Saturday, November 28, 2009

Place Of Man, Woman In Marriage (2)


The
first part of this series appeared last week.



A lot of time the mistake comes from the inability of a couple to isolate a problem and deal with it as it arises. Often times, an issue that should have been treated and deleted is left to linger until it becomes monstrous and consuming.


One of the cardinal rules about marriage is never to let an issue that is causing problems linger on for long. The danger of doing so cannot be overemphasised. The human mind has a way of storing up unresolved sentiments till it becomes a major thing that gives little or no room for reason to prevail.

Since couples come from different backgrounds, ideals, attitudes, characters and sometimes opinions on how to handle a particular issue, couples should at all times strive for thorough understanding of their backgrounds before attempting to resolve an issue of sharp difference. This is to avoid complicating what should ordinarily be a simple matter of saying sorry.

This must start not after the wedding but before it. As a matter of fact, the process of infusing understanding into a relationship must begin from the very wee hours of a couple’s meeting. It is necessary because without a sound understanding of the things that make each member of the partnership different, as the days go by, it would become increasingly difficult for both parties to operate a fair and balanced relationship, one devoid of suspicions of the motive of the other person.

Of all the ingredients needed to make marriage work, understanding remains the most important. A couple could be very much in love but if the concomitant commitment to fully understand the nature of the other person is missing, overtime the relationship begins to drag as a result of unnecessary and unresolved issues that are left to spill over.

Knowing the nature of one’s partner makes it easy to manage whatever the journey of marriage throws at a couple. It makes it easy for forgiveness to be offered and accepted without grudge, sacrifices to be made without feeling cheated, tolerance to be cultivated, support easier to give, pains and disappointment easier to manage and true friendship to develop.

When a couple understands each other, things that bring about tension in marriages would not be so important. It would be easier for the woman to accept that her in-laws are an integral part of her husband and would not pick quarrel when issues of differences come. This is because it would be easier for her to recognise the same traits she finds offensive in her in-laws in her husband, understand and make the necessary adjustments she has learnt to make in the case of her husband.

This is something love without understanding cannot achieve. But when we understand that the nature of man is imperfect and that those differences we complain in others simply mirror the imperfection in ourselves as well as those we love dearly, we would learn to complain less about the same weaknesses in those around us.

Understanding makes it easier for couples to appreciate the sacrifices the other person is making to accommodate his or her excesses.

Like all the other good things of life, it is something a couple must work towards achieving right from the nascent days of the relationship. Unlike attraction, which happens on its own, understanding is that aspect of a relationship that demands working towards. It is the shell or bone that gives the animal its frame. It is why some relationships can withstand anything thrown at them while others simply collapse like a pack of cards.

So how does a couple go about achieving the perfect understanding?

My usual response to this question whenever I get asked is for the couple to be clear from the beginning about their focus in life as well as their expectations. Mothers, especially, should from the early years of their daughters’ lives begin to give them the lectures that will help them make the right choice of a man. Yes, money is important to the survival of any marriage but not as important as having the right kind of man to share the journey of life with.

When a girl bases her choice of a life partner on money, materialism, connection and outward appearances, the chances of a relationship based on these choices standing the text of time becomes doubtful because when on realises these are things that can disappear just as they appear. For instance, life has taught experienced minds that money, material possessions and connections are transient visitors that come and go when they like. And any relationship courted on the strength of the man or woman’s physical appearance hardly lasts more than the first few years because age will always come to demand of its ransom of our bodies and features. Unless one is prepared to go under the knife from time to time to keep the effects of age at bay, infidelity is what terminates such a relationship.

Unless modern mothers go back to the ways of our grandmothers to teach their daughters and sons that there is still no substitute for character, which breeds inner beauty; loan them the benefit of their experience to seek for the person behind the mask, the marriage institution may never be able to reclaim its lost glory.

This is because many young men and women are entering into the institution ill prepared for the challenges ahead. While young women think good sex is all they need to keep marriage going, men think once they have the right car, enough money to throw around they can have any woman for keeps. By the time they realise that it takes a lot more for a couple to keep the engine wheel of marriage well lubricated it is too late for them to make the necessary adjustment needed to salvage the situation.

Young couples must have the benefit of learning from their own parents that marriage isn’t a bed of roses as they seem to think; that behind the issues of desire to satisfy one of God’s requirements for us are struggles and hard choices.

When youths are made to appreciate that the beautiful pattern they see in marriages are products of painful sacrifices as well as acting stupid most times for the sake of peace. And that these come from a deep understanding that God never promised us a problem-free world but only His grace to see us through issues He knows would always come up when two strangers come to live together, the quality of reasoning that would go into the choice of a life partner would be a lot deeper than what we have now.

The time has come for parents, society, the church and every well-meaning adult to stop playing the orchids and come out boldly to discuss the issue of relationship and marriage in details.

The world has gone beyond issuing decrees to children on what they must not do and when they must marry. They should be armed with information; the internet and their friends cannot give them on why certain things change immediately between a woman and man during marriage. They must be prepared for the bitterness as well as the sweetness of marriage to protect the only institution that has survived the beginning of mankind.

Parents must learn when to let go and give the couples time to bond, make their mistakes and form a workable pattern for their marriage. When mothers prepare their children before marriage, they won’t have to cope with the insults of their daughters-in-law as their sons would have been well prepared for the journey of their lives.

Clerics too should begin to take interest in relationships and marriages more than they currently do. All the taboos they have placed on subjects of relationships must be done away with if we are all serious about helping the youths make the right choice. We must move away from rigidity to liberalism in our attitude to the subject to draw the confidence of the youths to confide in us their fears, anxieties, ignorance and all the other things they want to discuss with us.

As adults no matter what we feel about certain things about their lifestyles, we must always be available to give them the benefit of our experiences to protect this institution from losing relevance going by the way the consequences of wrong choices are destroying it. They must be taught to recognise the differences between, love, lust, likeness and flirtatious feelings. Having taken the road before them, we are in the best position to help them whether they like it or not.

Good luck.