Marriage: There is no secret; either it works or it doesn't

I have been very happily married for more than 16 years and people often ask my husband and I what our secret is. There is no "secret" or "special recipe" to obtain what we have together, but our usual response is that we don't fight. It's true; we just don't fight. This is not to say that we don't have a few disagreements once in awhile, sure we do, but we never get to the point of yelling at each other or calling each other nasty names. That's just juvenile and disrespectful. I also imagine that fighting would be downright exhausting. Who has the energy for that?

The two of us have been married for 16 years and we were together for 7 years prior to that, so in total we've been together for 23 years! You could say that we were high school sweethearts, but we went to different schools and lived in different cities, but that's a story for another time.

It may seem like a cliche, but communication really is the key to any good relationship, be it a marriage or even just a friendship. I'll be honest here, out of the two of us, my husband is by far the better communicator and he encourages me to communicate all the time. We've had a few bumps in the road, and that's normal as far as I'm concerned; it's when those bumps become mountains that you need to become aware that something is seriously wrong.

The way I see it there are 3 ways that couples will deal with their relationship problems/issues:

• a) the couple will either ignore what's going on and just stay miserable together rather than deal with things
• b) the couple will recognise that there's a problem and try to fix it (eg. counselling or simply talking things through and try to get back what was lost) 
• c) the couple will split up and go their separate ways

I've known a few couples that have gone down the divorce road and it seems to have been the answer for them. I've also known couples that have had a separation period and then gotten back together - sometimes people just need to step back from the situation for a little while to see the bigger picture and realise that the grass isn't always greener on the other side. Sadly, I've also seen couples that stay together even though one or both of them is miserable - they're comfortable in their misery and they don't want to rock the boat. 

I think some people take the idea of marriage way too lightly. "If it doesn't work out, we'll just get a divorce", you can hear people say. I had a friend who had been divorced 3 times, all before she was 35 years old!  Call me old-fashioned, but I think marriage should be a one-time event. After-all, the reason you're getting married in the first place is because you want to spend "the rest of your lives together". Unless you're in your 70s or 80s, the rest of your life will most likely be a long time (decades and decades, people). Granted, people's priorities and ideals can change over the years, but you work through it and find a way to change together. If you can't work through it and divorce is the only option, then fair enough. If it means you can both move on with your lives and be happier people as a result, then that's great. Nobody likes being around miserable people, so get the divorce and go your separate ways. 

In the end, we get all one life and we owe it to ourselves to be happy. If marriage is in your future, I encourage you to pay attention to those vows and never take each other for granted.