There was this relationship coach. She was very beautiful, friendly and highly resourceful. Her profound advice and rich experience in counseling couples helped save countless marriages. She guided many young people in making wise choices about their life partners, contributing immensely to their happiness and productivity in life. She has conducted surveys, written books, given talk shows and is an inspiration to many.

One day we woke up to news of her divorce with her longtime husband.

What went wrong?

That kept me wondering… Even the experts sometimes struggle to keep their marriages together.

Many keys open the door to marital success. But the door doesn’t remain open for long. For some strange reasons, the door shuts again all by itself. The key has to be used again.

This process happens so many times that, the key loses its effectiveness from overuse.

A forgiving heart, respect and unconditional love are some of the keys to marital happiness and success. But how long can a forgiving heart continue to be tested? How effective is respect if it isn’t mutual? In the course of time, when unconditional love is overly stretched, even “un” is torn off the word “unconditional”.

Since one key easily loses its effectiveness from abuse, it makes sense to create duplicates of a key and give the new keys different labels: Perseverance, Patience, Persistence.

But considering the world in which we find ourselves today and its concepts of how a love relationship should look like, can one hold these set of keys for long, without losing them together with one’s sanity?

Marriage is a delicate thing. Isn’t it amazing that we use it daily for years and still expect it to remain intact, unbroken, fresh ?