VALUES THAT MAKE MARRIAGE HAPPY AND LASTING” 

What is it that makes marriage happy and lasting? If you ask this question to ten different happy married couples, you will get ten different replies: attractive partner, love, money, social contacts, prestige, communication, lots of sex, big house, beautiful car, realistic expectations, children and so on. But is that all?  I think " No". 

There is something else, some more important factors without which married life cannot be happy or lasting. I saw one very funny cartoon. One man wants to go across the wall; there are so many ladders around him, he stacks them one above the other but is hapless. Just if he knew how to use one ladder to climb the wall he would have been through. (Slide 1) You might say how he would not know such a simple thing! But let me tell you, however simple a thing might be; it is not simple until you know how simple it is.  You must have experienced this several times.

Imagine you have a lot of modern gadgets like smart cars, smart phones, smart computers, robots that can do many wonderful jobs for you but if you do not know how to use them, then all those gadgets make no sense.  (Slide 2)

Have you seen a Cooking TV series-“CHOPPED”?  A number of chefs are given a bunch of ingredients and asked to make the best dish in a given time. Same ingredients! at the same time but only one chef turns out the best.

 So ingredients are not all that matter.  Yes, you do need the ingredients to make a good meal but Ingredients without a good cook can't make a good dish.  (slide 3) 

Married life is not much different. We have certain ingredients as mentioned above. It depends upon us how to utilize our qualities/abilities discreetly and make our marriage happy and lasting.
It is found,  “Understanding”, “humbleness”, “Fidelity”, and “Selflessness” are the most imperative values that make the marriage last long and happy.
    Understanding between wife and husband means considering each other, in true sense,  as better half, sharing every thought, every responsibility, every experience together, and in fact doing everything together. Now, doing all these things together cannot happen unless there is love, commitment, trust, respect, and consideration for each other. So understanding includes many things like love, commitment, trust, respect, and consideration for each other. The understanding between husband and wife should be like your two eyes. They blink together, move together, cry together, see things together, and they sleep together. (Slide 4)

Humbleness means having no false ego. Ego is a perception about the self, rather than what you really are. When the perception about self is wrong it is called false ego. This false ego is the greatest barrier in the way of happy relationships for married couples. It is said, “Ego is the only requirement to destroy any relationship.” Conflict, arguments and nagging is a regular affair between wife and husband. Usually they get solved because couples compromise, say sorry, forgive and forget. But sometimes the false ego of some people doesn’t allow them to surrender and admit though they are wrong. This tends to end a happy relationship.
    We have so many examples: “Tamar Braxton and Husband, Vince, Separated Due To Ego?
(http://singersroom.com/content/2014-09-08/ ..)
Oscar-winning actor Russell Crowe and Danielle Spencer divorce.”
(http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2223352/How-Russell-Crowes-king-sized-ego-cost-love-life.html#ixzz3JvLkmhfU )
Fidelity is another important value. Marriage cannot go without trust. It is said, “Without trust, it is only a matter of time before relationships crumble.” We find, most breakups occur because of infidelity. “Review of nine studies analyzing reasons people gave for divorce found that extramarital relationships were mentioned in eight of them (Kitson et al. 1985) compared to other problems'' 517 (Fidelity is elaborated in the paper).                                     

Selflessness or no selfishness means finding happiness in the happiness of others. “Selflessness” directly refers to sacrifice. Sacrifice stems from love. Where there is love, there is sacrifice, commitment, respect, devotion and open communication. Selfish marriages usually end up soon in divorce. 

 In my research paper I have elaborated these values and cited various examples from some books and websites giving references of the sources.