I wish I knew these things before I got married!! Trust me, if you
had known things earlier, you could have never come this far in your marriage.
Marriage is a door that opens to unknown possibilities
and challenges in life. You have two
choices; either surprise yourself, with things (good or bad) that are going to
appear and learn to adjust with it, and another choice is to learn things and
accept differences before you embrace the relationship. Life’s best time begins
when you learn things as you go ahead in your relationship or marriage.
Excitement lies in knowing many more secrets about each other, and any type of
marriage (love or arranged) is never enough to know everything about your
partner.
As you grow old in your
marriage, you learn many new things as well as old things, that always existed,
but you never cared to even understand.
A successful marriage requires falling in love many times, always with the same person.
Mignon
McLaughlin
Few Important Things
Every Couple Should Remember While Planning to go for an Arranged Marriage (for the first time) or already married-
1# Successful marriages are built on strong foundations like- mutual
interests, shared beliefs, mutual respect, selflessness and lots of patience
and understanding. Never develop fantastical opinions about your future partner
or about your marriage. Learn that there might be bumpy roads ahead.
2# Calm down your anxiety about, “is this the right person?” As
arranged marriages may sometimes start cold, but heat up and boil over time as
the couple grows in their marriage. Have positive thoughts about your marriage.
3# It may not sound pleasing and appropriate, but try to match
your opinion with your partner. This stops any disagreement for some time.
4# Communication is the key factor to keep your liking alive
for each other. Try to speak out your emotions, good or bad feelings or anything
that you feel about this relationship. Tell your partner often how much you
love being married to him/her. If you find difficult to speak up or use
appropriate words to convey your good feelings for him or her, try giving gifts
with good quotes or cards. You will always find one that will speak your heart.
5# Often hug or hold hands to build a special feeling of care
and closeness within each other.
6# Focus on doing activities together to develop intimacy and
love like; walking, running, playing sports or other exercising, but doing something fun together should really
be at the top of the list. Often couples forget to have fun together and take
their life and tasks too seriously.
7# Often make your marriage romantic by paying attention to
your appearance. Show your husband or wife that you care by taking the time to
look good, feel good and smell good. Never let the excitement and attraction
(for each other) die between both of you.
8# Revisit your shared incidents or events. This is a good way
to connect with each other again. This will make you laugh, cry or tease each
other, and spend some quality time together.
9# A truth behind successful and stable arranged marriages is;
tremendous sacrifices, and often believed to me made by the woman to live the
marriage successfully. Sometimes, this leads to misunderstanding, anger and a
big distance between each other. Try and be supportive to each other.
10# Try to stay connected spiritually or religiously. Some bad
feelings and dislikes go away when you visit God’s place ‘together’.
11# Another best way to improve your relationship is to make
your partner feel consistently appreciated. Do not forget to say ‘thank you’
even for the little things.
12# Often compliment each other. Giving compliments make your
partner realize that you still find him/her attractive physically and
emotionally. And practicing this will make you partner feel good and sincere
towards you.
13# Most of the times we learn that arranged marriages are based
on cultural and traditional pretense, and involves more participation of
parents, family, family friends and relatives, before marriage and also after
marriage. The boy and the girl who will be getting married are not given too
much space to decide at times what is right and wrong for them in this
marriage. Such dogmatic practices may ruin the beautiful meaning of your union,
but do not hesitate to keep your view before them. After all you both are going
to spend and share this life together. Do not shy to tell your parents ‘now’,
about your thoughts and anticipation of the future partner and his/her family.
14# We often force ourselves to make our arranged marriage work,
because of the ingrained anxieties about society and parental status. But
before that I feel we should be more caring about our life and its happiness.
Can you believe with me that, Miracle happens! And your marriage is one of such
examples. Now that you both are married and looking forward to continue
‘happily’ with each other ‘until death do you part’, why not try for another miracle? Create a beautiful ‘they lived happily ever after’ story
with each other. It’s never too late to start all over again.
Try to ‘fall in love’ with your life once again and nothing can be best
than holding your partner’s hand and starting all over again. If you are
experiencing disturbances in your marriage or have developed any premarital
jitters; just take a deep breath and try to calm down. Relax and revisit these
entire requirements to find out, what you can do to celebrate your marriage and
post marriage relationship with your partner. Marriages Work! It’s never too late to enjoy and continue a Blessed
Marriage.
About The Author:
I am Epsita Mahapatra, a mother to a beautiful 3 year old daughter and a full-time blogger at present. I am decent at photography. But writing is my passion. This is the reason why I blog, to inspire lives positively by sharing my experiences and learning. I am an aspiring self-help and inspirational writer who believes strongly in positive thinking. I believe in finding possibilities in your negative attitude. My motto on LIFE- LIVE and CELEBRATE.
I can never imagine myself getting married to a completely unknown person. That is really difficult. I have heard that, in South Asia majorly such marriages happen. I am really confused about such culture. People who don't know each other. How they live together .Is it something like Marriage after Love!
ReplyDeleteA good friend of mine had a serious romance, or so she thought, going with an Indian man who was in the United States getting an advanced degree. His sister was killed in an accident back in India, so he returned for the funeral. Two weeks later he came back to the United States accompanied by his new wife. His parents had arranged it and he agreed, because that was how it was done there.
ReplyDeleteMy friend was devastated, of course. It was even worse when he told her that he still wanted to see her and sleep with her despite being married. Apparently sex outside an arranged marriage was within his cultural norm, at least for the man. He said he never could have married my friend because his parents wouldn't have approved.
She dumped him and found a nice American guy.
Hi Ellen,
ReplyDeleteI am sorry to hear this devastating story. My heart goes out to your friend and I wish her happiness and success in life. But do not blame cultures. I seriously hate such acts and specially hate those men who loves playing with a woman's heart and emotions. But also not every man is like this! This guy wasn't sure of himself, forget about the relation he had or has, because he is till not sure what he wants in life. But any relationship that do not commit to itself and each other should never be carried forward.
Hi Laura,
ReplyDeleteThank you for reading and responding to my post! I know this sounds very scary, but a lot of process goes into fixing an arranged marriage, and care is taken that not only two people unite in this marriage but also their families, friends and relatives. Above all I believe, no marriage is sufficient enough to know about each other as partners. To continue happily together we need to understand each other's temperaments and weaknesses. That's when a marriage turns successful.
Regards,
Epsita
As a second generation Indian American, I'm getting tired of all these articles praising arranged marriage culture without really considering the negatives. While there's some superficial mention of the difficulty of divorcing in India, there are two even bigger problems with the Indian arranged marriage culture that almost never get mentioned:
ReplyDelete(1) As in all arranged-marriage centric cultures (think ultra-orthodox Jews as well), there's a high amount of gender segregation. This is NOT an coincidence--society has to be structured this way in order to prevent the very natural occurrence of young men and women mixing with each other and falling in love of their own accord. This kind of social structure is basically anathema to everything that modern Western culture stands for, not just in "ruggedly individualistic" America. When my parents were growing up, they were not even allowed to visit the homes of their same-gender friends--in case an opposite gender sibling or cousin was around.
(2) The arranged-marriage system perpetuates the caste system and communalism, which is responsible for so much of India's dysfunction and inequity.
And in my extensive experience with family and friends who have gone through arranged marriages, these matches are never as "carefully considered" on the personal qualities front as they're made out to be. The biggest factors tend to be caste, horoscope, and wealth/education level.
Thank you MB for sharing your thoughts on Arranged Marriage. I respect your opinion. Everyone is different and so their thoughts. This is just an article to make someone's life better and no 'promotion'. As such marriages still exist in many cultures and not just in India, I wrote this article to make someone's marriage a successful one, if they are going for such marriages. Because some parents still want their children to make a wise decision in marriage, so that they don't split after a certain point in their marriage.
ReplyDeleteRegards,
Epsita
You are Correct Epsita .
ReplyDeleteAt a personal level it probably does not matter whether the marriage is by arrangement or through romance. However, if traditional, stratified societies are to transform themselves more young people need to marry through romantic encounters. I am a Tamil Hindu Brahmin who is married to a Malayalam Christian and we have been together for 25 years! We love each others' families dearly after an initial period of adjustment.
I strongly feel , Love is is the only thing that can bind two people together. No matter , whether its Arranged or Love Marriage !
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