What is the secret to a successful marriage? It’s an age-old question – but unfortunately not one with a “one-size-fits-all” answer. You could be the girl who ran away with the Brazilian poet or the boy who fell for the girl-next-door: each relationship is different and “success” is a relative term.
A good relationship is one that balances the demands and desires of two people’s lives – no easy feat – and with divorce rates rising, some might classify success as simply remaining married at all.
For Sheila*, who has been married to Michael for over thirty years, there is no magic solution for a good relationship: “A long and happy marriage? There is no secret, no guarantee. Every single couple is different – what works for one couple won’t work for another. The main thing is luck, loads of luck!”

Universal truths
Although each couple is unique, some aspects of a good relationship are universal, insists Yvonne Jacobson, of Dublin’s Marriage & Relationship Counselling Services. She says that respect is the most important ingredient to a successful marriage, “Love counts of course, but there will be times when you are angry, frustrated, or disappointed in your relationship. As long as you can continue to respect your partner as a person, you will get through these feelings.”
Yvonne points out that supporting your partner and having the ability to talk things through is essential, “So many things happen in our adult life time: changing jobs, buying or moving house, having children, coping with your own parents, illness – we need to adjust to each of these milestones both as individuals and as one half of the couple.”

Keep talking
Richard, who has been married to Mary for 35 years, agrees that communication is important, “We’re both talkers – we don’t go in for stony silences at all. We’ve never had a serious problem because we always talk to each other.”
Richard and Mary build an atmosphere of trust and support in their marriage by allowing each other to maintain their sense of independence. They often take separate holidays or follow different pursuits. “We have independent lives” explains Richard, “I love golf, she plays bridge; she loves sun holidays, I can’t stand them! I think maintaining independence is very important – for us at least.”
This atmosphere of trust and mutual respect extends to rejecting a “brownie-points system” as Richard calls it, “We have never operated a brownie-points system. I have a lot of friends who had an arrangement where, say, if he went off for a week to play golf, she would get a new outfit. That’s never the way we were. I think those relationships were weaker than ours.”

Take a partnership approach
Similarly, Sheila and Michael take joint responsibility for the household finances “Because we were students when we met, we always shared all our money from the beginning – and have ever since. We’ve had rows about everything, but never about money.”
Sheila thinks that frank communication is essential, “Marriage is hugely about compromise,” she says, “Compromise about careers, compromise about where to live, compromise about everything.”
But she reminds us that laughter is essential to a good marriage as well, “Having a sense of fun, a sense of humour, and a sense of adventure is really important to us.”
Richard is of the same mind, “Having a sense of humour is important; as a family we all enjoy a laugh. We all enjoy teasing and slagging each other!”

Have fun together
Yvonne, through her work with couples, has also seen that having fun together is a fundamental part of creating a solid marriage, “We needn’t share only the wide range of problems showered on us from day to day, but also the good news – the fun things that happen, the pleasant surprises we experience, so that our partners see both sides of life in us.”
While there may not be hard and fast rules about what makes a happy marriage, it seems everyone can agree that respect and communication create a good foundation, which will helps couple to overcome the problems life throws at them.
And remember; you might not be perfect, but you can still be perfect for each other.

* Interviewees did not want their full names used.