My dear Jil, I present a few nuggets from my letters to you this year. Here they are:
1. It’s important you choose your own partner. Don’t let anyone choose for you. Marriage requires custom fit. Therefore a marital partner must necessarily be a proprietary acquisition.
2. That a man is not the right man for you doesn’t mean he’s not a good man. That he’s a good man doesn’t mean he’s the right man for you.
3. When the right man comes you’ll know. It will be natural. You’ll get along with the person just fine. Both of you will know you like each other. You’ll just want to be together.
4. Don’t be desperate. When you become so desperate to hook up you’re bound to make some mistakes. In fact you’ll be sending wrong signals on dates.
5. Marriage is not formulaic. It’s something good, something natural, something organic, something unforced… Wanting each other, loving each other, being each other… That’s what marriage is all about.
6. Actively trying to be “daddy’s girl” can harm your marriage. Can mean seeking to please your dad to the detriment of your marriage.
7. There are things fathers watch out for in a prospective son-in-law – respect, temperament, prospects, genuine affection for their daughter, happiness of their daughter…
8. A relationship in which one party is extremely focused on self will only bring sadness and hurt to the other party.
9. Personality and looks cannot sustain a marriage. It is character that does.
10. Men are known to go for available and interested comfort. You’ve got to be available, open and interested concerning his needs. It’s marriage. Don’t be careless.
11. Stop presenting a careless version of yourself to your husband. Stop looking uncaring and dishevelled. Men are moved by imagery.
12. Life’s challenges are custom-made. There’s no great life without trial. Trial precedes greatness.
13. Money matters a lot in a relationship. Money matters in marriage. Lack of money can break a marriage.
14. Don’t rush into marriage. Develop maturity so you know what you really want and who you really want. Marriage is unending responsibility. You become responsible for a human ab initio.
15. Marriage is the absorption of imperfections, the acceptance of human frailty, the overcoming of all with love and tenderness.
16. Don’t go for a man beyond you. When a man is way beyond you, you know despite your faith. You don’t want to struggle to keep your man. It’s agonising. The uncertainty it produces can erode self-esteem, and destroy emotional and physical health.
17. If you want deep appreciation concentrate on the qualities of inner beauty. It’s what makes men truly appreciative.
18. You need to be wise in life. You need to learn to read character. Character is everything.
19. Selfishness prevents us from seeing ourselves. It’s a very strange mirror. It allows us to see only our desires.
20. You can’t erase someone’s past and arrive at the same man. We’re products of our past.
21. People react to their background in different ways. Some emulate the bad behaviour of their parents, some repudiate it.
22. Don’t let the sorrow of losing your child destroy your marriage. Let it bring you and your husband together. Be united in grief.
23. Fertility challenge is a very confidential stuff. It’s not something you go talking about in family circles. You don’t go around telling people your husband is infertile.
24. Don’t let conception delay put a wedge in your marriage.
25. The hallmark of a good relationship is not fight.
26. You must develop short memories for offences in marriage. There are things you must forget. Forgive and move on.
27. A marriage is a learning portal. You learn about yourself – things you never knew; you learn about your partner – things you never knew.
28. Marriage is continuous learning. As the environment changes people change, and new things to learn emerge.
29. Don’t joke with your marriage. Marriage is a very powerful social and spiritual institution. To get out of one there’s a price to pay. Most times the price is heavy.
30. You must strive for happiness in marriage. Happiness is important. And it’s attainable. Marriage without happiness is present continuous trauma.
31. Marriage requires effort. In your marriage you want love to increase, you want friendship to increase, you want care to increase, you want tenderness to continue… All that requires effort.
32. Meditating on a wrong will make you start seeking retaliatory opportunity, or you’ll start to feel oppressed. Either can be dangerous in marriage. You shouldn’t let anything build up or pile up in your marriage. If you can’t forego it discuss it.
33. Confidentiality is one of the key attributes of marriage. There are things that must remain between a man and his wife.
34. When a boyfriend and girlfriend are separated by massive distances that run into thousands of kilometres anything can happen. Bridge the gap.
35. There’s nothing wrong with trusting a man. Just make sure it’s the right man. Make sure he has values. It all boils down to nobility.
36. You will know a trustworthy fellow by his comportment and affirmation of values. There are things he won’t do, there are things he can’t do. He holds himself up to higher standards. He’s noble.
37. It’s good to believe in a man. But the man must also acquit himself and validate that belief through a sense of responsibility.
38. It is important partners think good thoughts towards each other. There’s no possibility of acrimony where there’s love. It’s also important for partners to be devoted to one another. Where there’s devotion there’ll be loyalty.
39. A low sense of self makes us voyeur on inanities, makes us self-celebrate nonsense. Which is why you’re happy you’re “the main chick” to a man. Don’t negotiate yourself down to accept such honorific title from yourself.
40. Emotions are powerful. Don’t give your affection to the undeserving.
41. You maintain a marriage with friendship and sense of responsibility. Without friendship marriage becomes an awkward relationship.
42. Don’t despise days of small beginnings in a young man. Be willing to build with your man. Many times success is a joint effort. Sometimes all a young man needs is a woman who just believes in him. He’ll conquer mountains with her faith.
43. Be honest and sincere in your relationship.
44. Authenticity is what happens when our projected self matches our inner self. There’ll be no two layers, there’ll just be us.
45. Men tend to run from a home without peace. They either keep away, or they take off, or they die in instalment. It’s why they’re afraid of temperamental women.
46. You shouldn’t stay in a marriage that threatens your life. A man who batters his wife is a potential murderer.
47. If your boyfriend displays a violent temperament you should think twice about going into marriage with him. “I do” does not cure temperament. Even if such a guy doesn’t beat you there’s the prospect of emotional abuse.
48. Love is sincere. Love is not manipulative. If you’re manipulative you end up with a synthetic variety of love. Because it’s not natural it can’t be fulfilling.
49. Don’t let your marriage slip into a functional dysfunction – something that’s just there, something in a state of existence – nothing exciting again. Spice things up a little at home. Marriage needs more spices than an Indian cuisine.
50. You ought to be discerning about what will work and what will not work in a relationship. Saves energy investment. If it comes at a great price to your peace, health, fulfilment and happiness it ain’t worth it.
51. A marriage must be built on stronger and deeper resources. There must be true friendship, true loyalty. When a marriage is based on just physical attraction the depth is only skin deep – barely an inch or two deep.
52. It is unwise for you not to work when your man can barely take care of both of you. Your earning gives some discretion. That discretionary power becomes reduced when there’s no income coming in for you.
53. Men cheat for a number of reasons. Sometimes it’s just lust, sometimes greed; sometimes it’s a non-acceptance of marital status, and it may be a state of mind; or there’s a temptress. It may also be recklessness, cultural conditioning, or a problem in marriage.
54. If you worry about what society will say you’ll never do what’s right for your life.
55. You shouldn’t constrain a man too much. He’s going to feel locked down. Being protective of your relationship is good but it has to come from a good place and it cannot be accusatory.
56. Don’t go into a union you can manifestly see will lead to unhappiness. You’ll have no one to blame but yourself.
57. Don’t proceed into a marriage you have serious doubts about.
58. Accommodation is another very important virtue in marriage. You must be accommodative. He cannot be perfect, you cannot be perfect. Recognise that as a fact of life.
59. There are bad marriages and there are sad marriages. A sad marriage is one full of promise that goes through tragic transformation. It ends in a pile of disappointment.
60. Temperament is costly. It generates invisible losses.
61. It’s better we save ourselves heartache by modifying our costly behaviour ourselves. Better to do it willingly before life steps in. If it’s too costly modify your behaviour.
62. This is my last #Letr2Jil#Letr2Jack for 2018. I’ll be going on vacation with my family. I think I deserve it, don’t you? Wishing you a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year in advance!
