September 27, 2006

Till Death do us part

Swapneel and Shalini had been friends in college. A little later in life they progressed to being lovers. Very comfortable with each other, a common set of friends, some shared interestes and some unique. Swapneel was more flamboyant while Shalini was realtively subdued. When they decided to take the formal plunge, many of their college friends were surprised but only pleasantly so. They were a good match. Their "Mumbaikar "streak overshadowed any cultural differences there might have been between a Telugu and a Bengali. . Some wondered why they had not decided to go around earlier. This was about five years back. A couple of months ago, they parted ways. Shalini cannot find anything/ anyone to blame. But she is distraught.

Take two individually good souls, they may still not add up to a good couple together. It is like having avial with rotis ( individually excellent- not too good in combination)

Some thoughts on what make a marriage work, at the risk of sounding like Shobha De or some article from Femina:

  • Enter with more realistic expectations from marriage
  • Ensure you give each other space, trust in yourself and each other
  • Never lose your individuality yet compromise when needed
  • Confront but in private, Do not sulk or seethe in anger, always be honest
  • Do not rake up the past, except to relive the "nice" instances
  • Learn to laugh at yourself and with each other
  • Find time at least once a day to show you think he/ she is special- surprise and romance sees no age cut offs
  • Do not allow anyone ( repeat- anyone) define/ judge you/ your partner/ your marriage

Media reports indicate that in the West, vows like "For as long as we continue to love each other," "For as long as our love shall last" and "Until our time together is over" are increasingly replacing the traditional to-the-grave vow — a switch that some call realistic and others call a recipe for failure.

A relationship is the equation you create together. You not only love the Other but also love yourself for what you become when you are with the Other. When either of the two ceases, it is probably best to call it a day.

On the lighter side, here are some funny quotes-
To love is to suffer. To avoid suffering one must not love. But then one suffers from not loving. Therefore to love is to suffer, not to love is to suffer. To suffer is to suffer. To be happy is to love. To be happy then is to suffer. But suffering makes one unhappy. Therefore, to be unhappy one must love, or love to suffer, or suffer from too much happiness. I hope you're getting this down- Woody Allen


An archeologist is the best husband any woman can have; the older she gets, the more interested he is in her.- Agatha Christie


To keep your marriage brimming, with love in the wedding cup, whenever you're wrong, admit it; whenever you're right, shut up.- Ogden Nash

14 comments:

Has to be me said...

I think the key to any successful marriage is
-give n take,
-live & let live,
-be urself with each other,
-the amount of support provided @ the time needed &
-comfort level with each other!
Added with the usual elements of love, honesty, trust, togetherness & proper communication.

Itchingtowrite said...

even in private , do not insult your spouse.
lol on the agatha christie quote.
they also say if u hav to chose between some one who loves u & some one who u love, marry the person who loves u.

Rebelzz said...

To keep your marriage brimming, with love in the wedding cup, whenever you're wrong, admit it; whenever you're right, shut up -- Tats a gud one .. lol..

Cloudy Musings said...

that's a nice post....makes the reader sit and think about it!

starry said...

Beautiful post. I think communication is the key.with a little give n take.

Kalpana said...

'To keep your marriage brimming, with love in the wedding cup, whenever you're wrong, admit it; whenever you're right, shut up.'

I liked this and I need to follow it sometimes.

Jenny Wynter said...

Wow, very nice blog indeed (and I do mean that, I'm not one of those spamming 'gee I love your blog and now let me tell you about fascinating real estate buys!' people).

I remember in 'Love Story' the slogan was 'love means never having to say you're sorry'; my experience is it means 'ALWAYS' having to say you're sorry! If you want it to keep going, anyway. :-)

Thanks for stopping by my blog, too!

Anonymous said...

I read this somewhere - Treat your marriage like a box- you need to keep putting things into the box like companionship, memories before you start taking things out of it. The more you out in - the fuller the box will be - the more you take out - the emptier it will get. The secret is to keep filling in to have a fulfilling marriage.
Wot say?

Artnavy said...

Farah- I love that one u said about marriage

thanks all for pausing to read a rather long post

suemamma said...

another important ingredient--maturity! Then you know how to distinguish when and incident should be looked at as'what do I get out of this?' 'what do we get out of this?' or 'what does my loved one get out of this?' also, occasionally looking at a situation through our partner's eyes is helpful in resolving issues.
Good post.

Anonymous said...

May I add one? Never go to bed angry. For us, in the beginning, that often meant we were up until wee hours in the morning :D But by golly! We NEVER went to bed angry at each other. (Or should I say I never went to bed angry and wouldn't let my husband sleep either until we had sorted it out?) Heh!

Hip Grandma said...

nice advices.But are they followed?

Sree said...

hey this post seems like a sequel to mine... in a lot of ways :-) and the advise for the experts is taken and will surely implement it.

Usha said...

I keep seeing similar instances all the time and wonder what is going wrong. It helped to hear from a person of this generation. Nice post!