[mystic]

When a person tries to settle in life, he / she try level hard to find a good soul mate. Some are lucky to meet the right partner, get to know the person, eventually if the compatibility is high then even fall in love. And as the love blossoms, the couple decides to take the plunge and settle down in holy matrimony.
For others the process of meeting their ideal partner may be different. Sometimes it is through some acquaintance or relatives. Other times it may be a matrimonial column in a newspaper or a marriage bureau or in accordance to the jet set age, may be even through a matrimony web site!!(Long live computer & internet).

Whatever may be the mode of meeting your future partner, but after the actual meeting, there is always some serious thought that goes into the process of finalizing the union. How one keeps it going, is the main test of life. When we were young kids, we played with dolls and especially girls took great pride in marrying off their girl doll to another one’s boy doll. But in real life, marriage is anything but a game of dolls. It is a serious commitment to live together in peace and harmony. To love & to cherish, to stand by each other through good times and bad times and above all………to trust and respect each other, are just some basics of the institution of marriage. Honestly, how many of us truly realize this?

A person who thinks that he is fortunate to have a love match, may proved to be wrong if he/she decides to take the relationship further for granted. We see quite a few examples of love marriages gone sour and ending in bitter divorce. Remember, marriage means understanding your partner & his / her needs in full earnest and NOT to take things for granted by being unreasonable and dominating. There has to be a good and healthy dialogue between the partners to keep the relationship strong. Miscommunication or suspicion can kill a happy marriage. Learn to trust your spouse and thus gain respect, as this helps in maintaining peace and harmony at home. Every individual has some flaws or the other. Nobody is PERFECT. If we were, then we all would be gods!!! To accept your partner’s shortcomings and yet live amicably is the secret of a successful marriage.

So far as arranged or proposed matches are concerned, there is a slight apprehension about the feasibility of the match. But wonder of wonders……90% turn out to be successful unions. If we give a closer thought to this phenomenon, we may unravel a few truths about life in general. Let us get to know them to be successful life partners.
It is a common notion that “familiarity breeds contempt”. Very true!! And I suppose this is what happens in most of the love marriages which fail miserably. In a love match, the partners know each other for quite a while before they decide to live together permanently. But this process of “knowing each other” can work both ways. In some cases it helps strengthen the ties after marriage and makes it a wonderful and easy transition from single to couple status. But in other cases, the constant ‘togetherness’ before marriage begins to grow on you and you feel stifled by your partners over powering presence. The whole charm of exploring different shades of your partner’s personality is lost and you get bored, because there is nothing ‘interesting’ about your spouse anymore. Before marriage the girl who was being a meek doe, suddenly starts showing her true colors and starts dominating & bickering her mate, much to his annoyance & dislike. The end result is that the love birds of yester years become sworn enemies overnight. And before either of them realizes what is happening, they set out on different ways. Divorce can be a very painful thing, best avoided as far as possible. If you have children, then apart from your life being thrown in turmoil, you ruin your kid’s life too, by making it a victim of a broken home.

On the contrary, even if there is initial skepticism in an arranged match, there is a lot of effort that the partners put in to make it work after the union is finalized. And most of the times it pays rich dividends by making such match very successful. That is because each day is like a new adventure for the couple, trying to know more about each other and also make necessary adjustments to suit each other’s temperament. For these people, time has no limits and as the time passes the bond gets stronger and stronger. Exploring the unknown is a favorite hobby of a normal human being. And in this case, it refers to the many facets of the spouse’s personality, likes / dislikes & general mentality that is being probed & studied. Thus it holds a lot of novelty and keeps the relationship fresh and active.

We can summarize that it is not the type of union that you enter into – love or arranged – which matters. It is HOW you keep it intact. It is very easy to get married and get into a relationship, but an uphill task to make it work and sustain the test of times. Remember my friends, as said before it is not a kid’s game for fun & enjoyment. It is a lifetime of commitment to your better half. Respect it, nurture it and have fond memories for your old age. Believe me, it is worth the effort. Impulsive flings are for short time pleasure, where as holy matrimony is a treasure to cling to………eternally.