Ensuring longevity in marriage
NEWS of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie’s divorce stunned many across the world who had come to idealise their relationship. But love it or loathe it, their decision is a stark reminder that even seemingly perfect couples who on the surface seem to have it all together also have their issues — sometimes irreconcilable differences that force them to find good lawyers and fight over assets acquired together and sometimes even their children.
With recent studies now suggesting that more than half of marriages end in divorce, it seems like Brangelina is not the only golden couple that will be surprising us in the near future. What, if anything, can couples looking to marry take away from the shambles of these broken marriages?
Below some women share why their marriages failed, and what you can do to ensure that yours will stand a chance:
Louise, divorced:
I was married for 13 years. We migrated to the United States after our second child and our fifth year of marriage. We managed to settle in well and we were doing fine until he cheated with a friend of my sister who was helping us out. As we had been focusing on living in a new country, we went shopping and all the usual stuff, but what I will say is that we never worked on our relationship. We cared about making money, we kissed, but the butterflies were no more. Sex was dry and we just smiled and ignored all that was happening until one day everything burnt out completely — and the feeling was mutual. We started living like sister and brother because we had reached a point of no return and I blamed myself because I knew that we were slowly breaking apart and I let it happen.
Know that every day of your marriage should feel like a new day, and be honest about the change in feelings, and work on things because we are not perfect. My ex-husband and I care about each other very much; we love each other, but we are just no longer in love.
Cheryl, divorced:
High school sweethearts, madly in love with each other, we were even nicknamed ‘the inseparable two’ from age 17. And like the world would have guessed, we were married by age 24. We were the perfect couple, or so we and the rest of the world thought. But then when rough times came, we crumbled. We were so used to being together that when we weren’t, it tore us apart. We fought about money because we had created a façade of an image that we could no longer maintain. We didn’t have a clue about sacrifice. We left things hanging and we never worked on achieving compromise. And while we were always happy and sexually gratified, there were festering wounds in the depth of our souls that would never heal because we kept hiding from them instead of taking the time to clean and treat them. It was difficult watching the perfect change into the imperfect. If I were to do it again, I would make sure that we first understood sacrifice before we took the plunge. I would say… don’t just argue, talk about it and make sure you are at a compromisable understanding. I would say… listen more, stop interrupting, because our points are equally important. And I would say… just don’t give up on beautiful love because it got a little rough. Stay and fight, unless you are being hurt too much, because that is what true love should be about.
Michelle, divorced and engaged:
For me, it’s a simple set of rules —
1. Don’t lie.
2. Live with the person first.
3. Don’t say mean things to your partner, and especially not to other people about him/her.
4. For God’s sake, listen to each other, and unless a mediator is necessary, don’t include one. If you do, make sure it’s not a family member.
5. Respect your partner and never allow any man or woman to speak down to them.
6. Sex is as important as food, so don’t try to deprive your partner of any of the two, because that could cause more harm than good.
7. A marriage is about two people and until you get that, you still don’t understand marriage. The moment you say ‘I do’, you have agreed to be part of a team.
8. If you feel that you have issues that you can’t seem to figure out on your own, get a counsellor. Don’t just walk away.
9. Very importantly, shield the kids from whatever is going on. Never use them as pawns. They don’t deserve that.
Evette, divorced:
We were never perfect, though we thought we were. We had a plan for everything. But the problem was that these were too individualised, and if you don’t even know anything about relationships, you know that if you want to meet someone halfway you need to be going in the same direction. Well, we weren’t. We had childhood goals to fulfil, people to prove wrong, age and professional goals that kept crashing, we saw little of each other, we barely got to check up on each other, we were basically living in different worlds, and that was a big mistake. We failed to communicate, and things went downhill. And though we were doing very well individually, our team kept scoring nought. So I guess my point is… spend time with each other, talk to each other even if it’s only a short text, and no matter how great things are going for you in your little space, remember that you made promises to someone else before God.
