without wasting much time. Reflect on the way you waited for the D-Day, how you felt when you exchanged marriage vows with your spouse, the good times you spent, when and where things started falling apart and how both of you can join hands to enkindle your love and add magic to your marriage yet again.

“When there is love in a marriage, there is harmony in the home; when there is harmony in the home, there is contentment in the community; when there is contentment in the community, there is prosperity in the nation; when there is prosperity in the nation, there is peace in the world.” – Chinese Proverb

Best Wishes,

Sareeta