Life is amazing and we don’t understand it’s value until we see it crumbling in our own eyes.
Very early in my career, I worked as an assistant job in a Bhutanese refugee camp.
I’ve vivid memories of crumbling lives when somebody becomes a refugee to another country.
When we talk to refugees who lost everything, who ran from their home to another place to save their families; the role of our life becomes crystal clear.
We dedicate our whole life to protect our family and to do that when you flee abandoning your home, your property, your relatives, and your own land, you definitely feel like you are dead.
If we’re born in Bhutan, we would feel the same.
If we were born in Syria and our house is bombed to shambles, we wouldn’t hold any dreams in life.
How can you see any dream from a burning house?
This is very emotional but it is a fact.
One of my long-time friends and his family emigrated to the USA from Cambodia.
He had a very beautiful wife and two wonderful daughters of age 11 and 14.
If we were born in Cambodia and have seen the killing fields where Pol Pot slaughtered three million people, we would visualize life very differently.
When we have these kinds of painful negative vibrations in life, it makes us realize that even if we are born into a peaceful poor family of a very poor country, we have won some amazing things in life.
We definitely feel we are winners in life because fate didn’t make us refugees.
“If we are developing our core values in opposite directions under the same roof, as a couple we must have a dedicated thinking to understand it.”
My friend and his wife saw and experienced many similar devastating moments in life.
They saw so much carnage, killings, they fled from their native country, they emigrated as refugees, they settled in a new country, their kids are growing in a new environment and still need a lot of support and care.
Unfortunately, my friend and his wife decided to end their 17 years of married life.
When my friend told me about this, I couldn’t believe it.
It was shocking and beyond my expectations.
In 2019, we heard the news of Jeff and MacKenzie Bezos, the wealthiest couple on earth, 25 years of marriage ending.
Recently, we also heard the news of Bill and Melinda Gates’s separation, another globally powerful couple, after 27 years of togetherness.
I was taking these news as normal and tried to digest thinking that these are everyday news.
But, in reality, this recent news of Bill and Melinda’s separation helped to refresh my friend’s old story.
I couldn’t take my friend’s separation easy because I was involved physically, mentally, and emotionally with their separation.
I’ve experienced tears in my eyes multiple times when I was playing with their two little girls.
They were very small and innocent, they weren’t mature enough to experience what life is throwing behind them.
As I learned a lesson from them, it’s very difficult to change our core values in life.
Mark Manson, the author of ‘The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck‘ says that if we are developing our core values in opposite directions under the same roof, then separation is inevitable.
To understand it, as a couple we must have a dedicated thinking.
“Marriage is a long game if we are serious, pivoting is the real name of the game, not able to pivot means losing its traction.”
After a few weeks, I asked my friend, “Why did you both make this painful decision?”
He replied philosophically, hard to understand for me at the moment.
He said, “Your core value in life is a white horse, you can paint it with black stripes and you can call it zebra for other people but not for yourself. No matter what the color tells to other people, the horse would still be a horse for you.”
He further added, “We as human beings, cannot choose our core value by its external appearance. Me and my wife nurtured different sets of core values over the time. I’m not saying they are bad but they don’t align with each other now”
I asked, “How come you didn’t know then and you know now?”
He added, “My friend everything is time, you don’t expect apples tomorrow by planting apple seeds today. We need to plant it, water it, care for it, and wait to get apples. I am sure me and my wife planted the right seed but couldn’t care and couldn’t water it properly so that the plant died before it could give us apples.” I feel like growing relationship and business are somewhat similar. Michael Gerber, the author of ‘The E-Myth Revisited‘ talks about patience, consistent efforts like planting, watering, caring, and waiting for a harvest is a universal for a successful business.
I like a quote from Mahatma Gandhi, “Your beliefs become your thoughts, your thoughts become your words, your words become your actions, your actions become your habits, your habits become your values, and your values become your destiny.”
Now I’m adding here, if your destiny is different than your spouse, sooner or later, your marriage ends.
When my friend got married 17 years ago, he hadn’t heard the word prenup.
His parents and grandparents used to tell him to get married with the girl who is in your level as much as possible.
The question in his mind was what kind of level?
It’s very complicated, he couldn’t understand it, the level could be professional, financial, emotional, intellectual, or physical.
He didn’t pay much attention because he had no idea of personal values at the time when he was getting ready for conjugal life.
Marriage is a long game if we are serious, pivoting is the real name of the game.
If we can not pivot this, we will definitely lose its traction.
Dr. Chris Thurman, a psychologist and author of ‘Real Marriage Made Simple‘ states that marriage doesn’t grow itself; it needs time, effort, and consistent dedication from both partners to mature.
Any person can attain the supreme success in his or her professional life but may experience the rock-bottom in his or her marital life.
We can take examples from multiple professionally successful people like Bill and Melinda Gates, Jeff and MacKenzie Bezos, Elon Musk, Donald Trump, just a few who failed miserably in their marriage.
Marriage in itself is not a final glossed human product, it is a continuous working product.
Nature has given it as a working contract throughout life, work on it until you die.
“Professional success never predicts personal happiness and success in our lives.”
Nowadays many rich people get married with prenup in the western world.
I’m not against prenups, it’s a product of our society, but marriage is more of a human and emotional thing than business or financial transaction.
My friends who had prenup told me that when we make a prenup from the beginning our mind and emotion works differently.
The advantage is you can sincerely work to make your marriage great but there is no guarantee that your other partner will work equally on your marriage.
Prenup could change each partner’s mindset pretty quickly based on many different societal factors.
Kevin O’Leary, investor and author of ‘Cold Hard Truth On Men, Women, and Money‘ states that “Most marriages can survive infidelity, they can’t survive financial stress.” Prenup certainly contains some kind of pre-existing notion regarding your finances, but finance is one of the factors out of many for successful marriage.
Recently, the two richest couples on the planet, Bill-Melinda and Jeff-MacKenzie, got divorce.
It became a national and international headline because both couples have touched billions of lives on the planet through their work.
In spite of their pinnacle success in their professional life, both couples failed miserably on their marriage.
This is definitely a sincere lesson for all of us, relationships are extremely difficult to handle.
Professional success never predicts personal happiness and success in our lives.
We certainly believe that both couple’s marriage was pristine and committed, both couples didn’t have a prenup, and their marriage was faithful from the beginning.
It doesn’t mean marriage with prenup is faithless, it only means dedication and respect was alive more than finances.
“Marriage is not only chocolate and gifts, not only corner table lunches and dinners, it also includes the health hazards of salt, sugar, and fats of lunches and dinners.”
To be honest, I learned more about marriage and relationships from my friend’s divorce than my own 15 years old marriage.
I got a chance to study and analyze very closely about their relationship because I was quite familiar with the couple.
In my experience, in marriage having an insight from only one partner is not sufficient.
We can only benefit from this amazing relationship if we both partners contribute the insights.
We must go through all hindsight, insight, and foresight.
Lack of trust, respect, and care crumbles any relationship, especially marriage.
The problem is, all of these parameters are intangible human quality.
It can not be quantified in our life in the same way as we can look in our other activities.
Trust and respect creates order in our married life but lack of them create a lot of chaos and confusion.
When we trust and respect somebody, that person goes into our soul and communicates with our mind.
In my experience, that trusted and respected person is called a spouse in our society.
Marriage is a very long journey with a lot of ups and downs.
We cannot pay equal attention during ups and downs in our lives, otherwise we wouldn’t remain an emotional creature.
At peak up and bottom down, marriage has a high chance to bring a necessary conflict.
Many experts say it necessary but conflict because during this long journey, there comes something which is unpleasant and undesirable but is essential to succeed in the relationship.
This conflict tests us and we must pass it as a couple.
Very few of us see the existence of this necessary conflict coming along the way.
We never plan and prepare for this conflict, marriage fails if we don’t see the existence of this necessary conflict. This conflict can be both pain and happiness.
Marriage is not only chocolate and gifts, not only corner table lunches and dinners, it also includes the health hazards of salt, sugar, and fats of lunches and dinners.
“Marriage is a choice so if any hurdle, pain, happiness or emotion comes along the way, deal it, plain and simple.”
Many of us take marriage not seriously, we don’t dedicate time to grow it because we take it for granted.
We assume it as a free lunch, and we never foresee the risks associated with it in the long run.
And many of us have no idea how to minimize these risks even if we have little knowledge about these risks.
And most importantly, we don’t see these risks until it becomes too late to face.
When we make a habit of walking together for ten minutes as a couple in the evening, we reduce this risk.
When we write a paragraph of something and your spouse read aloud, we reduce this risk.
These are very simple steps but we never apply, we have ready made answers, oh, I know but I don’t have time.
Brian Tracy, motivational speaker and author of ‘Eat That Frog!‘ always says that nobody has time to do everything in life, but we must have time to do necessary important things.
Marriage is an important thing.
Higher the society, more educated the couple, more is the risk in marriage.
There is data on that but I’m not going into the details.
It is certainly possible that the risks will show up from time to time in different forms.
Unfortunately, we cannot determine when and how they will appear or how long they will last or how severe they will be.
A necessary recipe for successful marriage is to have the discipline to attach to our relationship.
We have to ignore a lot of noise and a lot of emotions fueled by the society and circumstances.
Marriage is our choice in this life so that if any hurdle, pain, happiness or emotion comes along the way, we have to deal with it. It is plain and simple.
Conclusion
We should not be overconfident in our relationship.
Oh my wife is different, oh my husband is always committed to me, these type of statements don’t work all the time.
Please, be humble, head down and work on your relationship.
Be patient and never stop working on your relationship no matter what.
Don’t make your marriage just working, make it long lasting.
There is a difference between working marriage and long lasting marriage.
Dr. John Gottman, PhD, author of ‘The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work‘ emphasizes that working marriage is full of words and appreciation from both partners; but long lasting marriage is full of actions from both partners. Dr. Gottman’s talk in YouTube ‘Making Marriage Work‘ is worth watching.
Married life, of course, is complicated and difficult, but if we work one step at a time, it becomes marvelous.
Spend time with your spouse on the dining table and bed equally, not with your screen.
Hold your spouse’s hand for 30 seconds and tell two sentences about the dress you are about to wear.
Whoever wakes up first in the morning, kiss your spouse on the forehead and start the day by saying good morning.
It takes only 30 seconds to do this but you will be amazed how fast your 40th anniversary knocks your door.
Make it a ritual not just a habit.
Most of the success in married life is in just appreciation that you are married.
There is nothing new in married life but we must make something new everyday. This could be as simple as this: clean your bathroom together for fifteen minutes.
Remember, never ever turn your desires into needs, by doing this your married life gradually crumbles.
Always and always enjoy your life in desires.
I wish you all the best.
Happy married life.
Yam Timsina, PhD, writes primarily on health basics, scientific progress, social upliftment, and value creation.
Disclaimer: “Please note that some links in this post are affiliate links, which means I may receive a small commission if you make a purchase through them, at no extra cost to you.”
