Secrets to a successful marriage? Read on.

There came a moment some 28 years into my marriage when I realized no one ever prepared me for living with another human being, in close quarters, for an open-ended amount of time. Naïve, you say? No, as a marriage veteran, I realized that it's a solid gold, mind-blowing miracle when a marriage lasts. No one is prepared for the challenges of the long haul. No one is counseled properly. No one can know what to expect.

The reason marriages fail in such stunning numbers is that the two people who amble down the aisle, exchange civil vows or do the hokey pokey on a beach somewhere have nothing in common with the two middle-aged people who juggle jobs, kids and pancakes after getting no sleep because the washing machine overflowed and the fire alarm went off.

I researched premarital counseling services and decided to compare the commonly held wisdom with what my married friends think are the really critical issues in committed relationships.

According to www.marriage.suite101.com, before getting married, couples should seriously consider whether they have mutual interests and enjoy the same activities, what each partner's expectation is of the other, how well adjusted each partner is, how well he or she or he and he or she and she communicate, how important religion is, what each expects from the marriage, what kind of relationship each wants with their parents, whether the couple wants children, how they would raise them, and how each partner handles money.

Sounds very reasonable, doesn't it? My husband and I didn't do premarital counseling, but I would have to say that the answers to the above questions would have been meaningless for us -- or, more directly, would have been totally irrelevant. At 21, I thought I wanted to be "taken care of." I didn't expect to work outside the home for more than a token couple of years. We thought we agreed on how to handle money. Hah. We both liked playing softball. Hah. We imagined decades together of wild love and general carousing. I won't say "hah," but I will say that carousing takes a back seat to other interests, like wiping up baby poop and getting just 20 minutes more sleep.