Secret of Staying in Love in Marriage

There are more happy marriages than unhappy ones. But for those who go through the traumas of failed marriages, perhaps, happiness in marriage is a utopia. Soma (not real name), a divorcee brooding over her own life pondered, there is no such thing called happy marriages; what exist are all struggling marriages. Perhaps she is more than true; then, struggle characterizes growth and meaningfulness. I remember a friend writing to me about her grandparents some time back. I translate it for you from the vernacular:

“I am not writing about myself. I want to tell about my grandmamma. The grandfather was sick and was bedridden. My grandmamma used to stay in the room next to my granddad’s. There were no words spent between them during the whole day. Whenever got opportunity she used to complain against the grandfather: “that was not given,” “this did not happen.” “Never did he understand my mind - your grandpapa.” This was the grand mamma’s favourite dialogue. As if it was a habit.

However, my grandmamma kept everything in mind - whether the grandfather ate or not, whether water bottle has freshwater in it, whether he took medicine five times during the day on time. How she cared him! Often I have seen her sitting close to him, next to his head when he was asleep during the afternoons. I wondered whether the grandfather was awake or not.

The grandfather used to request me, “You would remind the 20th, won’t you? That is the day of your grandmother’s birthday.” The grandmother’s birthday was on 20th January. But for granddad every 20th was 20th January. He would say, “There is money in that laskhmi-bandar, (piggybank). Open that cupboard and you would find it. With that money bring sweets, or bring pan if she needs.”
I have to show my grandfather I am taking money from the lakhi-bandar –grandfather’s money of course, and not my own money. I pretended well. The Grandfather never knew it was grandmother who put the money in the lakhibandar saving it from her own income. How long ago the money collected by grandfather was spent up!

After the grandfather’s death grandmother did not live long. During those days I saw a wonderful relationship.”

I am touched by the wonderful relationship of this senior couple. Wonder of their love was not something got overnight. They grew into it over the years through strenuous efforts of understanding, caring and being with each other. This is the result of a commitment, struggle or whatever one may want to call it. And the commitment to love is what bride and bridegroom undertake at the moment of their wedding.

Carl Ransom Rogers (1902-1987) father of person-centred therapy reflecting upon his own marriage which he entered at the age of 22 and stayed on in love for life spoke of two types of marriage, two that exist at opposite ends of a continuum. One is “geared” marriage in which each partner supplements the deficiencies of the other and they mesh comfortably, sometime too placidly. The other is the conflictual marriage, in which the success of the marriage depends on the fact that the couple is continually endeavouring to work out constructively the many conflicts which would otherwise destroy the marriage (Kirschenbaum, H. (1990) The Carl Rogers Reader, 35). Roger says his conjugal life lied in between, and perhaps most of marriages too - often moving often from one spectrum to the other. Sugatha (name changed for anonymity) who is in her twenty-second year of marriage thinks this to be valid.
“The first three months of our marriage was smooth,” she recalled, “Shajan was opposite of what I am. He was all preoccupied with his career, work, efficiency. He hardly finds time to talk, to relax. I am on the other hand an artistic person, very private and an introvert. But then he was mature enough to understand that. We have worked it out. We have been trying, quite successfully, to deal constructively with most of our conflicts and differences.” Sugatha’s case is not unique. Perhaps every couple would be saying that my husband or my wife is so different from me. To them marriage and family therapist Soven has this to say, “Realising the difference and dealing with it by mutual discussion and accommodating each other in each other’s inner world may find themselves growing to love each other.”