What makes a marriage work?

I ask my mum and dad one day why their marriage worked but close relatives' marriage didn't. My mum asked me why I thought their's works while others didn't. At that I paused.

I couldn't say that it was just a gut feeling (even though that was part of the reason), she wouldn't except that. So I decided to say the other half of my reason. The other close couples didn't like each other. So she asked 'How do you know your father and I like each other?' To which I replied with a family joke. She knew what I meant.

Then what I said got me thinking (I want to add that it got her thinking too!). How the heck does a marriage work? There's a whole load of 'couples' that I know who don't have a good marriage. They weigh more than that of the real couples.

My mum said that if I were to ask her this when she and my dad were fighting, they'd both say the hate the marriage.

For a long time, when I was a smaller fry than now, My dad always said that in a fight, especially in a marriage, the one who is right, goes and apologises becaused the one who's wrong most of the time just doesn't have the face to do it.

But is it really that easy I always wondered (knowing my dad it'd probably be anything but easy).

My goodness this is kinda boring....

I think that the secret of marriage is a secret that can only be known to the couples that actually love each other, and is not for the people who aren't married.

:)