My dear Jack, you have to keep accumulating value in your marriage. It’s how you become valuable and your marriage grows stronger. You cannot remain the young man who married. As the years progress, there must be maturation and value addition. When you marry as a young man, you are a potentiated entity. But you can’t go through the lifetime of the marriage a potential. At some point, potential has to manifest in concrete terms. It can’t forever remain a potential.
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Jack, come on you should be smarter than this. You should be! Just when you wanted to terminate the relationship she suddenly showed up at your house, late at night. Do you think she came for Ludo? Or you think she came to watch TV? Come on! You knew what she was up to and you attempted to take advantage but she outplayed you. Continue reading
My dear Jack, I’m sure you’ve heard about The Seven Deadly Sins. They’re the stuff of legend in Hollywood. There’s even a movie with that title, though of a disturbing nature. The movie is about a psychopath. (Why do they always have those psychopaths for these things?) The seven deadly sins are Solomonic actually. They are the seven abominations. Though “The Parson’s Tale” in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales as well as artworks like Dante’s Purgatory, help illustrate the sins. If you want to have a successful marriage you have to be mindful of the seven deadly sins.
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My dear Jack, we all make mistakes. Some mistakes are immediately apparent. But some others take nine months to manifest. Yours will take nine months. Impregnating your girlfriend while still in school is the nine month variety of mistake.
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My dear Jack, no one can force you to marry whom you don’t want to marry. Choice of marital mate is your prerogative. Marriage is an act of will. It’s why we say, “I do”. That presupposes we can say, “I don’t”, even at the altar! You shouldn’t marry under compulsion. If you don’t want to marry someone, don’t! But that doesn’t absolve you of responsibility for the natural consequences of your actions: If you impregnate someone you’ve got to take responsibility for the pregnancy. And please don’t tell me the pregnancy was a mistake. Considering how pregnancy comes about, how can it be a mistake? You went into a young woman. You impregnated her according to the order of nature. If you were not mistaken with penetrative deliberateness, how come the result of your ardour is now tagged a “mistake”? Continue reading
Dear Jack, there’s that other aspect of husbanding people don’t consider. It’s called fatherhood! You’ll be surprised how much being a good father to your children is a measure of your value as a husband. It’s all about a sense of responsibility – being responsible for your family. Which in a way is a measure of love for your wife – no loving husband abdicates parental responsibility. There are too many women playing the role of father because the real dad won’t show up or step up. Continue reading
My dear Jil, the notion of rights without responsibility defeats the very purpose of a relationship. You can’t have expectations of your spouse or partner and not imagine you owe him responsibilities too. A relationship conceptually breaks down when one side expects but has no sense of obligation to the other party. That is not the formula for a happy marriage or happy ending. It’s not a balance-sheet, it’s a one-sided ledger. And it’s a debit system. Someone keeps withdrawing from the emotional bank of the relationship, never deposits. Continue reading
Dear Jack,
You can’t be married and be so selfish, so self-centered and so irresponsible. You’re just going to destroy lives, and if care is not taken create bitter children. Marriage is not about me, me, me. It’s about her, it’s about us, it’s about them. (By them I mean the children). Continue reading