What Makes A Good Marriage?

Dear Readers,

Today, we aren’t going to treat any particular letter. Monday being my birthday, I decided to do something unusual, go into our clinic to discuss one common problem couples and singles have kept asking. A problem I cannot address comprehensively if responding to one of your letters. It is a problem causing many marriages severe aches and sometimes resulting in amputations or deaths.

It is an issue which is making many wonder at the merits of getting married or the reason for marriage itself generally.

Some have said it is only for baby making, this they can do without putting up with the associated complications marriages bring.

But is marriage only for baby manufacturing? What makes a good marriage? Why is the institution facing so many problems at a time?

Too late couples realise the wrong choices they made; wrong decisions they took and things they ignored when they still had time to make amends.

The morning after is the time of reality; when couples wake to behold the face of the stranger they have decided to spend the rest of their lives with. This wonderment soon transforms to severe irritations, disappointments as well as deep-rooted regrets, which if not properly managed could lead to the collapse of the union.

But how does something so wonderful at the beginning end up being so bad? How do people who once vowed to love each other till death part them end up being such bitter enemies?

So many factors come to play in the making of a good marriage. But first let us go back to the origin of marriage. What did God intend to achieve with it and what has gone wrong with His plan?

What has brought so much pains and confusion to a partnership that was designed at creation to bring so much joy and fulfilment to the human race?

God, in the Garden of Eden after creating Adam realised he needed a companion, a helpmate, someone to share his space and drive away the loneliness from his life.

In His wisdom, He took a rib from one of Adam’s to create him a helpmate—the bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh.

So why didn’t He simply form Eve from earth like He did Adam? The essence of this is to remind the woman of her place in a man’s life and the man, to always offer protection and care to the woman. And the fact that once the decision is made to become one, there is no going back because the bone removed from a man’s ribs cannot be put back, so also the blood that has come together cannot be separated.

Unfortunately, a lot of couples are oblivious of this. Women most especially forget that when they leave their parents’ home for their husband’s, new ways must give way to old ways.

Many things couples complain about in marriage actually started manifesting long before they took their vows; goes back to the time before they met.

How many young men and women prepare for the institution right from the time they start becoming aware of their bodies? How many youths actually study marriage like a compulsory subject; one that has the power to define who they become in future?

How many of us see the marriage institution as one we must do well in to make it in life? Important to what we become in life?

To address some of the problems couples have in marriage, young men and women must begin early to plan for their marriages long before they meet their partners. This stage entails that they have a real imagination, not the storybook idealism so many young ladies nurse. It entails being able to recognise from the beginning the potentials as well as the possibility of ending in marriage. This would save a lot of couples the headache of wrong choices as well as the characteristic regrets that come with it.

It would also help couples know what to focus on when they are having a relationship.

The success of marriage begins from the very first day a couple decides to date. This help to stabilize the couple as they deal with the politics of the early days of marriage, of combining families as well as their different schedules. These are must challenges which when combined with the task of self-discovery would be too much for a couple to handle without tempers flying and the use of unpardonable words.

Because marriage is more of who we are in the inside than what we look like on the outside, a lot of time is needed by any young man or woman to think of the sort of person that has the ability to bring out the best in him or her.

Just like we prepare for our studies and job interviews, young persons must learn to prepare for this institution they never graduate from.

Marriage requires understanding from both parties to survive difficult times. So the first quality is understanding. When a marriage has understanding partnership, most issues become easier to manage. Lack of understanding is the bane of most marriage because it breeds suspicion and disloyalty. When a woman understands the nature of her husband and the man his wife, nothing anybody says would cause problem between them. It makes it easier for them to second guess each other perfectly and know when an issue should not be brought up or reasons for certain actions without the explanation from the other party.

It makes the wife most especially able to handle the issue of infidelity. If when it happens, this understanding makes it possible for her to forgive.

With understanding comes unconditional friendship. To be friend with someone, you have to understand the person’s shortcomings. A knowledge of a person’s shortcomings makes it easier to make the necessary adjustments in favour of the friendship.

When couples learn to become friends, forgiveness comes easily and issues become easier to resolve. Unfortunately, many couples play up the issues of sex and love, refusing to appreciate that good sex can only happen when a couple functions in an atmosphere of pure friendship and understanding. Love also cannot happen without mutual respect, a solid by product of friendship.

Love is living oneself in another’s body. Love is taking in the complete essence of another person without complains, suspicions, impatience as well as tolerance.

Therefore, for love to happen, plenty of selfless sacrifices have to have taken place because love always demands of us something very precious. But because most people have succeeded in juxtaposing sexual feelings for the real thing, marriages are increasingly being burdened with issues it has no business dealing with. This is why more and more couples are finding it difficult to find their equilibriums and couples going their different ways.

What is love and what is sex? Are they one and the same? What is the place of sex and what is the significance of love? What is the difference between having sex and making love?

Sex is the animalistic urge we all feel. It comes so strongly and sated by mating with any available person. It has no feeling, promises, niceties, responsibilities, tenderness, respect, friendship, consideration, companionship and co-operation love envelops. Sex can happen with anybody.

Love is however the quintessence of everything that makes man special and different from all other animals. It is deep, thoughtful, an act, comes with all the features sex has not. It is a complete package that comes from the soul, something very rare which can only happen between a couple that are very good friends, understand what they are doing and have respect for each other. These are the conditions for quality lovemaking, the type God intended for man and woman can happen. When a man and woman come together in the dance of flesh, it is not only to satisfy an animalistic urge, have babies but also to renew the vow they took to cherish and love each other till date.

But the issue is how many couples have this, a thorough knowledge of what love means; deliberately set out to have it?

For a marriage to succeed this clear distinction has to be made; dating couples should invest time to study their different values as well as develop a rare type of respect that makes friendship possible.

When premature sex gets into the way, it makes unbiased assessment impossible because feelings that should not be placed get given pride of places. The end result is the disappointment that has made marriage more of a battlefield rather than a partnership of loving emotions.

From the very beginning couples should learn to patent their relationships to favor them and not attempt to live their lives through another man’s dreams.

Next week, we would discuss the specific duties of the man and woman to each other.

Good luck.