Dear Agatha,
My question is this; what are the various ways of developing emotional stabilities, maturity needed for the sustainability of a successful relationship?
Knowing Man.
Dear Knowing Man,
The starting point of any successful relationship is to begin with your own self. Every person must first develop a self-relationship with him or herself before approaching or accepting a relationship from another person.
This is based on the old time rule that what you don’t have, you cannot give. If you don’t understand the basic fact that we all come with defects from the factory of the Almighty God, it would be difficult to understand and accommodate the shortcomings of another person. Each time we criticise anyone of making a mistake, we indirectly criticise our own faults because every mistake we notice in others are reflections of our imperfections.
Therefore for a relationship to prosper, we must learn to be very understanding and tolerant of each other. Rather than criticise mistakes in others, we should learn how to help the person improve on his or strong points since each of us also comes with a uniqueness hard to replicate in another person.
The secret of life and successful relationship is to take the extra time out to discover our mate’s strongest point. This takes devotion and understanding to achieve. Without a conscious effort to invest time and devotion to a relationship, nothing meaningful can be achieved overnight.
One must always put his or her mate’s feelings first before every other thing. This is not negotiable being in love is like living in our mate’s body. Since, we cannot ignore our own needs, feelings and comfort; so must we also prioritise the needs and interests of our mates at all times.
To achieve this, a strong two- way line of communication must be opened. Both parties must have access to discuss and dialogue with the other as freely as possible. A situation in which only one person does all the talking, and the other, all the listening, only serves to destroy a relationship because the one who is doing all the listening will either get tired and quit or withdraw into the shell expressing little or no interest in the relationship. When this occurs, it is the relationship or marriage that suffers depreciation.
Importantly, the couple should at all time premise their relationship on friendship founded on trust and loyalty. When a couple exposes a relationship to suspicions, nagging and undue stress, the relationship becomes foggy and consuming.
Whenever a confusing situation arises, it is essential both parties come together and discuss it as friends. Besides, when couples begin as lovers, it destroys their ability to think straight as well objectively. At the onset of a relationship sex is a liability rather than an asset. Sex only becomes an asset after marriage.
Furthermore, a sexless relationship allows the couple to build firmly on the vitals such as devotion to each other. It is from friendship that tolerance, care, loyalty, patience, sacrifice and forgiveness all come from. When a couple is able to tolerate each other and develop the patience needed to look beyond the physical attribute of each other to the special gift embedded inside the person, even when a disagreement occurs, that special thing makes it impossible for them to go their different ways because they each see in the other complementary qualities.
Being a man, you must also develop the ability to ignore and exercise restraints in dealing with a woman. Most women are given to action before thinking. A woman would have spoken her mind or opinion on something before she has the time to think of the implications of her action. A man who lacks maturity or the understanding to manage a woman will find himself constantly provoked into physical action by a woman’s attitude.
Being the head of the home, you should always bear in mind that most women have the ability to stir a man into anger within seconds hence for the sake of peace and healthy relationship must develop the necessary defence to ignore an angry or nagging woman.
One of such ways is simply to retire to bed, if you have the extra shock absorbers to fence off her verbal attack or to quietly leave the house until her anger abates. When a man is able to conquer the temper of a woman without lifting a finger against her, he wins for himself respect from her as well as instill some level of discipline in the affairs of his home.
Above all, both parties should learn to be respectful of their different positions and responsible for each other.
Good luck.
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