Let’s talk about true love in colours

With Auntie Agatha, gataedo@yahoo.com, agatha.edo@gmail.com,Tel: 08054500626


Dear Readers,
Today is Valentine’s Day; that special day in the year when lovers, both old and young, come together to celebrate love.
It is the one day in the year when the chemistry of love overflows its border. Regrettably too, it is also that time of the year when many young girls especially end up with painful memories or unwanted babies. In place of love, many people both young and old now see it as one day to throw caution into the winds and give nature right of way to do as it pleases.
Since becoming a popular celebration in the country, a lot of misconceptions and wrong ideas have been wrapped into the celebration. These days, both young and old men hide under the euphoria of the chemistry of the day to do whatever they like without thinking of the repercussion.
Usually at this time of the year, we hold our annual “Just Before Valentine” seminar. But we are unable to organise the programme this year due to the nationwide strike in the month of January.
However, we will discuss some issues that came up at last year’s conference today on this page.
One question the majority of participants asked was the colour of true love.
The subject matter of love remains as confusing as ever. Every age has had to grapple with its convolution; and find an interpretation that makes the theme more graspable to the mass.
But no age has had to battle the kernel of love like the contemporary age due primarily to information and social and cultural pollination. This has naturally caused a quake in the way we react to certain issues. While our native cultures and society defined love as submissiveness to her man and selfrespect on the part of the woman, these days, young men and women have thrown the old order into the dustbin of time. Now, young men insist that love is the woman submitting to their sexual advances on demand. Unlike in the old days when a woman is expected to come untouched to her man on her wedding night, modern boys and girls fast track the process so much so young men at first meeting demand sex from their dates.
Any girl who refuses, is tagged old fashioned and a bad game.
The confusion of the modern age about love is so profound that a lot of young men and women mistake likeness and raw sexual feelings for love. These days, any kind of feeling, that allows a man and woman to sit and talk can be given the appellation of love. Even the desire to have a fling these days can be packaged as love.
Unfortunately, this kind of triviality of the nature of love is what many couples are taking into marriage. the consequences is a caricature of what should be. This lack of understanding of the demands of the marriage institution underscores the daily failure of most contemporary marriages to stand the text of time.
The foundation provided most modern marriages is such that the couples lack the perception that good sex isn’t what a good marriage really needs to survive the attendant turbulence of two strangers coming together to make a home. By all standards, a good marriage must have the kind of shock absorbers to withstand even the most difficult of issues.
But how many relationships or marriages have that kind of absorbers that marriages of the olden days have? How many modern couples or women can endure the hardship that is interwoven into marriages?
There is no denying the essential fact that so many things have gone wrong with our views, value and placement of the marriage institution. A lot of the time, it is discovered that many young couples lack the basic reason they got married in the first place. Some come with the ridiculous reasons of getting married because others are doing it or that age is no more on their side.
Saddly, all these raison d’être come to naught when the real issues of marriage come up. While anybody can get married because others are doing it, the same logic cannot make the marriage work.
A good marriage must be fuelled on qualities that go beyond what a man or woman looks like to the real issues such as adaptability and comprehension of all the things that must first be invested into the relationship.
If intending couples learn from the early stage that marriage is like a business venture, which must first be adequately funded before the profits can roll in, then a lot of young couples will have an idea of what is in stock for them.
Interestingly, there is no deliberate attempt by parents and the society to inculcate the right teachings into the young ones.
Many a time, we surface shine what should be left crude and what we should leave in its rudimentary, we beautify. Doubtless, a lot of young couples will today be interested in that aspect of a relationship we should leave in its raw form. Today, the concentration will be on sex, plently, quick and hot. The value of today has been turned inside out; love has been reduced to just sex. Once a couple is having the best of it, both parties develop the notion of being in love. The next thing is the jingling of wedding bells.
Too late, they realise that good sex alone cannot sustain a good marriage. Actuality peels away every fantasy over such a short time that many wonder why they even agreed to marry their partners.
The elasticity of relationship/marriage needs tolerance borne out of understanding to keep fine tuning. Herein lies the true colour and nature of love. A love that isn’t subjected to the pains of time, cannot endure the many adjustments two people making a life together subject it to isn’t worth going into in the first place.
The true nature of love comes into full bloom only after so much sacrifices have gone into it. This is the kind of love parents bequeath to their children because in their own security, they are able to communicate to their children what shade of true love requires.
Even though the colours of Valentine are bright red and white, in the real sense, the colours of love can become very ugly after the first few days, but with patience will regain its true colours.
Every girl out there today, must remember that not all that glitters is gold. It is the nature of men to come after a woman; it is the duty of the woman to insist on slowing him down to avoid being the prey at the end of the day.
Every girl deserves a chance to be happy; has a right to dream about meeting the right man and falling hopelessly in love. But between the right man and falling in love all sorts of feelings come into play.
Sadly, the lure of the flesh as well as other values that at the end of the day don’t matter are what many girls put place on the market shelf. Without arguments, money is important in a relationship but it doesn’t at the end of the day guarantee happiness.
Ladies, this kind of happiness cannot begin and be concluded on Valentine’s day. It would take several Valentine days for a dating couple to know what they really feel or want from each other. So today, as the love tunes, flowers and chocolates come, young women should refuse to be sucked into the romance mood. It would do them a world of good to listen more to what they are not saying than what they are saying. between what men are saying and not saying, a lot of messages are transmitted. Love isnt just about flowers, romantic songs, eating out or starring into each other’s hearts. To give your feelings for each other character, deeper meaning, look instead into the soul.
Love isnt just a day affair. It is forever. There is no taking its good side without enduring its bad side. Relationships and marriages are failing because true love has been consigned to the dustbin of time. Now, love has turned to a one day affair thing. Two people just meeting for the first time, think it is alright for them to get married on account of that moment of desire.
Therefore the true colours of love are patience, sacrifices, self-restraint, wisdom and self-focus. Without wisdom and patience to look beyond the surface presentation of the person, love will end up becoming painful. It is also important to place side by side one’s own dream, shortfalls alongside the other person’s. This will help in X-raying the kind of sacrifices that await one in such a relationship. It aids one to be prepared for the challenges of making it work at all cost.
This is the ingredient that makes a woman give her all to her boyfriend/husband, makes her accord him all the respect he deserves. Just as it transforms a man to be responsible. The magic of true love is its colour of stability.
Valentine shouldn’t be a day affair. True love deserves to be celebrated every day of our lives.
God bless you all.