We search endlessly for that perfect "soul" mate, our "true love" that we can spend the rest of our lives with, have children, raise a family, grow old, etc. We are tired of the "dating" scene, we want to settle down and get married. However, once we do, we realize that it is not all that it is "cracked" up to be. You call you mother and say..."Hey, how come you never told me that marriage was this hard?"

The current popularity of chick flicks, reality TV dating shows, books, and courses all portray dating and finding that right certain someone is an emotional roller coaster and soul searching journey. Once you have proclaimed your love, so to speak, you have fulfilled this destiny and will live in eternal marital bliss....Realistically, the day you get married is only the beginning of figuring how to keep two different people -- no matter how well-suited -- living and growing together for the next 50 years. It is the beginning of toilet seats being left up, the cap on the toothpaste being left off, the pile of shoes at the door, and the dispersing of household chores and allowances starts all over again.

And, this is all pre-children. Once you have children, all of these issues and MORE pop up in your marriage. Your workload doubles. Of course, you will glean advice from your other friends and family. Advice such as; never go to bed angry, communicate, and compromise. But these are tools (albeit good ones). They don't get at some very basic truths: You Will Not Always Like -- Let Alone Feel Loving Toward -- Your Spouse. We all know couples who say they were born to be together. But more often than not, successful relationships are created by two willing and able individuals who have enough commonalities and chemistry to try to make a go of it. That means your spouse does not have 100 percent of the qualities on your mental checklist.

I learned early on that my husba

nd and I were completely different in so many ways, and yet we were very much in love! There were so many times that I did not like him anymore, and I wondered what I saw in him in the first place. Once we had our girls, this fleeting thought became a constant theme at times in our marriage. I would get so frustrated, as did he. Although we are still married today, we constantly have to work at it. I still have days where I question my sanity and HIS. It is on these days that his less than "exceptional" qualities grate on my every last nerve more prominently than others. That's okay. Because I finally deduced that it is not realistic to think that two wholly separate people -- regardless of how well-matched they are -- are going to think alike and get along every day of the remainder of their married life together. Hormones get out of whack. There are bad days at work. Daily life becomes cumbersome. Just be aware that the positive days outweigh the negative.

My husband and I like to look at our marriage as a business relationship. It is something that has to be taken seriously, managed, and goals have to be set and reset all the time. It is not always about love, romance, passion, and yes "sex", it is about respect, individuality, and friendship. We live in an ever changing society, nothing is constant and neither is your marriage. You have to be able to adjust and make changes with your spouse. As long as you both have the same mission statement, then you will both end up on the same side most of the time.

Copyright 2005

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