Hi,

I haven’t yet told my three-year old any of those classic fairy tales which end with “happily ever after”. In spite of this, our stories which feature the little squeaky mouse or Ellie the elephant or Monu the monkey start with “once upon a time” and end with “happily ever after”.

3ordinary

It’s a childhood dream that we all want to hold on to. It may have different kinds of love, different people, different circumstances but yes, we want to hold on to our happily ever afters and all throughout our lives.

Why do people tell us their love stories?

It is because it takes them back in the memory lanes. To feel the same rush of emotions and the need to share this wonderful experience with another. To recall and treasure their happy moments. Happy is an emotion we associate with a particular memory, an incident or a person.

And, Why do all the fairy tales stop with that spectacular kiss and the words, “they lived happily ever after”?

When we get married, we believe it is a forever thing. It’s a mixture of happiness, excitement, responsibility and fear. What lies beyond marriage? An exciting question in itself.

There are a bunch of parameters required for a sustained happy marriage. These are also the parameters that we mostly judge each other on 🙂

In my view, they are:

4point

Understanding

Tolerance

Communication

Defining quality time

Division of labor

Caring

Earnings

Responsibility

Patience

Loyalty

Acceptance

Difference of opinion

Compatibility on different levels

Attitude: Personal and towards the relationship (Most important)

2loveisamasterofdisguise

Notice that I do not mention love. For, Love is a master of disguises.

It may hide itself in one of the above points or it may lie beyond these.

I offer you no explanation to the above points because, each of us has a perspective of our own on each of the words above.

Have you thought on each of these points? Go ahead. May be you will be surprised 🙂

Any sustained marriage is not destined but, the fruit of constant efforts, of two individuals who offer different things in the relationship.

If you are about to be married and about to enter this world of happily ever after, enjoy it to the fullest.

Especially, the honeymoon and the first year.

From the second year, you will always find the year before a little better 🙂

And once the generation next makes its appearance, you will need prayers and good wishes. Now, re-read the above points and do you see those underlined? Multiply them over and over to get ready for the most thrilling roller coaster of your life.

Oops!, I forgot to tell you. It’s only till they grow up. Then you go back to feeling like you did in the second year of marriage 🙂

Don’t worry. You are going to make it :).

Remember…

happiness

Hold on to your dream.

Hold on to your happily ever after and never, never, never let go.

This post is written as a response to open-to-all prompt for the Project 365 program at We Post Daily.

Smile away,

Poornima

PS: Photo credit: Morguefile and images shared on social media.