Dear Jack, I think you’re conflicting sex for love. You don’t really know the love of a woman, just sex. You’re at that age testosterone is raging like a bull and primal desires are seeking to overrun your life. The love of a woman is much more than sex Jack. You don’t get it. To the woman who truly loves you sex is a sacrificial offering, an oblation – the religious giving of self. Continue reading
Dear Jil, your ex can’t be looming in the background of your marriage like a recalcitrant demon. Your ex can’t be featuring in your marriage like some malodorous atmosphere. You’re going to break your marriage. You’ve got to learn to let go of your past relationship. It’s gone. You’re married now, to another man. You’re just going to bring complications into your marriage hanging on to your ex. Continue reading
My dear Jack, there is such a thing as sad truth and you’ve stepped into one. We step into sad truth when we ignore wisdom. Then when calamity comes, wisdom sticks out her tongue. I did warn you not to go into marriage without a job, a source of livelihood or income. Now you see why. Continue reading
Dear Jack, you can’t afford an unhappy partner. You’d be playing with depression. She’s going to drag you down into a subterranean dark alley. It’s a place off the grid, a pit – a very dark jail. She’ll sap the life out of you, sap all your vigour. You’ll just know you’re growing dull, your energy being depleted. By the time you’re through with the relationship, you’ll be a husk of your self. Your health would have been destroyed. Deeply unhappy people have this conversation going on in their head. It’s a conversation no one knows anything about. An unhappy person lives in a world of interpretation. Everything is interpreted. And so facts turn into another set of facts. Your health won’t survive living with such a person. You’ll always be on the defensive, and the facts won’t matter. It’s those interpretations of facts that are true to her. They’re what she works with. Innocuous acts will take on new meaning. There’ll be negative interpretations attached to simple facts. The thing about such people is that they’re constantly accusatory. It’s their thought process. Anything you do will be turned into an accusation. And if you’re exonerated she’ll create another premise of accusation. You can’t win. Continue reading
My dear Jil, but he’s not a lazy fellow. In fact he’s a very industrious young man. Just got laid off. And that happens. I mean the economy tanked, banks downsized and he got laid off. Could have happened to you. Assuming it did, what would you have expected of him? Start berating you? This is the time to show you love your husband. He’s at his lowest ebb. He just lost his job. You should feel for him. There he was one day everything going right in his life, just got married to the love of his life…then suddenly this. Call it downsizing, rightsizing or whatever sizing is going on…as if it’s some shoe! Fact remains that at the individual level, rightsizing is not shoe fitting. It’s someone’s regular income gone! Continue reading
Dear Jack, the thing is, everyone has an idea of how he or she wants to be loved. That determines a lot of things in marriage. When you don’t love according to prescribed desire, every other expression of love goes unappreciated. For example, if your woman loves texts and conversations, without those texts she may not feel fully loved by you. And unfortunately, in a relationship feelings are facts. They take on the character of events. That doesn’t mean you’re not putting in your best effort to love her. But there’s effort and there’s appreciation of effort. Continue reading
Dear Jil, I really don’t blame your parents for insisting your boyfriend must have a job before marriage. You may not understand because your experience of life is little. And your knowledge of men is limited. But your parents know, and they’re actually trying to protect you though you may not see it. The makeup of men is radically different from that of women. Both sexes react to lack differently. I’ll talk to you in a bit about that, but truth is you don’t even know how you will react when there’s acute lack. Continue reading
Dear Jack, both you and Jil have to learn to settle your quarrels internally. Resorting to third party adjudication of your matrimonial disputes ought to be a last resort. Really last resort. Every relationship ought to have its own conflict resolution system, or simple fights will lead to break up. It’s why you have to have a review mechanism for disagreements. There’ll always be points of disagreement. Continue reading
My dear Jil, I did warn you about this guy. Wish you’d listened to me. The guy doesn’t love you. He just wanted to use you, and you knew that. Funny I spend more time trying to dissuade young people from making ruinous marital decisions than on any other issue. If I were you I’ll proceed to church to do thanksgiving it didn’t work out. Stop crying. God delivered you. Of course it’s a painful thing to have a crashed relationship. Unless you weren’t invested. Hope deferred makes the heart sick. Continue reading
