“In an era where arranged marriages are detested by many, I’m glad I’ve lived through nineteen glorious years with this wonderful woman by my side. Hailing from Salem, we were both married off really young and had to discover crucial parts of our lives together. But in hindsight, this move by our parents does feel right for we literally grew up with one another, with the will to work through our differences rather than ignoring them.

And trust me, the secret to a good marriage is often in all these little things. My wife and I are in our mid-forties now with two grown up kids but nothing has changed. I still pick her up from her office every evening and we take a quiet stroll around Marina, hand in hand. We spend about 30-35 minutes discussing the various happenings of the day and to us this downtime has become a non-negotiable. And it should be, because how many people get to watch such beautiful sunsets with their partners, every day, right?

Again, seeing all this, many young folks come up and question us curiously on how we’ve kept our relationship happy even after so many years. My wife immediately gets excited to narrate our life experiences and I quietly watch her elaborate on how acceptance and trust have been our primary sails! She often states that if the fundamentals are right, it becomes easy to work around everything else and then goes on to explain how, today, she’s grown to admire the qualities she once disliked in me. Of course, it often ends in a chuckle but somewhere I know for sure that we’ve figured out this complex game of marriage beautifully and navigated through the tides together!”

#Marriage #Couple #Life #Support #Acceptance #Trust #Hardships #Happiness #Lifelessons #Madras #HumansofMadras