What's the secret of wedded bliss?

For some people, the key to their love lives is the old adage "opposites attract." But the relationship gurus Jennifer Wolcott asked for advice on choosing the right marriage partner (see story at right) say that compatibility may be a better yardstick.

My husband and I have been married more years than we were single. But when asked the secret of our happiness together, we don't have any great wisdom to impart.

On the surface, our union may not seem too promising: He loves to play golf; I can't figure out the attraction of hitting a tiny white ball for hours. I have my nose in a book all the time; he's tuned in to CNN and MSNBC. Yet, we agree on the things that matter most to us, and it has worked out – year after year.

So I was particularly interested to see if the keys to a happy union could be boiled down to a few rules. As we discussed the 29 "dimensions" listed on page 12, I felt Neil Warren was onto something, and my husband wasn't so sure that's all there is to it.

We agreed that it would be easy to "fudge" the answers to the questions on page 13 – even if you weren't trying to. How many marriages have encountered rough sailing because religion wasn't a big deal in the beginning but gained increasing importance when it came time to send the children to Sunday School?

That led to our big question: After careful deliberation, you decide that this is the right person, you get married, and then what? Both of you change – many times over the years. How does your marriage successfully change to accommodate new viewpoints? Dr. Warren might say that the answer is adaptability. Is there more to it than that? Maybe that should be the topic of a future Homefront story.