...HAPPY LONG. IS MARRIAGE FOR LIFE POSSIBLE?

Everyone knows enough married couples who have lived together for years - many years - 20, 25, 30, 50 and even more more! They can be our parents, grandparents, godfathers and godmothers, aunts and uncles, friends' parents and relatives, colleagues, neighbors or simply people known in the community. So we know - not only theoretically, but also practically marriage for life is possible. However, we also know that some of these long-term couples are together by habit, inheritance considerations, maybe also laziness - what a lot to change! - or another unrelated to a truly happy and compatible marriage for reasons. But not everyone! There are couples who seem to feel even greater closeness, sincerity, and love over the years at the beginning of the marriage.

I really want to hope that it will be the same with us. However, the girl is a little nervous - maybe there is a long and happy life together recipe?

Austrai is 53 years old, she has been with her husband for 27 years. And Austra answers without thinking - "The most important thing is what must be accepted, it is a fact that no one is the property of another!

Well, neither the husband belongs to the wife, nor the wife to the husband. The rest also follows from this, without which it is impossible to live together for a long time - that have respect for each other. But only the one who respects himself can respect others.

Also - I believe that everyone must also keep their own private space. The fact that marriage is for life does not mean that a woman does not need girlfriends with whom she can meet without the presence of her husband, a husband also needs a friend society. Also, everyone can have their own hobbies, and this is only possible if there is mutual trust. Then nobody the thought will not come to mind that he is caught in a trap and that marriage is a cage from which one must try to break out."

Gita married her Harald 20 years ago, when they were still students. Gita believes that without adaptation lasting a successful lifestyle is not possible. "It's not that one doesn't think about himself and just adapts and adapts to the other. Rather, I mean it like this - I understand that he is different, that we each have our own opinion on some issues, but I also understand that I neither can nor want to remake him "in my image and likeness" and accept him the way he is.

We definitely also need common interests - not in everything, but at least something that we enjoy doing together is needed.

For example - he likes fishing, I like to go to the opera, but together we go to the theater and sports events. It is important that I accept what is important to him, and he - my values. Another thing that some may disagree with - me I think that a successful lifestyle is possible if the education level of both is similar. If it will be very different, early or late they will lose interest in each other, because in the beginning they may have been connected only by physical attraction and sex. But it's unlikely to be a lasting marriage."
"Before the wedding, fear and discouragement came to me too - what if we don't get anything? Then I remembered what my grandmother said - when you are together, don't think too much about the past, don't linger in what could have been but wasn't. And don't worry about what will be, what won't be and whether marriage is for life possible...

You need to plan for the future, but you definitely don't want to worry about it all the time. You are together right now, and you are for each other needed right now. Rejoice in it, be happy!” says Karina, she has been married for eight years. "I think it is also important not to forget about yourself, your feelings, desires. No matter how much daily work and obligation to make time for yourself. Don't stop at the fact that the husband is in your hand, then you don't need anything else. He but they fell in love with me as I am - feminine, quite self-confident, always active and ready for challenges. And I him - masculine, one that gives a sense of security. Therefore, I feel that this harmony and peace in their relationship we can save precisely because we don't worry about little things, and if serious things happen, we can also say them without humiliation, "punishment" and scandals of the other. I really hope that we will be successful in the future!"

Why did it fail?

"I feel like everything ended, didn't really start, because we weren't sincere. Somehow we indulged in desire too much to show off, to be like everyone else and better than everyone else. Beautiful pictures with both of us - also beautiful; exotic places, entertainment. For a while we already believed that marriage for life is real - now we can change our status facebook and announce to the whole world that we are in a relationship, but... that love and a happy relationship are not an exhibition or competition in which the couple with the most photos on Instagram, which received the most likes, at that moment, wins we didn't think.

We got carried away with showing off our relationship (everyone does that!), and we didn't think at all that we actually need true intimacy, and it's not just sex or sending smiles," says Ilze, who, although not officially divorced her two-year marriage with Mārtiņas, is now single and away from new relationships.

"Maybe everything would have been different if we had asked ourselves before the wedding - why marriage for life? Or because we look good in joint selfies, or because we are so good together that we never want that feeling lose?”

Anda has a different story. "I was 19 and had experienced an unhappy first big love (at least for myself inspired that it is so; now, after 15 years, I understand that such teenage infatuation and one-sided falling in love alone had been, which he, the first, much older, was not ashamed to use). My girlfriend laughed at me that if there is no suffering, then I invented it myself - and then I suffer and suffer so much!

I suffered, I suffered, until somehow I fell in the eyes of a nice, always optimistic, forever joking guy, girlfriend's neighbor. At first I didn't take him seriously, but it was so nice to feel his persistence, to realize that now he is the one who is hopelessly in love - and I most mercifully allowed myself to be loved. Well, it wasn't so cynical, for me it was really easy and good with him. Besides, I had made up my mind that I would never forget the first one anyway, and I will never love anyone like that again. But this guy was here, always there, always ready to be with me, go and ride with me wherever I can think of.

And we always laughed! Probably his sense of humor, the ease with which he could talk even about serious things (and he was actually also serious - with serious plans for the future, dreams and a little crazy, but completely for realizable ideas) was what made me agree to become his wife after a couple of months of living together. And a proposal was so sweet and romantic... I really believed in myself that I want to spend my whole life with him. I think that with good, strong friendships, security and stability are enough, I really think so.

The first realization that I might be doing something wrong came a couple of hours before the marriage ceremony - neither from this nor from that I started crying hysterically - I realized, probably subconsciously, that I was doing something wrong, that I was hurting both him and to himself

But what else - relatives, drivers, all the bustle and commotion around; and the thought that I mustn't do that to him, he is so good! Those around them "wrote" everything to the pre-wedding fever, poured a glass of cognac to calm down, and I already said "yes" in the Birth Register Department...

We lived together for eight years, not quite a lifelong marriage, but we have two nice, smart daughters, now teenagers. However, the feeling all the time was like that in Ziedon's poem - "Nothing is missing... but it's not enough either". Me I tried, I really tried to be a good wife - I take care of the children, cook, work around the house... I guess he already felt that something was not real. Funny, but I didn't leave him; it was he who loved me so much and then stated that he had another; someone who openly showed her joy and excitement for him.

What was I forced to admit?

Only that there is no, NO other reason to get married other than love and an overwhelming desire to be with this particular person.

Not friendship, not fun and good time together, not the same views on many issues, not that he is good man, not the encouragement of girlfriends and mothers - what are you waiting for! - should not be a reason to get married to a lifetime. Unfortunately, people only learn from their mistakes..."

Author of the article: LIENE PÄLĆA

Photo: LINDA LAUVA