4 UAE-based couples reveal their secrets to a healthy relationship

4 UAE-based couples reveal their secrets to a healthy relationship

Love is a many-splendored thing. The strongest and most intense of all emotions, it can be a heady romance, sweeping lovers off their feet in its first flush, but over years it acquires a fine texture with compassion, understanding, respect. In the last three years since the start of the pandemic, couples who fell in love or married struggled harder than ever to preserve the quintessence of love, giving a whole new meaning to Valentine’s this year. We ask three couples what being in love and making their marriage work during one of the toughest times – the pandemic. Like-minded friends, a good sense of humour, shared cultural heritage and love for life, brought Saudi-American expatriate, Layla G and Syrian expatriate Molham B, together in Dubai five years ago. Layla, a yoga and meditation specialist, recalls: ‘We first met through a dating app towards the end of 2017 and initially we chatted with each other for some time until we felt comfortable to meet each other in January 2018.’ Sparks did fly among the two as the couple realised, they felt comfortable with each other. ‘We felt a very easy and natural connection with each other when we met for