10 Tips for a Happy Marriage

Marriage is one of the most rewarding yet challenging areas of our lives. Here are a few tips for a truly satisfying marriage.

• Have realistic expectations about marriages:
  Do you expect your marriage to be like the ‘happily ever after’ in fairy tales or an endless succession of warm and colourful family functions like Hindi movies?Do you expect your future husband or wife to be perfect – consciously or subconsciously- like the characters in cinemas or novels?Or, if you are ‘in love’ with the person you are going to marry do you expect the euphoria of romantic love to last forever?

• One of the major reasons of unhappy marriages is having unrealistic expectations.
  These unrealistic expectations lead to disappointment and heart-break because real life can never live up to them. For example, it has been scientifically proven that the euphoria of romantic love is temporary. Successful couples are able to replace the romantic love with a more long lasting kind of love. And no matter who you marry, s/he will never be perfect, and s/he would certainly not be thinking about you all the time. And your marriage is bound to have ups and downs.

This does not mean marriages cannot be happy: they can. However, to make it so, both partners need to approach it with the right attitude and make persistent efforts. And having realistic expectations is the first component of the ‘right attitude’.

• Who shall I marry?
  Bad or even abusive marriages often happen as a result of getting carried away by surface qualities. This may happen when a western woman gets carried away when she meets someone handsome, charming, and apparently with a lot of money; or an eastern parent who finds a prospective groom with degrees, bank balance and foreign residence for his daughter. We often realize too late that these qualities do not necessarily bring happiness, and that Prince (or princess) Charming is really selfish and greedy and does not have anything in common with us.
  What we call love is also not necessarily a good predictor for a happy marriage either, because love is often nothing but a euphemism for physical attraction.
  What matters most in a marriage is whether our partner is a good person or not. Whether they are honest trustworthy, and giving. And the best marriages are created when the two partners share similar values and attitude towards life.

So before you get married, make sure you have enough information about the person you are going to marry. Don’t rely on what they are telling you, get objective information from people who know him or her. Do not conceal any important information about yourself from the person you are going to marry. If you know Quantum Method Meditation, bring the person to your Command Centre and ask yourself whether you two are compatible or not. Your mind will give you the right answer.

• Realize two people cannot live in isolation:A marriage can never be happy without the parents' blessings. Our bonds with our first families are so deep rooted that even if we cut it off externally we cannot do so internally. People who go ahead and get married on their own disregarding their family’s wishes usually feel an emptiness that is very difficult to fill up. This does not mean that you have no right to choose your own partner or that the family can impose their choice on you. But while your opinion is most important in deciding whether and whom to marry, you must ensure the wedding takes place with the whole-hearted consent and participation of the two families.

• Keep your wedding simple:Weddings are becoming more elaborate and costly affairs every day. Many of us have been dreaming about the perfect fairy tale wedding since our childhoods. But no matter how beautiful it is, your wedding will only last for a day (or a week in some eastern societies !) but your marriage will potentially last for ever. And wasting or overspending on your wedding will attract unhappiness to your marriage as a consequence of natural law. So for the sake of your marriage, keep your wedding simple.

• Try to understand your spouse rather than expecting him/her to understand you:
  One of the most important causes of problems in a marriage is not understanding or accepting the fact that we are partially responsible for the problem. We always think we are right, and our spouse is wrong. ‘S/he is unjust to me’; ‘s/he does not understand me’. But we do not think that we can take the initiative to understand the other person.
  The most effective way to resolve misunderstandings in a marriage is to identify our own mistakes and try to see things from our spouse's point of view. After all we cannot expect our partner to see things from another's point of view when we ourselves are not doing them same, can we ? When we automatically assume that the other person is wrong, we think the responsibility for clearing the misunderstanding is also theirs. But if we accepted the fact that  we failed make them understand, we would take steps to resolve the issue. And the problem would be solved.

• Deal with your partner’s weaknesses and shortcomings pro-actively:
  Whomever you marry will have some shortcomings – there will be some aspects of his/her personality that will not wholly match your expectations. How you deal with these shortcomings will determine to a large extent how happy your marriage will be. For a happy marriage:
  • Try to accept the person as a whole- his weaknesses as well as his strengths. Remember compassion or love does not judge the other person, but rather tries to understand him/her.Try to separate the person from his behaviour. Concentrate on his/ her potential, rather than his/her current behaviour. This will make it easier to accept the shortcomings.
  • Consciously nurture the positive ideas about each other. Appreciate and point out your partner’s good qualities. This might inspire him/her to overcome his shortcomings.
  • Let go of the past. Do not hold on to mistakes your partner made in the past. Live with the present.
  • Never compare your partner with other people. Rather, compare his past with his present and point out his progress.

• Deal with financial issues wisely:
  The root of marital problems is often finance. This is especially true if the husband is the chief earner in the family and the wife is wholly dependent on him. In such cases, problems often arise due to the gap between the wife’s expectation from the husband, and what he provides her in reality. To avoid financial problems:
  • Give each other realistic ideas about each other’s income from the very beginning. This will lessen chances of unrealistic expectations.
  • Buy gifts for each other. (They don’t need to be lavish.)
  • Do not detain or discourage your partner unreasonably from giving gifts to their family or helping them out financially.
  • Do not waste- do not buy things impulsively. Wastage would attract misfortune to your family life according to natural law.

  If you are the sole earner:
  Say ‘yes’ to your partner’s requests for money as much as possible.
  Give your partner some money to spend on her own. Never interfere with how he/she spends that money.
  If your partner is the sole earner:
  Keep your expectations from him/her within a reasonable limit. Do not make demands that are beyond their means.

• Nurture your family life – spend time with your family:
  Like everything else in life, if you want a happy family life, you will need to put time into it. Instead of spending time gossiping with ‘friends’ or playing cards or pool in the club, if you spend time trying to improve your family life, it will be much more rewarding in the long run. Remember, spending time with your family is different from simply staying at home. Instead of watching television, talk to each other, exchange feelings, views and opinions. When you’re with your family, try to be completely with your family, leave the pressures, worries and disappointments of work in the office. Participate jointly in housework.

• Cultivate spirituality in your family life:
  Always remember there is a limit to how much satisfaction a relationship based on only attraction can give you. Only when emotional and spiritual bonds are added to the physical bond can a family achieve the necessary life- force to be long lasting.Our physical being asks “What Can I Get?” But our spirit always asks, “What can I give?” Much of the marriage advice we get from various sources tell us how to get everything we want from our marriages. The truth is, the more willing we are to give, the more things come back to us as a consequence of the Law of Natural Return. If, in our marriages, we can make a habit of asking ourselves what we can give to our partners, rather than what we can get from them, the results would amaze us. We would see sides of our partners that we have never seen before. And we might also realize that, giving, after all, can be much more joyful than asking or demanding something. The bond created by an unconditional relationship can never be created by demands, contracts or domination. So just be patient and keep on giving, without asking what you are getting in return, as long as you decide to stay in the marriage.

• Know when to quit:
  Some marriages are not meant to last. If your partner is abusive or unfaithful or has any other serious character flaws that s/he is not willing to overcome, it is best to end the marriage. In such cases, instead of holding on and hoping s/he will change, it is better to take a firm decision as soon as possible and end the marriage before you have any offspring. Everyone will not change, because they are not willing to change, and being giving is not the same as being weak and dependent. If you already have off springs however, think hard and long before you decide to get a divorce.