Love is what makes all the difference, and you’ll be doing yourself a lot of harm marrying someone who doesn’t love you. What’s the point really? What’s the point of a marriage without love or affection? Why go into such? Without love marriage becomes a dry fig. There’s a harshness about it. It’s a coarse grainy dryness. Such dryness has the micro rough quality of a harmattan haze. It’s dusty and wheezy. A marriage without love is unimaginable yet imaginable. Continue reading
Dear Jil, sometimes the people we’re considering for relationship or marriage are inadequate for us. It can be financial inadequacy, or mental inadequacy, or spiritual inadequacy, or cultural inadequacy…or motivational inadequacy, or emotional inadequacy, or expression inadequacy…The inadequacy is why we’re not satisfied, why all the person does can never be enough. The challenge many times is there’s nothing the inadequate person can do. He’s given to the limit of not just his ability, but also his capability. What inadequacy says in effect is that people may actually not be ABLE to change. Continue reading
My dear Jack, I’m not sure this relationship will work. You have differing philosophies of life. You’re extremely conservative, she’s liberal. Your outlooks are not the same. You’ll never have the same view. Because your outlooks are not the same your expectations will clash in the marriage. You seem to want a domesticated entity who’ll adhere to very traditional notions of marriage. Continue reading
My dear Jil, let me tell you a very sad story. I want us to draw a lesson or two. There was this genial old man everyone loved. He was kind, compassionate, generous. He prayed for everyone, related with everyone, reached out to everyone, in love. He was a wonderful father and a wonderful father-in-law to the husbands of his daughters. Old men as you know fall sick every once in a while. That said he minded his health. He was a doctor’s dream. Continue reading
Dear Jack, sometimes we land into trouble about marriage by not intellectually discerning nuances of definition. Last time we spoke I told you the difference between falling in love and the workability of a relationship. They are two different things. A lady can for example fall in love with a wife abuser. But will the marriage work? By the way, violence is a no no in a relationship. Once the line of violence is crossed a perfidious and wanton license of abuse has been printed. Continue reading
My dear Jil, come on, you deserve better than this guy, and you know it! You’re dating him because you’ve put yourself in desperate straits – feeling or believing you can’t get any better. And this apart from the embarrassing fact that this guy tried to date two of your friends who turned him down for good reason. You feel you can’t get any better based on an aberrant philosophy. Continue reading
My dear Jack, you have to note there are a lot of distractions in life. Life’s distractions are so many, some seemingly innocuous but they will derail you from your course. You need focus as a young man. You’ve got to know what you want, the kind of life you want. And then you have to work assiduously to accomplish your goals and dreams. You must learn to face the day with purposefulness, to attack each day with mental strength. Continue reading
My dear Jil, I do understand your devastation concerning his choice. You can’t imagine him picking the other lady. I know you’re wondering why he went for her and not you. You are after all “more qualified.” Yes, I do agree you have pedigree and stronger social qualities. You’re intelligent, culturally literate, well-travelled, exposed, even kind… It’s just that you’re stubborn! Continue reading
My dear Jack, in homicide, detectives are always looking for motive from three factors: money, sex and revenge. I was thinking about that and it occurred to me that these are the very same factors that destroy marriages. You of course know the role of money in a marriage. We’ve discussed this before. A marriage comes under intense strain when there’s no money. Continue reading
My dear Jil, I did get your mail. Sorry for my late reply. I was travelling. It may sound strange, but I think you ought to appreciate his imperfection rather than just tolerating it. Imperfection is of course not the same as imperfections. Imperfection is a state, the state of man; imperfections are his acts. You’re dealing with a human not a robotic entity. His inherent nature is imperfect. Continue reading