Always remember that the most important thing in a good marriage

In the solemn and wise words of Gabriel García Márquez, the great chronicler of human hearts, we are told: “Always remember that the most important thing in a good marriage is not happiness, but stability.” This saying, born of a man who understood both love’s fire and its long endurance, carries the weight of ancient truth. For the ancients too knew that passion burns bright, but stability endures. Happiness, like the wind, changes with the season—but stability is the mountain that shelters all beneath its shadow.

In the age of Márquez, as in ours, many chase happiness like a butterfly—fragile, fleeting, always just beyond reach. But the wise understand that love, when bound in the sacred covenant of marriage, must be built not upon the shifting sands of emotion, but upon the solid rock of commitment. Happiness is a visitor; stability is a home. And a home cannot stand if it trembles with every storm of feeling. The heart must learn not only to burn, but to endure—to love not only in laughter, but also in silence, in weariness, and in the long seasons of uncertainty.

The origin of Márquez’s truth lies in his own deep observation of human life. Born in Colombia, amidst the turbulence of love and war, he saw that the strongest unions were not the ones that glittered with joy, but those that held fast through hardship. His novels speak of loves that span lifetimes—tested by separation, by loss, by the long and patient waiting of the soul. In “Love in the Time of Cholera,” he gave us Florentino and Fermina—two souls bound not by constant happiness, but by the quiet, unyielding thread of endurance. Their stability was their triumph, for even when life scattered them to the winds, they remained tethered by time and choice.

Let us remember too the ancient story of Odysseus and Penelope. For twenty years, they were parted—he across the seas, she in the silence of her hall. Happiness was a rare guest in those years; sorrow and loneliness were constant. Yet Penelope’s faith did not waver, nor did Odysseus forget his way home. Their marriage endured because it was rooted in stability—in loyalty, patience, and unbreakable will. When he at last returned, it was not passion alone that reunited them, but the steadfastness of two hearts that had refused to drift apart.

To build a stable marriage is to understand that love is both a garden and a fortress. There are days of bloom and days of drought. There are times when the walls must be rebuilt stone by stone, when forgiveness becomes the mortar that holds them together. Those who seek only happiness will flee at the first frost, but those who seek stability will plant roots deep enough to survive every season. Márquez, in his quiet wisdom, reminds us that love matures not by constant pleasure, but by constancy itself.

Stability does not mean stagnation, nor does it silence joy. It is the soil from which true joy can grow. A marriage built upon stability gives room for both laughter and sorrow, for dreams and disappointments. It allows two souls to change without losing each other. It is not the eternal flame of youth, but the slow, steady fire that warms through winter’s cold. The ancients called this fidelity—the sacred balance of heart and duty, of passion and perseverance.

So let this be your lesson, seekers of enduring love: do not chase happiness as the measure of your bond. It is a bright and lovely thing, but it is not the foundation. Seek instead stability, for in it lies peace, trust, and endurance. When the storms come—and they shall—let your roots hold firm. Speak kindly, forgive often, and remember that love is not proven by its pleasures, but by its persistence.

And in the end, when years have softened your faces and time has tested your vows, you will look upon each other and know: happiness has come and gone a thousand times, but stability has remained. And in that unbroken steadiness, in that quiet loyalty, lies the truest and most lasting happiness of all.