Asalaamu 3alikum,
When, we find ourselves bonded into long term commitments with no or little experience in relationship zone, we begin to wonder what are the ground rules to make the marriage work? I thought this would be a good read iA. (especially for marriage-o-phobics.
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How one couple worked through the bad times to fix their marriage and stay together.:flower:
The day my husband, Brad, and I celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary, our 17-year-old daughter, Kathryn, paid tribute to us with a card that read, in part: “I'm so proud of my parents. I know for sure that the last 10 years or so weren't easy -- and there were probably rocky points before then, too. But you made it, and for that I am infinitely thankful [because] as long as Mom and Dad are OK, everything is OK….”
The right decision
Her note was about 200 words -- just a few handwritten sentences, really -- but it was a profound affirmation that staying together was the right decision.
As we brushed tears from our eyes, Brad and I each felt a painful stab of memory: Both our parents had divorced shortly after their own 25th anniversaries, after repeated separations that began years earlier.
Brad and I were already in our 20s and married when those marriages finally came unglued, and though the divorces were different -- one stormy, the other silent -- the consequences were the same: all six children (three in each family) felt instantly diminished.
Brad and I cried over our daughter's card because we understood the depth of her fear and knew what it felt like to be betrayed by the two people you love the most. But we also cried with relief: Here was proof that despite myriad mistakes we had made in raising our children (a list that would require a hard drive upgrade), we had somehow managed to get this important thing right.
Finding something solid
I met Brad in 1974 when I was 14 years old. In the spring of 1980, while travelling through France together, our high school friendship matured into something like love, and on our return to Canada we announced we were getting married. I was 20; Brad, 21. It wasn't fashionable to wed that young, and when I told my mother, she said, “Why would you want to do that?” I don't remember how I answered her, but looking back I would say we were in a hurry to formalize our relationship because we felt adrift in our own families. We needed to tether our hearts to something solid -- namely each other.
At our small house wedding during a university reading break later that same year, some of the guests started a pool to bet on how “premature” the baby would be. They waited eight years for that first child. After Kathryn, our son, Adam, arrived three years later in 1991.
A short separation
We hit the marital skids about 17 years in, for all the usual midlife reasons: health troubles, work troubles, money troubles. As is so often the case, a pile of petty grievances had smothered the smouldering flame of our mutual regard. After months of halfhearted marriage counselling, and with a great deal of jaw-flapping and finger-pointing, Brad moved out.
It still shames me to think of the way our children -- then 10 and seven -- wailed at the door and tried to block his leaving. It was only for a short time but it made an impact on our children. As Kathryn wrote in her card: “My worst memories are of the [time] you separated, because I was so afraid I would lose the security I had in your relationship.” Later, Adam confirmed that those four weeks were also the most unsettling of his young life.
Survival skills
It was during those 30 horrible days, with the children going back and forth between Brad and I, trying not to show too much excitement about seeing their daddy, that I saw clearly what I was prepared to risk for the sake of stubborn pride. My children were becoming experts at editing their conversations so as not to hurt or irritate me by any mention of their father -- a much-loathed survival skill I myself had perfected years earlier.
As I reflected on this second generation of shuttered hearts, I came to realize that nothing was so broken in our marriage that it couldn't be fixed -- maybe not right away, but over time, the way you patiently revive a tired house.
Coming to a realization
Years after our separation, when I read Tim O'Brien's bittersweet novel July, July, in which one character ascribed the unnecessary end of his youthful marriage to “a failure of imagination, the inability to divine a happy ending,” I understood precisely what he meant. Before Brad left, I'd devoted my energy to conjuring how I'd make life work without him. In the trenches of single parenthood, I had plenty of opportunity -- and motivation -- to imagine a happier ending
and click to read more..
Canadian Living : Relationships : Love : Secrets to a successful marriage
“Fairy tales promise husbands and wives will live happily ever after...though not ne
Re: “Fairy tales promise husbands and wives will live happily ever after...though not
after so much turmoil finally they make it thorough. so bollywoodish..
but seriously, i was amazed as how patient these couples were and if every struggling couples would exert same amount of efforts of rebuilding their relationship, then its mostly likely the divorce rate will go down.
