If you are worried after reading the title, please do not worry, I am still happily married. But recently I have had friends and colleagues who are either divorced, separated or their marriage is on the rocks. This made me think about marriage in general and of course I and AS.
Most of my friends and colleagues I am talking about have been married for a long time. One of them for 10 years, another 14 and others many more too. Most of them were high school sweet hearts and in love for a long time before they decided to get married and have beautiful kids but after such a long union, they decided to part way and inmost cases, the reason was infidelity. I was actually shocked in many cases, as I knew both people in the marriage.
I have heard about the 7 year itch and read a lot about what happens to sex life when one has kids. Still looking around and finding so many people with their marriage in tatters really made me think about marriage in general seriously.
AS is my best friend first before my husband so I share what I was thinking with him all the time. So while in this topic, I asked him “Do you think we might have a problem like this in our marriage as well?” I am not sure what kind of answer I was hoping to get but I was shocked when he answered “Of course, we will. I am not going to say we will have a perfect marriage.” As much as I appreciate his honestly, it also made me worried about the whole institution of marriage.
I come from Nepal, a country where they teach that marriage is for life but even there things are changing slowly. The divorce rate is still not as high there as in the western world. So when I married AS, I married him for life, for better or for worse. But seeing so many couple heading down the divorce path, I really want to work harder on my marriage to make sure we don’t ever head towards that path.
As everything else in life, I know we tend to take our partners for granted after being with them for few years which means we may not make a special time for him and once kids are in the equation, most mums are really too busy to plan something as a couple. But I still can’t justify someone cheating on their partner because they are bored.
When Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston got divorced many years ago, I was always Team Jen. I used to like Brad Pitt as an actor but I couldn’t stand the fact that he cheated on his wife. I know everyone has their weak moments and relationships go sour but one can always exit the relationship gracefully before entering to another one so why cheat?
Most people who cheat seem to think they will never be found out but living in this modern world where very cell phone has a camera and everyone has Facebook, how can they be dumb enough to go around their partners back to have fun.
While talking to AS, he was making me understand how men think and I know that they don’t have their brain in their head but I still can’t forgive a person who cheats no matter if that’s a man or a women.
But that takes me to my next question. What will do if you find out your partner is cheating?
There are 3 solutions
- Do nothing and pretend nothing happened
- Forgive and work on the marriage
- Get Divorced/Separated
To be honest, I don’t think I will be able to do first two options. I definitely can’t pretend nothing had happened when I know that my husband is sleeping with someone else. I probably could forgive but for the rest of our life I will wonder where he has gone or whom he had been with and that won’t be the kind of relationship I will like to continue where there is no trust. So the only option that I can manage will be getting divorce.
Therefore, I do understand why all my friends decided to choose that path when they found out that their partner was cheating.
But before we can get to that fork on the road where there are only those three solutions there must be things we can do to make sure we are never in that situation.
Of course, relations and marriage are between two people but each individual makes it work so I am seriously thinking about ways to keep our marriage as happy and healthy as it is now. Here are a few things I think will help for a long lasting relationship.
- Never take each other for granted
- Do nice things for each other from time to time
- Make time for each other and hug, kiss, hold each other.
- Respect each other
- Think before you speak (I need to practice this more)
- Compromise to make him/her happy
- Do things together
- Be aware of each other’s need
- Take time out to talk
- Don’t withhold intimacy as a punishment
- Never compare your relationship with other couples because you don’t know their real relationship (behind the fake smiles maybe)
- When your partner does something that upsets you, stop, sit down, and explain to your partner why what he/she is doing is bothering you
- Accept your partner for who he/she is, after all you married him/her because you loved the way he/she is
- Respect the fact that your partner is going to need alone time
- Be positive and work for your future together
Please share your tips here so we all can help each other. All I wish is to have AS in my life until I take my last breath and can’t imagine my life without him. Wish everyone a happy relationship.
Take care everyone and have a great weekend,
M from nepaliaustralian
XOXO
nepaliaustralian 