Happy Marriage is Not an Oxymoron
For a lot of people the term "happy marriage" has become an oxymoron. Even when I was a kid, we were listening to jokes on TV that made marriage seem like a battlefield instead of a refuge of peace in a battlefield world. The truth of the matter is that ignorance reigned. While studies were being done on everything from tooth aches in chimpanzees to the fiber content of carrots, the institution of marriage was left to philosophers, romantics and jokesters to figure out.
Happy marriage is not an oxymoron. It is a reality for those who understand how it is constructed and what all those little knobs are for. If I asked you to pilot an airplane you might insist that you don't know how to fly. Nobody has ever showed you how. Well, believe it or not it is more difficult to learn how to fly a plane than to be married. It is insane to get married without knowing "how," or what it is all about. If you learn about how to behave within a marriage, and how not to behave, your marriage will be happy.
It is a mistake to think you have to work in a marriage; you don't. You just have to know how it works. If you twist the lid of the jar in the wrong direction it will tighten when you want it to loosen. Once you know which direction does what, you won't have to strain again. Learn the rules and principles of marriage. That's all it takes, I promise. But do you really need my promise? Isn't it so obvious? Yes it is!
