My dear Jack,
I’m afraid you’re dating your imagination. You’re projecting the physical attributes of your girlfriend and dimensioning them into matrimonial attributes. In other words you’re not dealing with facts, just desires and suppositions. You must see your girlfriend for who she truly is. Don’t explain away the facts. That’s always a huge mistake.
Character invariably drowns out physicality in a marriage. Dreams of stylistic attavistic and modern sexual congress are soon forgotten when there’s no peace in a marriage. Can two people successfully cohabitate and conjugate in matrimonial acrimony, acridity and mordancy? Or in the wording of the query of the Ancients: Can two walk together, except they be agreed?
Happiness is important in marriage. The opposite is depression. By that I don’t mean a dip in mood that can be pepped up with a cup of coffee. I mean the clinical variety. Don’t joke with depression.
I have a belief- deduced from observations of life. I believe God is so kind He highlights incompatibility problems for us before we jump into a matrimonial federative. Something – a harbinger and portender of future disharmony usually pops up before we tie the knot – to warn us! Sometimes, it’s a major fight on something fundamental. It’s like God’s last minute desperate attempt at warning us. Some relationship heartaches are God induced to save us from the pit, yet we’re inconsolable. We ignore warnings and push on, relentless in our pursuit of pain, diarising a date with tribulation and distress. Years after the marriage has collapsed we’ll remember that warning incident, or text, or conversation or mail. Ask any divorcee, he or she will tell you about one particular incident before the wedding, which in retrospect was a warning.
God is the picture of a gentleman. As a general principle He doesn’t impose on freewill. God won’t stop you from marrying who you want to marry if you insist. He can try and dissuade you but it’s still your choice. Marriage is of a very personal nature. There are clear and persistent warnings that this relationship of yours won’t work yet you keep plodding forward. You’re toasting pain in sunshades of romantic illusion. It’s why you have sweet and sour sensations of pain and pleasure, love and anger, loathing and longing. Bitterleaf pleasure. The cocktail of these sensations is so confusing: there’s so much bitterness in ice cold vanilla mint of wanting. A marriage without peace is enormously costly.
Disharmony is a fundamental negation of the principle of matrimony. If you and your fiancé are CONSTANTLY fighting and bickering, isn’t that indicative of matrimonial incompatibility? The very notion of an unnecessarily argumentative partner is too painful to contemplate. It is reminiscent of a sharp dental probe on a broken molar tooth without anaesthesia. She’s stubborn and willful you say. Every decision takes enormous argument, even innocuous decisions. Do you know how many decisions you’re going to make in your marriage? That should give you an idea of how many arguments you’re going to have. Can you handle the grind?
You say your mum likes her; but your mum is not going to marry her, is she? Perhaps mum is titillated with the idea of a prospective daughter-in-law. Mums usually are. And how does it work: she pleases your mum but displeases you? Respects your mum but not you? Your opinion doesn’t count, just your mum’s. Isn’t this high regard for your mum a deliberate message of disregard for you?
Couples in a dysfunctional marriage host and pursue different and sometimes contradictory agenda. You started early. If you want to understand the extraordinary trigonometry of two parallel lines, have a chat with cohabiting estranged couples. They go through the chores of marriage. Behind those mechanical chores are bitterness, longings and frustration. It’s a pretentious marriage. They are technically married but factually divorced. Each partner lives in a sphere. As a man you’ll be lonely in such a marriage. Your emotional needs will go unfulfilled. You’ll crave for love but you’ll get a depersonalised dutiful response that is just enough. Matrimonial PR – doing just enough to deflect public scrutiny and condemnation – comes into play. There’ll be the occasional sex, the unavoidable social functions, even regimented co-driving to church. She’ll resent your work with exemplary disinterest, resent your achievements. You may find yourself in a competition. You’ll have no one to share your highs, lows and plans with, and that’s how affairs start. The caring secretary…the sympathetic colleague…the fellow sufferer…the girl with an agendum…that’s how it starts! And then come all the consequences and problems – the unpredictable predictables. Why don’t you just save yourself from the snare of the fowler?
It’s not how long you’ve dated that matters, it’s whether it will work! If it won’t work it’s emotionally cheaper to get out before marriage. After marriage it becomes really expensive. And you don’t marry to please others. You can’t marry someone just to please your mum. Ask Prince Charles. Everyone paid for it, including mom. *Deep sigh*
That’s all I’m prepared to say. The half written paragraph transubstantiates into full textbook in the heart of a wise child.
Your mentor, LA.
©Leke Alder 2013