The following article is contributed by Miss Lee Yuet-yi of the Hong Kong Catholic Marriage Advisory Council for the Welfare Services Group of the Personnel and Staff Relations Branch. Whether marriage is Heaven or Hell depends totally on how a couple deals with the problems brought about by marriage. When those problems are handled properly, even Hell turns into Heaven! (The telephone number of the Council is 2810-1104)

Marriage is a path to happiness. It fills a courting couple with desire and expectation towards their world after marriage. Some people have compared marriage to "Heaven" or "Hell". This vast difference depends on whether a couple can work out their expectations and roles as well as to apply and adapt to them in their daily life.

The different backgrounds, in which a couple grows up, shape their different personalities, habits and expectation. It is difficult to seek common ground while reserving disparities, and to adjust the differences of a couple. In addition, according to many researches on marriage, the majority of people find the other party attractive as they can complement one another, and usually they would get married in the end. Now you can see that the differences of a couple are not what they can imagine when they fall head over heels in love. Two people with different backgrounds may bring about many new ideas and surprises to the other party, but conflicts and clashes may also arise out of this.

The daily life of Andy and Catherine (pseudonym) can help illustrate the "Heaven and Hell" theory of marriage.

Having married for less than three months, Andy and Catherine are a lively pair. Their pleasantries always make me laugh and fill the counselling room with joy.

Andy is a kidult full of wicked ideas in his mind, but it turns out that he loves Catherine who is a decent and orderly lady. Everyday after he wakes up, Andy will rack his brains to write Catherine a little note on how he loves her while she is sound asleep, and then hide it somewhere before going to work. This little trick of his does work! Now whenever Catherine opens her eyes in the morning, the very first thing she would do is to find this little note, which is full of Andy's love.

While I was listening to their vivid story of "treasure hunt" with great interest, they only left with me a casual remark, "This game makes me happy for a whole day!" Who knows this little remark shocks me a great deal as it reverberates like a thunder?

The reason is Andy and Catherine have demonstrated to me a vital code for a happy marriage: a couple should work hard everyday and stay close together to accumulate every drop of joy into a pool of happiness.

However, a happy marriage is never to be taken for granted. Since Andy and Catherine have very different personalities, they have encountered quite a number of disturbances during their post-marriage adaptation. On several occasions they did have fierce fights over minor things but both failed to see what the other was driving at.

When this little couple came to me, their purpose was not to boast the happiness of the "treasure hunt" but to ask me to have it out. I asked Catherine: "You want to be a good wife, but do you know Andy wants to be a good husband too?" Catherine looked puzzled. I explained, referring to a Chinese saying: "A man happens to be a husband just when he stays close to his wife." The couple smiled, signifying their agreement. In the days following, they tried to adjust themselves and tolerated each other. Andy also helped Catherine with household chore.

While the life of a newly wedded couple is mainly about adaptation to new roles, it is important for a couple to be honest with each other's expectation and work out how to get along in a way that both feel comfortable with. If consensus cannot be reached even after a great deal of discussion, it is pointless to blame the other party for being inconsiderate. The best way to overcome this is to take your spouse's goodwill into consideration and accept his or her uniqueness by laughing it off. There is a saying that laughing can get rid of all anxiety, and Hell will turn to Heaven!

(PS & SR Branch Welfare Services Group)