Fall in love... gracefully!

Here is one of the most widely circulated jokes about marriage:

“Getting married is like buying a new phone. After a while you get a feeling that you should have waited for a better model"!

Though the above joke is one in bad taste, the truth remains that most people after sometime of being married tend to question themselves of the big decision they took. If there is someone who had not experienced this, he or she must either be a saint or not lived under the same roof right after they got married. It is quite natural that this happens and don’t get worked up if you are one who had these thoughts or are having them at present.

There is one big difference though between a phone and your spouse. The model of the phone you bought is a fixed one and will never get better with time. Whereas your spouse is an evolving model, the one for which the best is yet to be seen. What more, their best is in fact in your hands! The key is for you to realize that the power of making the relationship work is in your thoughts itself!

Never ever have the impression that this is a challenge only for newly married couples. Every couple go through something similar once a while though in varying degrees. When it comes to newbies it is just the lack of experience that makes the situation look more challenging.

One of the biggest mistakes many of us make when we face this situation is letting the mind have a free run. We let our thoughts go wild and attribute all possible reasons to why the relationship is strained and why it won’t work. What we underestimate is the power of our mind. It is a double edged sword where our thoughts marry our behaviour. The more frequent and constant our thoughts are, higher the chances are for our mind to consider that as the truth.

A double edged sword perhaps is one of the most dangerous weapons. Don’t use it right, you may risk getting yourself killed! Master it, you won’t need any other weapon. So how do we use this power of mind to our advantage? The secret is to fall in love, gracefully, to the same person whom you find difficult to accept. You won’t be able to do this alone and will need the help of a mutual friend of yours, ‘time’. Use that wisely along with reassuring yourself that things will change. Nothing remains constant for ever. Shower yourself with positivity that drains out all those negative emotions that surround you. Do something that your partner loves even when you may not appreciate it. Learn to walk a different path though it may be challenging.

Do these for a while. Before you even know you'll notice a significant change in your chemistry. The mighty dislikes in the past will start looking like insignificant nothings. The hatred you had gives way for sheer happiness. Concerns on longevity of your marriage becomes a thing of the past. All these tell you only one thing. You have fallen in love! Trust me, it indeed is a blessing to experience this beautiful feeling.

While it seems easy to preach the thought, practising something like this is a huge task in itself. Hey! Who ever said it is easy to learn the double edged sword?