My dear Jack, my letters to you are designed to cause a paradigm shift. If you don’t change your thinking you can’t produce different results. Some of the philosophies we subscribe to are deleterious to matrimonial peace and conjugal harmony. The unified assault on matrimony can only be affronted by a counter-philosophic vanguard. Marriage ought to be joy, it ought to be happiness. It’s not supposed to be full of difficulty and pain. You now have total access to the one you love, the one you don’t want to do without. Why should that become sorrow! If you don’t jettison the idea of marriage as difficulty your faith will keep generating that product.
Perhaps 90% of divorces are preventable. The mistake begins with choice and the philosophy of marriage adopted. Now here’s what I don’t get about you, what baffles me. You already know this relationship will make you unhappy in the long run. But you still want to go ahead. WHY?! Do you have a sadomasochist lust for pain as pleasure? Why would you want to subject your life to marital trauma! You know there’s an emotional mismatch between you and her; that she can’t give you the emotional succor you desire. So why do you want to go into a marriage full of emotional frustration and infuriatingly repressed anger? If you know she’s emotionally constipated and whom you want is someone emotionally liberal, why then go for her? You know her emotional bank yields little interest, so why hope to draw and live on that paucity of interest for life? And you know your disparate backgrounds make you unsuitable for each other. Why are you attempting to fashion congruity from incongruity!
I’m not sure you understand the potency of marriage, its deterministic capacity. Marriage will determine your life. We like to talk of King Ahab of ancient Israel sans Jezebel, as if they’re not a binary equation. But evidence abounds that the incorrigibility of Ahab was highly influenced by the irredeemability of Jezebel. Whether you like it or not the person you marry will be a determinant factor in your destiny. And emotions are a big part of marriage. You can’t rule emotions out. If she’s emotionally damaged she needs healing. She needs to see a psychologist or a counselor. The problem with young men sometimes is that they have a messianic complex. They imagine they can save someone. And so they marry to rescue someone, thinking they can sacrificially mount Golgotha. Until gall is offered. You’ve not sorted out yourself, how then do you want to sort out someone else? Even airlines tell you to first apply your oxygen mask before trying to save someone else. You want to devote your life to sorting out someone, believing your special breed of love can alter the human soul. You don’t know you’re attempting something way beyond yourself, way beyond your capacity.
Without a doubt emotional expressiveness is required in marriage- if you’re going to FEEL fulfilled and happy. It can be frustrating when your spouse can’t express simple emotions of affection. And some people trade in emotion, manipulating it with the levers of the law of demand and supply. They withhold affection to create disproportionate one-way desire, to be in control, increase selfish worth. Not realizing it’s counter-productive since it takes away essential sincerity in a relationship. The relationship becomes manipulative. And it never satisfies the manipulator, can’t satisfy. It’s missing in sincerity. Sincerity is a major component of love. Whatever you want in marriage you must be ready and willing to give. If you want love give love, if you want affection, give affection, if you want peace give peace. Couples ought to be liberal in affection towards one another. It’s safe to do so because it’s marriage. Marriage is a safe deposit box of affection and emotions. Both parties have a huge stake in marriage, a very huge stake.
You’re staking your entire life in marriage. It’s like a gambler in Vegas who stacks all his chips. If you can’t trust someone don’t marry the someone. Marriage is the most intimate expression of trust. It’s why erosion of trust can be devastating. Marriage gives you freedom to be yourself, to fully express yourself. You ought to feel at home in your marriage. There is an honesty of heart marriage requires. Marriage is you and me totally naked with one another. You are the trustee of my life, I am the trustee of yours. Marriage is the platform for extreme faith in a human. Marriage is two people united to assail the challenges of life, to surmount the mountainous difficulties of life. All these require deep emotional commitment. Without that deep commitment, it can’t work. Marriage does not make contingency plans. It is two people for life. You need that level of commitment for true success. By the time you’re hiding things from each other, manipulating one another, the marriage is entering decommitment.
If you know the potency of matrimony you won’t seek to enter a marriage that is obviously headed for the rocks. But sometimes because we need to have a girlfriend as a rite of manhood we go for what is not suitable for us. The need to experience the feeling of having one’s own woman can make a young man choose wrong. Solomon says that a wise man sees difficulty ahead and makes avoidance maneuver. You’re not wise if you see trouble ahead but still plunge ahead at full speed. You must love suicide. If you proceed into a relationship knowing it will bring you sorrow, why, you’ve decided to crack coconut with your skull.
Your mentor, LA
© Leke Alder talk2me@lekealder.com