Marriage can be one of the most comforting as well as distressing experiences of life. It can be very comforting if we have learnt the art of accommodation and very distressing if we have not. It is bliss if an atmosphere of mutual respect and support prevails. It is traumatic if one of the spouses wants to impose and enforce views on the other.

If anything that can really make a marriage work, in fact work wonders, it is the attitude the spouses adopt towards one another. Seldom are two people alike and expecting that marriages of only like-minded people succeed is a failed assumption. It is how the two behave and conduct themselves with one another that make a heaven or hell of marriage. Many things can be said in this regard.  

It is certainly not easy for two people to live together and perhaps is the biggest trial of a person’s moral conduct. We may pose to be very ethical, fair and decent before the world, but do we really behave like this in our homes? Is our spouse happy with us? Is he or she living in comfort and with peace of mind? Can we judge that we are successful marriage partners?

A simple litmus test can reveal the answer: If your spouse wishes to live with you even in the Hereafter or to marry you again if now given the choice, then you have passed the “Successful Spouse” test. Bravo!

If this is not the case, then we need to do some serious soul searching and pretty soon too.

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