MARITAL ANCHORS(5): WHY YOU MUST NOT ALLOW YOUR HOME TO DRIFT.

Dr. Mike Oluniyi.

Introduction.

Often, you will hear people talking lightly about throwing away their spouse during periods of challenge. Such comments usually come out of ignorance of the implications of divorce. When there is drifting in marriage, it ultimately leads to either divorce or separation. Divorce is not something to be treated lightly. Couples who separate are also hardly ever able to bring the home together again. You must jealously guide your marriage from drifting because the rate of divorce is now very alarming. In many countries of the world, the statistics show that about 50% of first marriages end in divorce. As an anchor, you must make up your mind that your own marriage must not feature in the statistics of marriage failures for the following reasons;

IT MAY AFFECT YOUR ETERNITY.

Marriage is God’s idea, and when it breaks down through you, it is a demonstration of your disobedience to God. The scriptures in Matthew 19:6;

So then, they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate.”

I heard someone saying though in a lighter mood that if you want to know if a man is going to heaven, you should ask his wife, then I wondered when spouses became the determinants of heaven, until I read the book of 1Peter 3:7;

Husbands, likewise, dwell with them with understanding, giving honor to the wife, as to the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of the grace of life, that your prayers may not be hindered.

I concluded that if indeed you are joint heirs of the grace of life, and your prayers may be hindered according to that scripture because of your relationship with your spouse, it means that your spouse is a major determinant of whether or not you are going to make heaven. This submission is no doubt a very serious one, but you will agree with me that whoever can prevent your prayers from being answered, may prevent you from making heaven. You will also note that if you are in conflict with your spouse, you will struggle with spiritual assignments while it lasts. It is either you are struggling with anger at the offense, from guilt of what you have done, with schemes on how to conceal an offensive act of yours or how to retaliate etc. Any of the above could effectively reduce your effectiveness in spiritual endeavors.

IT MAY AFFECT YOUR WELL BEING/ FULFILLMENT IN OLD AGE.

There is no other time that problem in marriage affect someone more than during old age. It is a time in which friends and acquaintances have dwindled either through death, disability or ill health. Even your children whom you have invested the greater part of your life to bring up will depart to start and keep their own homes. The closest person to you at such an age is your spouse. If there has been a drifting which led to the collapse of the home, this is the time that loneliness comes in. Loneliness however is not limited to separation from spouse but also possible even when you are together but drifting earlier in life disallowed you to bond effectively as a couple. Loneliness can really make your life during old age to be less fulfilling.
As an anchor, you must do everything to ensure your home does not drift because it has a way of affecting your fulfillment during old age.

IT MAY AFFECT THE RAISING OF YOUR CHILDREN.

All over the world, marriage is becoming threatened by instability and high rate of divorce. In a report by the the Institute for family studies;
Over the past half century, marriage has become less likely to anchor the lives of American families, leaving more and more children to experience family instability and single parenthood…the percentage of children (ages 12 and under) living in households with married parents (with spouse present) declined from 83 percent in the mid-1970s to 71 percent in 2019. This decline in children living with two parents was accompanied by a steady increase in the percentage of children living with only their mother. This trend was entirely driven by a rise in the share of children living with never-married mothers, which increased from 3 percent in 1976 to 18 percent in 2019. The share of children living with divorced mothers held relatively steady over this period at 6 percent (Cherlin 2009; Cohen 2019).
One major factor in the upbringing of children is the stability of the family. When your family is not stable, it has the potential of affecting your offsprings in diverse ways as a good percentage of drop outs from schools and miscreants in the society are products of broken homes. Also, if you look at difficult marriages, you will discover that the one making the marriage difficult are mostly those that does not have good marital role models and those that have been raised under faulty parenthood while they were growing up.
Consequently, the potential effect of drifting in your marriage is grave on the future of your offsprings.

IT MAY AFFECT YOUR MENTAL HEALTH.

One of the most devastating effects of drifting on many is on their mental health. In psychiatric homes or among many that are under medication for depression, a good percentage are those whose homes have drifted and consequently collapsed. Trauma resulting from such has made a good number of women to become psychiatric patients while men have found an elusive solace in alcoholic drinks.

Conclusion.

Divorce is so costly that it is only those who are experiencing it that really know how costly it is. Knowing well that when your partner drifts, the ultimate consequences of it is divorce, it is essential for anyone who wants to be the anchor in his marriage to know some of the effects as discussed above as it will help you to do everything possible to prevent drifting in your home.