My dear Jil, look, you’ll ruin your marriage with all these third party contractors you’ve imported. If history is any guide these third parties are sympathetic undertakers. They’re constructing the coffin for your marriage. And you’re not wise subjecting your marriage to the dictates and approval of these third parties. If you want to succeed in marriage you must become a student ofthe marital institution
There are common reasons marriages fail. These reasons are constant throughout history. There are really no new reasons for marriage failure. It’s the same ol’ same ol’. Just recycled and retrofitted. One of the commonest reasons is this third party collective. You’ve got to be wise. They will edge you on, urging you to oppose your husband, to betray his confidences. They’ll posture like people who love you more than your husband; that they’ll stand with you come what may. If you buy into that nonsense, you don’t understand a thing about life, or humans.
I acknowledge you and Jack have your challenges. But the truth is, whatever problems you have, they’re going to be incomparable to the problems these third parties will give you. If you check, they have by far worse marriages yet they stay put. And they work assiduously to break yours. They are your supporters club today but when your marriage breaks they will gossip about you behind your back. Give them a maximum of three years and they’ve moved on. Most will move on one month after your marriage breaks. And then you’ll know loneliness and aloneness as you nurse the cocktail of your sorrow in a glass of regrets. By the time you come to terms with your foolishness you’ll have spent forty years in the wilderness like the Israelites. These third parties are morticians and specialists. They’ve been embalming marriages since the days of Eve. You need to be wise. You need to keep your home. A home is critical.
As conceived, a marriage is an independent and self-subsisting operating unit. That’s not saying you can’t have family ties. But what’s the value of a family tie that unties your marriage? And some of these people having wrecked their marriages are bent on wrecking those of others. You are most naïve if you think humans don’t have the capacity for such motivation. Remember the famous case of two women who became mothers out of wedlock, the one brought to Solomon? The two women lived in the same house, just gave birth. Overnight, one slept on her child, snuffed the life out. She then switched the dead child for the baby of the other woman. Insisted the dead child belonged to her. When they took the matter to the King for adjudication, he offered to hack the living child into two to settle the issue. The woman whose child it was of course begged for the life of the child, even if it meant giving up maternity. But the other woman said, “If I can’t have him you can’t him – cut away!” And so the king was able to determine the true mother. No mother wants her child hacked to death.
The lesson we often miss out from this story is that there are those who want to even out their loss in life. Having lost their cherished possession they would rather others lose theirs, to even out their pain. These are the Avengers. And some of your so-called advisers belong to this retributive order. Say what you may, you’ve got a solid thing going on in your marriage. For one you married a responsible guy. That may not seem a big deal to you now – until you lose him, and life sends you a succession of irresponsible fellows. They can’t even take responsibility for their own life, not to talk of you and your kid. I say be wise. Wisdom is key – the koko, the main the main. Work out whatever issues you have in your marriage in a spirit of humility. You must want your marriage. Otherwise it’ll fail. Nature is atrophic. A house unattended to falls into disrepair. So does marriage. Marriage needs maintenance.
Apart from third party sympathetic undertakers, the second most common cause of marital failure is willfulness. At some point there will be a clash of wills in a marriage to a truculent partner, or submission to willfulness for the sake of peace. No marriage can endure willfulness. If it seems to, someone paid a rather high price. Someone paid tribute. Willfulness is insistently doing things without recourse to or consideration of the other party in the marriage. A willful person considers only one point of view – hers (or his). A willful marital partner has tunnel vision. He or she can’t see beyond that narrow perspective called Me! It’s all about me, me, me, me, me. And she’s always the victim, even when she’s doing patent and manifest wrong. And a willful partner always seeks to dominate, will brook no thought of opposition not to talk of opposition. When there’s opposition to her point of view, her temper will flare like a piece of safety match anointed with aviation fuel. No one can talk to her, or correct her. She’ll take no instruction or advice from anyone. She won’t relent until she destroys the most important relationships in her life, or hollows them out. We all must be under authority. Even Christ is under the authority of God the Father.
Jil, if I were you I’ll retrace my steps, fast. There’s something called trajectory in life. You can almost always tell where a certain course of action will lead. You can plot it. That’s trajectory. Your current trajectory will lead to divorce. I’m sure you don’t want that. And if that’s the case, then rethink. There’s nothing going on between you and your husband both of you can’t resolve. All that’s required is humility. You don’t need these third parties in your marriage. You can’t afford to open the doors of your marriage to hordes. They’re like those cacodemons who rushed into that horde of pigs and sped the pigs into the water, killing them. They will submerge your marriage in a river of acrimony, division, opinionated-ness and sorrow. You and your husband are one. The idea that someone is supporting you against him is a ridiculous notion. Quarrels in marriage are painful because of the principle of oneness. You’re essentially fighting yourself. Both of you must sit down and talk it over. State your case, let him state his. The middle ground is called love. If you won’t listen to this advice, then you better get your graph paper and begin to plot a trajectory to divorce court.
Your mentor, LA
© Leke Alder | talk2me@lekealder.com