My dear Jil, I’d like to bring to your remembrance 60 lessons I have shared in my letters to you this year. I hope these precepts resonate again and you keep them in mind as you approach the new year.
Let’s begin.
We must learn patience in life. Haste is not the same as progress.
Don’t buy into the philosophy of marriage as pain. It’s why love must be present in a marriage.
Marriage is not meant to be difficult. If it is, it loses meaning. It’s meant to be full of joy, love, peace and happiness.
The reason we need romance in a relationship is to escape the rather ugly realities of life.
Being single and lonely is a better fare than being trapped and depressed in a loveless marriage.
No wise person marries a dream or a wish. You marry the reality in front of you.
You have to marry on the assumption your partner may not change.
Manage your expectations in marriage. Be it fashion inclination, socials, sexual congress, spirituality or the like.
Like I always say to you, deal with the facts.
The beginning of a bad marriage is a bad choice of partner.
Marriage is a knowledge enterprise. The more you know, the more you hedge against the risk of failure.
If you love someone you can’t abuse them physically or emotionally. Or we’ll need to redefine love.
We get so lost in the dutifulness of marriage we lose sight of the friendship with our spouse.
Your husband wants to be the primary thing in your life. He is your primary relationship.
For your husband, your willingness and eagerness to go out with him, or to have sex with him matters.
Your success must be your spouse’s success and vice versa; or there’ll be envy.
There are good dads but poor husbands, as there are good mums but poor wives. The corollaries also hold.
When there’s an impasse in a marriage someone has to swallow his or her pride. Love does not insist on having its own way. Love is humble.
Nagging is a grave irritability to men. It’s like the constant dripping of water from the faucet on a tin roof.
Being testy and temperamental will only put off your husband.
Marriage shouldn’t be class warfare. It’s not men versus women. It’s a man and a woman.
It’s wise to marry someone you share values with. A clash of values will rupture a marriage.
If you want a happy marriage, spiritual, social and economic parameters are mandatory.
Marriage is a total package. When you marry a man you marry his history, flaws, character, disposition, capacities and capabilities.
In a marriage, money, sex and peace are three critical pressure points for men.
Go for a guy who respects you. It’s important you’re respected as a woman. That’s God’s ideal for you.
You must be tolerant of each other and you must have absorbent capacity if you want a good relationship.
Your worth as a wife ought not to be dependent on your procreative capacity; it has nothing to do with bearing children.
When things are beyond us in life, there’s only one person who can deliver us – GOD!
Emotional pain has a course. Let it bleed out. Cry. Don’t try and prove it doesn’t hurt. You’ll anguish yourself.
A relationship conceptually breaks down when one side expects but has no sense of obligation to the other party.
Men don’t want to be locked down in marriage with a self-centred and emotionally stingy person.
You can’t want commitment without being willing to give commitment. It’s a contradiction in terms.
“Would you like to be married to you” is a valid question we must all begin to ask ourselves. How loving are you?
Pride destroys more marriages than any other factor. Humility is essential in marriage.
A man is particularly hurt when he knows you’ve been discussing him with your friends.
To succeed in your relationship you must put in effort. A successful relationship requires the taking of initiative.
You deserve a beautiful life, made of beautiful dreams. You deserve joy, love and peace.
Forgiveness has nothing to do with the other party. It’s all about you.
If you don’t forgive, hatred and anger will colour the rest of your life.
If you ask God for forgiveness, believe he forgives, irrespective of feelings. God has integrity. He said he’ll forgive.
Trials bring us out of us – the real us, the courageous us, the determined us, the strong us, the hidden us.
Your faith provides you moral compass. We all need moral compass in life.
The problem sometimes is that we’re so focused on our wedding objective we lose sight of the marriage.
There are times we force discussions in a relationship. It allows us to locate ourselves in a scheme, know our prospects.
Marriage has to be all chips in. Once you make room for failure life exploits the gap of hesitation.
When a relationship is right you just know. Things just fit, without duplicitous exertion and cunning artfulness.
When we refuse tuition we learn from experience.
If a relationship is not going to work don’t advance it down the altar.
A relationship is not a debating contest. It’s not about who wins. It’s about what’s wise and what’s right.
You don’t marry a guy because you got pregnant for him, you marry him because he’ll make a good husband.
A marriage can endure for years without the nutritional value of joy. In which case it is longsuffering.
Withholding of affection is one of the leading causes of divorce.
Those who withhold affection are often reacting to somebody or something in their past. It’s an ideological stand.
A man should not be ambivalent about marrying you. He ought to be sure.
The idea that a woman deserves to be raped because of what she’s wearing ought to trouble sane people.
An abusive marriage is many times a simple progression of an abusive courtship.
Judging the past is an exercise in futility. It’s a chronicle you can’t edit.
Never compare your life with others. Everyone has his or her own programme.
Hope for the best. God specialises in impossible cases.
