To Be A Good Wife

Dear Readers,

As promised we continue our discussion on the marriage institution this week.

Why does something so beautiful turn out to be so ugly as the years roll by? Why do we end up with more tears and pains than the joy we started with at the end of the day?

The answer is simple. Many times, when making the all-important choice of a partner, we limit our reasons to the immediate forgetting that the success of marriage depends more on the future.

Only a few men and women bother to look beyond the physical attributes of their partners to be. Women especially forget that it takes more than mere looks to keep a man’s interest in his home and marriage.

Women being the bedrock of their homes should wake up the cold fact that it takes more than a pretty face and sexy body to make a marriage work. It takes God’s wisdom and plenty of lessons in tolerance to turn a bad situation around.

The lessons don’t begin when a lady gets married, no; it goes back to when she is still young and in her mother’s house. Women both old and young need to refocus on their roles to make the institution work.

The era of pretences should stop. We should acknowledge once and for all that irrespective of whatever other dreams we nurse, the inordinate ambition of every woman is to end up being married. It is a thirst, which at one point in our life would never be assuaged by any means but meeting and ending up with a man of our own.

This is why some women become desperate and do all sorts of things to get hooked.

When women learn to stop playing games, the issue of working to make a marriage work would become a more serious subject in the everyday syllabus of women generally.

The fact that a woman drops her maiden name for the name of her husband means that God didn’t create man and woman to be equals so every woman should know from day one what her roles would be as a married woman.

Two captains cannot man a boat. One has to be the head while the other is a co-pilot to make things work. The marriage has the man as the head while the woman functions as the co-pilot. Her role is to provide a loyal support base to her husband. Give protection from the outside world through well thought out ideas and suggestions. Even if better than her man, never must this fact be obvious to anybody, not even the children. A good woman would do everything to protect the image, dignity and progress of her man even at her own expense. She should never maltreat her man, advertise his weaknesses to the outside world or tell anybody about his faults.

Unmasking her man in public encourages outside interference, which ultimately destroys the home. 

Men by nature are arrogant and very egoistic. So a woman in a higher position of authority than her husband must device ways to ensure the man doesn’t feel insulted by her offers to help. She has to take quality time out to study the man, know how he likes certain things done, what he feels most comfortable with so as to know how to package her offers while still making him appear to be in charge. When a woman is brash and rude in her ambiance, the tendency is for the man to begin to make up stories in his imagination about another man performing the roles he should be playing in the life of his woman.

When the man becomes suspicious, nothing the woman says makes sense anymore. He becomes violent, unreasonable and threatened. He begins to complain about almost everything and then he goes out to look for a woman who would make him feel like the man he is.

So, a woman must always have the right attitude in her marriage to make things work. A lot of things, sometimes very minor, could threaten the pride of a man or instigate his suspicion.

The right attitude constitutes showing absolute respect even when the man is misbehaving, learning to be humble and adopting a tireless patience. Yes, these things are very difficult especially when the accusations are baseless and the attitude of the man is uncalled for, but marital wisdom demands it of every woman because right from the beginning of creation, God invested the running of the home in her hands.

Besides, with the right attitude, a woman can get her man to do almost anything without him even realising it. Men by nature are babies who constantly need quality attention. The woman who plays her role of mothering them effectively earns the gold trophy of their heart and affection. She should at every point anticipate her husband’s needs as well as challenges even before he voices them.

To be a good wife, the young lady going into marriage must be ready to play the role of mother in addition to being a wife. To have next to the fairy tale happily ever after, a woman must be ready to make the necessary sacrifices from the beginning of her relationship with the man. Marriage is not idealism, it is not a dream so women should stop daydreaming and learn to focus on real issues. 

Most often than not, not only do women go into marriage with a set of ideals that are very far from reality but also insist on implementing these unworkable ideals to the detriment of the institution. When goal posts get changed at will, it causes a major disconcertment within the marriage, which in the long run could lead to a couple going their separate ways.

Therefore, a woman from the beginning must learn how to patent her marriage to suit the peculiarity of her husband’s personality.

To achieve this, a wise woman must from the very day she meets her man, begin a detailed study into his life, desires and dreams. She must make it her business to study her man like a good student a book so as to know what she is up against. The idea most women have of trying to change their men overnight is one of the high reasons marriages are collapsing day in day out.

No man can be changed with force or tricks. Change comes when respect is demonstrated. So, a woman must never marry a man, no matter how desperate, she knows from the onset has habits or attitudes she isn’t comfortable with. This also goes for men. Any habit a man or woman refuses to drop during courtship cannot be stopped during marriage.

So, every man or woman contemplating marriage must be honest and realistic about what he or she wants, what they would do as well as accept the differences in their attitude.

Couples must be willing to accommodate those things that cannot be changed about their spouses. It is what gives marriage its strength and character. We must strive first to achieve an individuality that makes it easy for us to bend to the will of our partners without the feeling of being forced to.

This principle draws strength from the character of our children. Because a particular child is difficult doesn’t make the child less of our own. When a couple is determined to succeed, learn to focus realistically, the friendship and maturity to deal with issues, differences in their character would only serve to strengthen the union instead of destroying it.

For any marriage to work, it is more than having children. When couples are unable to find the lyrics that best suit them, the one they understand, the blessing of children alone cannot make them stay together.

Even when the man is caught pants down with another woman, with the right understanding, such matters can be handled with the maturity it deserves without tearing the family apart. It requires an agenda of absolute reality in a business involving emotions to make it work.

Mutual respect is priceless. For a man to get the respect of his woman, he has to learn to be responsible. Responsibility entails providing for the family. A man doesn’t have to be rich to do this. Even when the woman is the breadwinner, responsibility is also about giving moral support to the woman and helping her in her roles as breadwinner and mother.

When a man puts pride aside, some of the issues that look so difficult would become easier to solve.

Both parties must work at achieving an understanding, which in difficult times work to save the union from needless struggles and pains.

Importantly, couples must learn to keep their families at bay. When men give their mothers and family members too much power and say in the running of their homes, anarchy is what they get at the end of the day. The tricky nature of women makes it impossible for two women irrespective of their different roles in the life of a man cooperate to help the man achieve peace in his life. So, a man should ensure he and not his mother is in charge of his home.

Above all, couples must never fail to pray always and give the reign of headship of the home to God.

Good luck.