Dear Jack
The problem is that some people don’t understand how important marriage is, or how powerful it is. Marriage is an ancient institution – a pervasion that is an integral part of every culture. Your wife is a very significant factor in your life equation. A wise man treats that fact with respect.
When things are not right at home a man is exposed to forces and passions. He suffers from loneliness. There is an incomprehensible strain of loneliness called emotional alonement. Causes depression. The health descends into Hades. Some people have wound up in asylum in result.
The heart wasn’t configured for traumatic extremities and loneliness. It struggles. The heart is a very fragile instrument. Like porcelain it can break easily. A broken heart is hard to fix. Only God can piece the shards together, make it whole. Don’t play with your marriage. It’s a huge risk. You may lose the most important relationship in your life. The crude realism associated with such loss is unimaginable. You can’t know it without knowing it. And you don’t want that. Trust me, experience is not the best teacher. Wisdom is.
In some of the letters I get from couples you can see this tit for tat bargaining going on. A young wife in a young marriage barely months old wrote me such a letter only last month. In my reply I tried to warn her about the danger inherent in the couple’s approach to marriage. The approach is so immature you almost wonder why the Reverend gave them a marriage certificate. They lacked capacity to appreciate the seriousness of marriage. None wanted to yield to the other and the marriage turned into a contest of infantile wills. They are planting dangerous seeds in the loamy soil of their marriage. That marriage may not last. There’s a wide rift opening which after some time becomes unbridgeable. The marriage is being torn asunder like a rag by malevolent forces. Pride is taking root. Now, it may last chronologically. It’s just that it would be a sham marriage with the partners living on separate planets. And when the heart seeks to assuage its isolation it may receive comfort from the available. The lust for physical and emotional comfort may kick-start an affair. And emotional entrepreneurship begins.
A sham marriage is one held up with the duct tapes of dutifulness and social appearances but lacking in essential happiness. It’s a facade and a charade – a contrived drama of organic lies: a hollow ritual of pretentiousness. It’s a very strenuous, frustrating sometimes angry existence. Can lead a man in strange directions. Society takes part in this hypocritical drama. It celebrates the longevity of the marriage but ignores its realities.
Emotional negotiation in a marriage is a sign of trouble. When couples withhold affection they’re digging a marriage grave. Marriage as bargaining activity must strike even God as a strange commercial hybrid. If you love your wife there are sacrifices you make. One of those is the sacrifice of not always being right, even when you are. Same goes for the wife. There are things we sacrifice to stay together, things we overlook in love. Perfect love casts out fear. That means you must become so significantly committed to a relationship you put in your all! When we begin to measure out commitment in emotional metrics it’s either of four things: there’s selfishness at play; someone has a controlling nature; there’s insincerity and smartness, or hatred has crept in.
The most significant value in a relationship or marriage is trust. Don’t violate trust in your marriage. If perchance you have, do all you can to repair it. May take some time. How do you know your partner trusts you? How do you know he or she doesn’t have trust issues? Well… Trust doesn’t monitor phone calls or eavesdrop. Trust does not sleuth through text messages and mails. Trust does not go through purses. Trust does not monitor movements, or read meanings. Some people are so insecure they will go through Mother Theresa’s purse for contraceptives. Trust is not an aromatic sniffer for odorous moisty musty scents of stains and substances. Trust does not engage the secretary or staff as spy agents. Does not monitor ingress and egress. If the level of surveillance is akin to the data collection program of America’s NSA there’s a major trust issue.
For a marriage to become successful a couple must place a calabash in the middle and empty their all into it. A very successful and happy marriage requires total commitment on both sides. And you won’t know the joy and peace inherent in that until you fully commit, or someone commits totally to you. Sometimes people can’t commit, even after marriage. They don’t want to be hurt. They can’t trust their partner. Want to be in control as insurance against hurt. If the other party adopts the same posture both sides will withhold and the marriage becomes a cerebral contest. And if one party commits and the other withholds, someone’s going to feel cheated in the long run. Selfishness has no place in a marriage. Self centeredness is self defeatist and self robbery. If you can’t trust someone don’t marry the someone. You won’t have peace of mind. Trust is the core of marriage. If as an individual you have a trust issue work at it. Or you’ll erode your relationship with a termite’s gusto.
It is wrong to put your spouse under a regime of accusation. With accusations, a spouse is potentially guilty of a crime he’s not even thought of committing. Sexual stereotyping is also wrong. Oh, women are like this, men are like this… It’s the equivalence of racial profiling. Constant accusation is a very terrible experience in marriage. The horrible thing about accusation is that it is totally whimsical. Can just be plucked from thin air. It can become a self fulfilling prophecy. Creates its own justification. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t, so… If the man goes down that route he creates justification for his accuser ex post facto (after the fact).
Don’t let anyone push you down the path created by accusation. There are always consequences. I wish you wisdom, love, peace and happiness.
Your mentor, LA
© Leke Alder 2014