Excerpt

If you believe that a marital union is supposed to roll along in dreamy perfection all the time, you are fooling yourself.. There may be times when youll wonder why you got yourself into this institution called marriage in the first place. Then the next thing you know, something very beautiful happens in your lives and youll wonder how you ever did without marriage.

Thats the way it goes.

Every marital union, like any other union between two individuals will have their ups and downs. This is to be expected. If you have led yourself, or if someone else has led you to believe that there are no disagreements, no tears or other stuff like that in a good marital relationship, you are guilty of unrealistic expectations, banana breath.

How many of you have witnessed a bad marriage relationship and swore not to let this happen to your marriage? How do you propose to prevent it? You certainly cant do it without your mates participation. To think that you alone can make it work is a mere pipe dream.

One young lady was on the phone almost every day for weeks after the vows, crying because He didnt like my spaghetti sauce. or he scolded me for this or He got upset for that The poor girl was becoming a nervous wreck over what mature persons consider trite, every day normal stuff. Finally, when she told mama, I dont think our marriage is going to work Mama did what she neglected to do before her daughter got hitched. She got with her and helped her to understand the true facts of life concerning human relations versus marital relations. This talk altered the girls perfumed concepts of marriage and conditions improved tremendously for her.

Things can be moving along as smooth as a fine tuned engine in your marriage and suddenly, situations may occur that are bound to try you and your mate to the breaking point - to test the strength of your marital bond. If you, in your infinite wisdom are prepared to deal sensibly with the situation, i.e., identify the problem, analyze the problem and seek and adopt a workable solution, this is a positive sign of realistic expectations. You were aware at the right time that things may go wrong, even in a good marriage. You were not blinded by unrealistic expectations.

Good for you.

However, if you have harbored the idea that this wont happen to us, it says that you may be less qualified to deal effectively with the low, or negative points in your relationship.

It is not my intent to cause you undue alarm. You must be aware though, that it is unrealistic to assume that nothing can go wrong in your marital union - that things will always be silky-smooth. It is not what goes wrong that makes or breaks the success of your marital union. It is more how prepared you are to handle the situation when and if you are faced with it.

I sincerely hope that the information herein will in some way help to prepare you and yours for any such eventualities.

TALK ABOUT LOGIC
These small town newlyweds had just moved into their new home located in a middle-weight metropolis. The bride decided to drop mama a line to say, all is well. She wrote the letter, addressed and stamped it and placed it outside for the mailman.

The mailman looked at the return address and saw that it had been written completely backward, thusly:

Hicks Dumb Mrs. & Mr.
Street Elm 141
33419 GA Moron

The mailman wrote in pencil on the envelope, return address is incorrect. and left the letter.

The groom came home from the first day on his new job and retrieved the letter with the backward return address. Entering the house, he found his beautiful but simple bride at the stove happily boiling water.

Honey, he inquired, why did you write the return address backward on this letter?

Dont you know nothin? she countered. If the letter has to be returned, the return address would be forward because the forward address going the other way is going forward. Therefore, the return address going the opposite way would automatically be going forward. Geez whiz...Do you have a lot to learn

Oh, I get it! said the groom jubilantly after a moment of strained reflection. The forward address is forward when the letter goes forward. But the return address, which is backward when the letter goes forward, is forward when the letter comes the other way

You figured that out all by yourself, didnt you? she said with mock disbelief.

I sure did. replied the groom proudly. Boy, they got some dumb mailman in this town. Tsktsktsk.

Chucklechuckle.