Read Letter

What’s Your Idea of Marriage?

I assume you’re taking all necessary precautions to protect your family from Coronavirus. You should reach out to your parents by phone since you can’t visit them on account of the lockdown. As for the question you asked, everyone has a philosophy of marriage, even if not articulated. It may be religious, it may be cultural, it may be liberal. Everyone’s approach to marriage is based on the philosophy he or she subscribes to. And sometimes a partner may be coming from an ideological perspective. The problem with that is that ideology broods no other perspective. It’s either my way or the highway. It seeks to coarse everyone into one worldview, even if that view is riddled with inconsistencies. Such a marriage will be difficult. Ideology tends to grow increasingly strident. And it is controlling. Because there was a desire for accommodation by the other party during courtship it assumes enormous strength inside marriage. It’s a matter of time before such marriage flounders. It’s either there’ll be constant fights or the other party resigns. The parties soon begin to live separate lives. The only nexus will be social convention or the children.

Here’s wisdom. Make sure the marital philosophy you subscribe to at least has a proven track record. If it’s a one-generational philosophy be careful. You don’t have enough data to risk gambling your life and happiness. You have to have data for analysis. There must be enough cases you can study, good or bad. It’s a wise approach to the study of the subject of marriage. When parties are agreed on operating marital philosophy their values will sync. The odds against such marriage significantly reduces. But if there’s no agreement on marital philosophy or parties don’t subscribe to the same set of values there’ll be fundamental issues in that marriage. An outbound force will keep trying to pull it apart. There’ll be a lot of pain and unhappiness. The philosophy of marriage we subscribe to defines expectations, colours the marriage partnership. It determines the contributory scheme inside the marriage. I’d say be careful about extreme ideologies of marriage. They tend to be experimental in nature. Unfortunately the only material for such experimentation is the life of the parties to the marriage.

Here’s another thing. One day you’re in your twenties, the next day you’re in your fifties. It’s hard to explain that to a young man or woman but it’s the truth. You’ll wake up one day and you’re in your fifties. The intervening period between the twenties and fifties is what we call life. Life will happen. And life dampens gra gra – all that neurotic rebellious energy. Suddenly the words of your parents begin to make sense. The words of your elders begin to dawn on you, some you’ll wish you had listened to. Understanding is forced on you. You won’t have energy to contend with life at that time. Life would have subdued you, forced you to have understanding. You’ll become wise by force. It’s how wisdom becomes proportionate with age. You’ll now be responsible for what you blamed others for. The consequences of your choices will stare you in the face. Some become fugitives of life at that point. The interactions on your alumni network will make all this apparent. Usually at that stage marital mistakes become irreversible. Life forces you into an accommodation of your mistakes. You can only seek amelioration, or seek out. But the menu life will present to you will not have an edit button.

The best way to avoid fundamental issues in marriage is to marry someone you agree with on philosophy and values. Disagreement disrupts marriage. Marriage is not a platform for the proving of points. It only works if there’s harmony. Or it will start generating painful scenarios. In conception marriage is a long-term project. It’s why it demands such a huge investment upfront. You literally pledge the remainder of your life, whatever is left on your lease.

I have a problem with this guy you’re dating. He’s too big to work. You’re bearing all the burden in this relationship, setting a tone for your marriage. We’ve seen this before. He’s going to be a kept man the way things are going. You’re breeding an irresponsible husband. When you marry you’ll have to conceal the fact he doesn’t work because everyone will wonder why you married him in the first place. You’ll end up sending him to school for his masters, end up paying the rent, the children’s school fees… The longer he stays out of employment the harder it becomes for him to work. His classmates would have moved on and he’ll be too proud to start behind them.  He’ll start looking for shortcuts to the future, start calculating the hypotenuse to life’s triangle. You don’t have the energy for what you’re embarking on. Your philosophies of life don’t agree. He’s a dreamer who can’t get his hands dirty. And he’s too big to start small. You’re pragmatic in approach.  You’re investing hope against hope, desperately wishing things will turn out fine, wanting the best for him. But as life progresses your needs will progress. His deficiencies as a partner will be more apparent. One day you’re going to wake up, possibly at fifty, and you’re going to realize nothing has changed. He’ll still be looking for a job, or come up with business investment schemes. Every idea will be his potential “break.” The bitterness that comes from the realization you wasted your life on someone can turn you to a radical philosophy of marriage. But it was all preventable.

Hard work is a value in life. If you believe in it but your partner believes in “luck” you and that partner are going to have serious issues. He’ll be hoping for chance breaks, looking for life’s lottery ticket. That you like someone doesn’t mean you ignore disqualifying factors. Some people are better as friend than husband.

Your mentor, LA.

For related letters, search for SHOULD HE GET A JOB BEFORE MARRIAGE? and CAN YOU MARRY ANYBODY? at http://stepheni6.sg-host.com.

© Leke Alder | talk2me@lekealder.com.

Post Your Comments Here