Marriages are made in heaven & broken in Earth

It's an old saying, marriages are made in heaven. Now it's time to append and add few words to it... And broken in earth.

Gone are the days when either or both partners took conscious efforts to keep the marriage alive. I've known couples who never got to look at each other's face until at the place where the marriage took place.

Having been brought in different culture and life styles, the initial roads of the married life are often filled with bumps. A German couple who attended my cousins wedding advised, "the first five years are the toughest, and then awaits a beautiful life ahead."

But how many couples are willing to take it beyond that period or even willing to understand that differences need to be embraced and sorted out?

Food is a personal boundary, and there are many others that should not be crossed.

I've known a man who's family is used to having a meal at night. When he married a woman who's used to eating lite dinners and not rice, started to pinch the basic rights of livelihood. Many other reasons collided and they ended up in divorce.

I had to caution this man in his second wedding as he planned to make his fiance to cook meals for him and tiffin for herself for supper. I had to explain the pain of cooking different dishes for different persons, thereby increasing efforts in cooking and cleaning. And then it struck this man about how personal spaces were being compromised and how to cope up with individual demands.

Empathy, not sympathy is a key to embrace marriages. However, it has to be a conscious effort of the two people involved.

High networth, networks, ability to influence and persuade, all these backed by employability and self made possessions have contributed to collapses of weddings.

Marriages were made in Heaven to last, not to be broken in Earth.

Love,