Skills needed to retain a marriage

Vijay Nagaswami's article in his column 'The shrinking universe' in The Hindu, October 28, 2012 has highlighted the needs to learn new skills to tackle marriage.

Marriage brings a lot of challenges to the man and the woman. Some of them are:

1. Maintaining a cordial relationship with the in-laws : Most of the times spouses realize that they cannot respect the relatives of the other. Various reasons will be quoted to justify the prejudices. In the long run this becomes a main reason for family feuds. 
2. Mutual respect: Men and women either slowly lose respect for each other due to the knowledge of flaws in each other's character or do not respect each other just for no particular reasons. This will slowly build into a problem.
3. Common goals: The couple may not have one goal. One might want to do something and the other might think differently. Clashes will be a continuous process in such cases.
4. Hobbies: Both might end up having two different hobbies. There will be a tendency to force one's hobby on the other. This can develop into a problem slowly. 
5. Priorities: Each person will have one priority in life and it might clash with the partner's priority. 
6. Deciding the tone of the home set up: Some people believe in hundred percent silence in homes; some like it noisy; some like it always neat; some like it natural and messy; some prefer warm hospitality and bubbly reception given to guests; some prefer calm and composed behaviour etc.  If  partners differ too much, then there would be pain and frustration.
7. Eating habits: These issues can be in the taste of food, cooking styles, vegetarian or non-vegetarian, attitude to food, ways of serving food, dining habits, family traditions of rituals in eating and preparation of food etc.
8. Ethics: What is ethical right for one person might appear wrong to another person. If  the partner feels what the other person is doing is 'wrong' then it has to be taken seriously and analysed. 

Marriage is building a relationship where all these factors play a crucial part. It would be better to look at marriage as a 'social contract.' The stakeholders are the children, parents, relatives, society and the world it self. Marriage is a social commitment responsible for the system of family. It is a finely evolved system that maintains human relationships. A little bit of love for the members will help the functioning of the system very effectively. Love becomes the oil necessary to run families successfully. This love is not only the young romantic 'love' between lovers. It is also the mature, detached love one should have for all human beings. A family that loves its members - life partners, children, in-laws, neighbours - is a blessed family.