MARRIAGE MATTERS NEWSLETTER NO. 006. Monday 6th May 2024.
Dear Friend,
YOU CAN MANAGE YOUR SPOUSE DESPITE THOSE ISSUES.
One day, I asked a man who had been married and divorced three times why in a single lifetime he had thrown away three women and then courting the fourth one. The answer he gave me was that they were all bad! True, by the time he told me what they did, they indeed had issues: The first one was so troublesome that there is no one that she could not fight with, while the second one stole something from a neighbor which became a source of embarrassment for the family. I can’t really remember what the third one did but the three of them indeed had issues. So, he had to marry the fourth one. Now even the fourth one is no longer with him as that one too has also done something bad.
On the other hand, there was an uncle of mine who when he sent intermediaries to the family of the lady she wanted to marry in those days for the wedding list, he was told that he should just take the lady and go. According to them, he should suspend the wedding until after they might have lived with one another for several years, if possible have got some children, then he could come back and formalize the marriage. They did that because they felt that he would soon get tired of the lady because apart from being a trouble maker, when she is fighting, no one could separate her! But do you know that my uncle went ahead and the lady became his wife. She had five successful children for my uncle, and the two of them grew into a ripe old age before their death.
WHAT IS YOUR COPING MECHANISM?
Every partner in marriage is a manager because there is something you are managing in your spouse. A woman asked her friend how she had been coping with her husband. She asked the question because she was wondering how a woman could cope with such a man who could not do without complaining about virtually everything! The answer that the woman gave her taught her a big lesson. She answered her, “I’ve been coping with him, just the way you have been coping with your own husband!”
When my uncle was asked how he could cope with the troublesome wife he married, he said he never argued with her whenever she was boiling, if he was able to go out, he would do so to get fresh air. He said he had realized that whatever she is raging about, by the time she cooled down and was made her to see reason, she actually usually apologized! He then said that the woman was a blessing in his life because apart from her impatience, she was a highly supportive woman. That shows to me that when you throw your woman or man away because of an issue, you are also throwing away something good that would have helped your life.
The difference between the two men in the stories above is management. How do you manage what you don’t like in your spouse? No one ever had a perfect spouse. If all of us were to start divorcing our spouses because of issues we discovered after getting married, the society would have had more that enough cases of failed marriages.
However serious an issue is in your spouse, with commitment, you are likely to be able to make it if you develop the appropriate mechanism to cope with, or manage it. There is always a way out of every challenge in marriage which we should explore before we ever think of separation or divorce. I always tell partners that they should not think of divorce except life is threatened
Receive the grace to develop the appropriate coping strategies to be able to manage and enjoy your home to the end in Jesus name.
Yours In Strengthening Homes.
Mike & Yemmy Oluniyi.
