Just recently, I had a chance to talk to three other married people. And yes, we discussed our married life and what we and our respective spouses have been doing in our quest for marital bliss.

While we acknowledged that our respective partners are far from perfect, we also admitted to our own flaws and the possibility that they may be more mature and better people than we are.

When we think that we are a better person than the one we married, we could either be right or wrong. But marriage is not about who is the better person – the husband or the wife? It’s about how the couple complement their strengths and make up for whatever weaknesses the other one has – how they help each other overcome their imperfections. Marriage is about our willingness to accept our spouses for who they are.

In that conversation, we all agreed that the worst presumption married people could make is that their spouses are perfect. Assuming that the person we married is a paragon of virtue is a primary source of disappointment. Any person is a package of good and bad characteristics and attitudes. That’s the reality. One of the ways to attain marital bliss is to embrace both the positive and negative attributes of the person we exchanged “I do’s” with. We marry both the positive and the negative of a person. The reason there is an engagement period is for both parties to get to know each other fully. Eventually, agreeing to tie the knot means accepting unconditionally everything that both parties have discovered about each other in the process.

We also discussed expecting (or forcing) our spouses to think and behave the way we want, to change their confident attitude or tendencies that we perceive as negative. We discovered that trying to do so only frustrated us. Thus, we all stopped doing that at a particular juncture in our married life, and things got better.   Our partners are unique individuals who became who they are as a result of their upbringing. We were educated differently, and we also grew up in different environments. It is highly unlikely that we will have the same set of values, mindsets, and perspectives. It is a matter of respecting our differences and figuring out what compromises could be made to preserve the marriage.

The greater challenge is that two of us in the conversation are married to foreigners whose cultures are entirely different from theirs.

Asking spouses to give up a particular vice is sometimes a marital issue, too. Luckily, the spouse’s vice mentioned in the conversation was only smoking, and it didn’t become a big deal between the concerned couple.

We admitted as well that while marriage is a bed of roses, hidden by the leaves in the stems of those roses are the thorns. We all have our share of ups and downs in our married life. So difficult were some of the challenges we faced that we almost ended up “untying the knots.” But in the end, we all found out that we had more and better reasons to stay with our spouses than reasons not to. We all thought the love between us and our partners was just too strong, enabling us to weather all the storms that stood between us and marital bliss. The bible says, “Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.” (Mark 10:9)

We also shared personal strategies to keep the flame burning between us and our spouses. Three common strategies emerged – finding the simple things that make our spouses happy, giving them space, and avoiding doing things that irk them.

Determining what could put a smile on the face of our spouses is not rocket science.  That is one of the first things we ought to know about our partners if we intend to be with them for the long term. Take note that it’s not always a material thing.

Giving them space is also essential. Our partners never want to feel as if we’re putting chains on their hands and feet.

Avoiding doing things that might anger our spouses is perhaps the most challenging thing to do. Disagreements between couples are simply unavoidable. However, any issue between spouses must eventually be resolved, and it should be done in a manner befitting mature adults. They cannot afford to allow quarrels, especially if they are petty ones, to go on for days. There is only one logical conclusion to a disagreement between a couple who love each other (and have no intentions of divorcing), and that is for them to kiss and make up. So, they’ve got to do it as soon as possible.

Two of us in the conversation are men. I expressed the belief that it will not be too much for a man to always initiate the kiss and make-up process.  It doesn’t matter whose at fault – him or his lady. That’s what real gentlemen do.

One of the ladies added, “In addition to  love, the husband and the wife need mutual respect.”

I said that I couldn’t agree more with what was said. At that point, I shared my personal strategy for a happy married life. I have set a personal goal and am exerting my best efforts to achieve it – to make the lady of my house feel loved, needed, and respected. The preceding words enclosed in parentheses are included among those that I recite when doing my daily positive affirmations. I swear to God it works.

We all agreed at the end that what could help attain marital bliss is for both husband and wife to make each other feel special – that the man should not think that the courtship ends when the wedding bells stop ringing. The woman should try her best to look beautiful in the eyes of her husband every day in more ways than one.