Making the pieces fit together

What makes one marriage last and another end as quickly as it started? Marriages in many ways have become throw away commodities. Where divorce was once a dirty word and almost unheard of, these days it's more common and I wonder if sometimes people give up too easy.

The media is full of stories about celebrities who are not the most shining examples of the sanctity of marriage when they drift in and out of numerous marriages with all their dirty laundry on show for the public.

I'm learning with this blogging caper that I also need to be really clear in what I'm saying to ensure I don't send the wrong message, so let me add at this point that not all marriages are worth fighting for. Physical and emotional abuse are not worth enduring and in this case walking away can be the only solution.

My husband and I are both very stubborn people, we fight, we argue and we make up. We've been together 18 years which is almost half my life - gees when I say it like that it's a really, really long time. He frustrates the hell out of me sometimes and I have moments when I want to throttle him. At the same time I know that I can be really annoying and stubborn and pig headed as well. Don't I sound a treat to live with?

I guess I'm not entirely sure why some marriages work and why some don't. I think that when the shiny newness of a relationship wears off you've got to have similar goals and values to get you through the tough times. Tough times are a fact of life, they will happen and they can destroy even the most rock solid relationship.

The one thing that I've discovered through the years is that respect for one another is essential, as well as a balance of give and take. There's lots of things that can make or break a relationship and forgetting that you need to contribute to the relationship be it a year old or thirty years old must be the greatest mistake that people make.

My hubby has his faults and for the most part I can live with them (or ignore them) as I'm sure he has learnt to live with and / or accept my faults. Nobody is perfect and I believe we all have someone out there who is the other half of us.

I think relationships are a bit like jigsaw pieces, sometimes you think the pieces fit together until you find a piece that fits even better. Some of us choose the right jigsaw piece first time up and some of us spend a lot of time trying to make the wrong pieces fit together.

Cheers, Fi

We fit together so well...it's like pieces of a puzzle, the way your hand fits the curve of my hip and the way my head rests on your shoulder, the way our hands just melt into one, and the way I feel complete when I'm with you...like the picture's finally completed and I'll never have to wonder what I'm missing