Accepting our Roles to Win at Marriage

To my ladies…….this piece of information is not desirable to hear. However, I’d be lying if I gave you some new age, feminist approving perspective.

Acknowledging our God-given role as a woman is a key to winning at marriage.

Nope, this just isn’t any religious propaganda you’ve heard from your grandmamma… This is the real stuff. The stuff that makes good marriages last.

A major role of wives is to be a help and support to husbands. You heard me! Because we were created to help them, we’re actually equipped to do it! We’ve been given the tools, the wisdom and the insight to help our husbands become their best.

When I just got married, I marveled at my husband’s amazing forgetfulness, his lack of follow-through on some great ideas he had and his cowardly demeanor. Furthermore, I lacked patience and kindness, constantly highlighting my planning abilities and multitasking strengths, my routines and my confidence in taking risks.

Now, I’ve repentantly come to appreciate the fact that my God-given skills and abilities were given to help my husband and NOT to use my giftings to bat him over the head or highlight his shortcomings in these areas. It’s like taking credit for something I didn’t earn.

Ladies…what value would we be to our husbands if we didn’t have anything to bring to the table?  Besides our bodies, we do possess skills that could help them, or greater, words that could encourage them. Men love to be complimented. You can never overcompliment a man. I love watching my husband blush when I dig deep for new material. Oh the power we as women have with our words!

Men by nature are more forgetful than women, in fact, science proves that women have consistently stronger short-term memory than men.

Coincidental or divine that our strengths would be different? When I think about the men I know complimenting their wives, I often remember them talking about their wives being smart. We probably aren’t super smart, but to men who usually have different strengths, we can appear amazing.

I’ve often seen my positive, encouraging words to my husband become like water to a dry plant, it makes him hold his head up high. I see confidence rising and a man who becomes taller and ready to change the world.

It’s sad when we use our words to criticise and diminish their masculinity in response to their short-comings. I am guilty of this a lot. God reminded me that when I do what I’m created to do, I reap the rewards. A man who is built up by his wife loves her, a cyclical effect. He is motivated to help me accomplish my passions, goals and becomes my biggest fan.

Quite often, I’ve seen insecure spouses tear down their partners out of insecurity, fearing that if their partners gained confidence, they will cheat or leave. How sad that the opposite is true! A man who is built up by his wife is more motivated to loyalty. I’ve even seen marriages when spouses cripple each other to self-doubt, convincing them that they are worthless and incapable in the hope that they will be controlled and submissive. This is not only ungodly and evil, it is a marriage controlled by fear that leaves both parties unfulfilled.

Oh if we’d only seek to build each other up with our words! We would reap the rewards of a good marriage!

Breaking toxic patterns

We are the products of our beliefs...

I’ve often heard people use the excuse of their upbringings to justify their negative tendencies or bad practices. While I can acknowledge that environment plays a major role in shaping us, I refuse to believe that we have to live that out for the rest of our lives.

Sometimes even our own fixation of hating a vice can ironically doom us into struggling with it ourselves.

Growing up, a close relative of mine would prefer to assume the worst-case scenario for everything! Unfortunately, my unhealthy fixation over hating that practice didn’t keep me in the clear of being guilty of it in the future. Only when my husband called out my constant negative, worst-case scenarios under the guise of “Contingency Planning”, had I realised that I too was choosing to live in fear instead of faith. I had become expert at seeing errors and critiquing. I found nice words for them like…editing, insight, revelation, restoring a brother, helping, etc. Simply put, I realised that issuing “a better way” was a need for my own self-affirmation. I was patting my own back. There I was convincing myself that I was being a good sister and wife with ungrateful reciprocation.

A friend once told me, if I am going to do or say anything, ask myself if it’s out of genuine love or out of fear. If it’s fear, don’t do it.

It continues to be a battle, I’m not out of the woods yet. But I know that acknowledging and surrendering my inability to change on my own to God is how I begin to break free. God now makes me aware and there is a lot of apologising involved….a lot. I often have to apologise to my husband before I can pray effectively.

Also, I need to keep forgiving the relative for the effects of the negativity, especially now that I’ve realised how easy it can become a habit.

I no longer can say, I do this because this person did it. I am an adult and I have to own my poor choices, EVERY time. I need to call it out for what it is, and quickly apologise, forgiving myself also. I choose to visualise a better me and keep pressing towards that goal with every belief that I will overcome fully one day.

I recommend writing on a piece of paper core values you believe to be good and bad. It could be about yourself in terms of what your successes or achievements should be, expectations of a potential spouse, and characteristics of a child. Then on an additional column, tick those things that are true and which are not. Ask yourself why you believe what you believe and who/what are the sources of these beliefs. It might be interesting to realise how subtly our upbringing may have influenced both good and bad beliefs.

Dating Purposely

Disclaimer- If you are dating for any other reason besides prospecting for a potential spouse, this blog isn’t for you.

I once heard how you date will set the precedence for the marriage quality you experience. I’ve found this for the most part to be true. Sometimes, if we honestly look back into our early dating years, we might remember little signs and red flags we overlooked that we could currently be facing in marriage.

I’ve observed that strong marriages have couples that possess a strong sense of respect for one another. Marriage based on a foundation of respect is therefore imperative and should be demanded from the onset of a relationship. Interestingly, dating provides key opportunities to cultivate it and should therefore not be taken lightly. Here are some tips you may want to take note of:

·        Curfews- No, I’m not a prehistoric dinosaur. No matter how old you are, giving yourself and communicating a curfew to your date provides an opportunity for him/her to respect you, your family and your boundaries. If you live with your family, telling a date that you need to be home by a certain time (like 10pm), sends a message that you value your family (who may be concerned about your safety…or not). You will be appreciative when you marry someone who shows respect for your family even if you aren’t fans of them (you can thank me later). Also, by you enforcing that the curfew be observed, teaches the date that your boundaries will be respected. He/She will respect you for it. If he doesn’t…..you’re better off without him long-term.

·        Unmasking- Meet him/her in the context of his/her family and old friends. A date can only pretend up to a certain extent around his/her family. It’s easy for family members and friends who know the person for many years to ‘buss dey files’ or share their secrets without compulsion. Observe the date and how the date talks to his/her parents/siblings. This is very telling since the way a guy speaks to his mother is highly likely the way he will speak to you also. I remember a guy I dated in the past insisted that he wouldn’t talk to me the way he spoke to his mother since we were very different. Well….after a few years, I was the recipient of a less than angelic manner of speaking (no…not my husband).

·        Ask the hard questions- While I don’t recommend doing this on the first date, I definitely believe this should be discussed early on. Ask about the person’s short-term and long-term goals……after all…you might be in it! Ask about religious beliefs. Yes…this is important. Many married couples fight over religious beliefs and practices in marriages. Discuss their thoughts on having kids. If you are big on having kids, take a kid relative on a fun day along with your date to see how he/she interacts with the kid.

·        Past relationships- While I don’t believe in asking details about someone’s past personal relationships. It’s wise to know why those relationships didn’t work out. While we know there are two sides to a story, you may still want to take mental notes in case any red flags come up along the discourse. Serious relationships are also good to know about and your date’s current thoughts about the person involved, in the event you discover that your date may not be healed and ready to honestly move on. While you can never truly get into someone’s head about their deep feelings, you would want to gauge if their heart is truly free and whether they may still be in contact with these past lovers. I do recommend that these issues be brought up later in the relationship timeline, since these are heavier and intimate events should only be shared with someone worthy to be trusted (Are you?).

·        Physical boundaries- I’m a believer in sex after marriage….not only for spiritual reasons. This is such wisdom…and perhaps, the best advice here. Here’s why…. There is a fallacy that you need to try out a sexual relationship with someone to determine ‘sexual compatibility’. I believe this is a myth and a ‘set up’ for pain and unnecessary drama! You can grow to have sexual chemistry with anyone you fall in love with over time. Sexual satisfaction is not so much an issue as to someone’s ability or performance…which can improve…but more so…the love you choose to express towards one another with open communication. When you have sex with someone, the chemical, oxytocin, gets released and binds you to the person emotionally (this is scientific). It becomes very difficult to separate if you want to call it quits after a sexual relationship (remember your first break-up?). Unfortunately, like most objects with sticky surfaces, the binding becomes less intense which each sexual partner. So sexual experimentation is like a setup. Abstinence offers the gift of self-preservation, self-respect and maintaining a sober mind when assessing a relationship without being influenced by feelings and attachments. More importantly, you teach someone to respect you and place a high sense of value on you since you aren’t quick to share your inner sanctuary (your body). We often teach others to respect us by delaying sexual interaction, since we are sowing seeds of respect that will last into marriage. Delaying sexual gratification communicates to someone that you are worth a lot and that your date must work for you (through a serious commitment). It works out for you in the long-term. Trust me!

Giving to Win at Marriage

Marriage is not for everyone. Not everyone has been properly apprised of the mindset required to live and share your entire life with someone else. Many of us have grown up with systems and social media cultures that tell us, that we are supreme, life is about us, what we want. We are the buyer…the consumer…because "we’re worth it!" Ultimately, this commercial and superficial world system fosters SELFishness.

I have news for you….Marriage is NOT about you!…the faster we get that in our minds, the better off we will be.

The more successful marriages I’ve seen growing up are the ones that are mutually sacrificial. Both partners have an understanding that they have given up the rights of having all their goals and aspirations accomplished in order to have the other person achieve some of theirs. Don’t get me wrong, you are still uniquely yourself and you shouldn’t lose who you are as a person, but rather, your mind-set is highly geared towards doing things that make both persons ‘win’ instead of one.

Also, two persons coming from two backgrounds mean that both persons have practices and habits that each believes is the ideal one. A good marriage means that sometimes you do it the different way even if you believe your way is better; Go ahead…fight me on it. I’ve seen the result on one party imposing their cultural practices, without any compromise. While the marriage endured for a long time, one person mentally checked out and eventually felt like a robot …losing any zeal for the marriage.

Whenever I tell people I have a great marriage and that I love marriage, I am often met with skeptical, unconvinced expressions followed by, “Give it some more time, you will see”. Thankfully for me, my husband was a mature guy who entered our marriage wanting to do whatever he could to make me happy. While we dated, he would often ask me if there was anything he could improve on as a boyfriend. His selflessness inspired me to want to be that way also. Two people trying to give to the other person makes the magic happen.

Throughout the journey, we have both desired many things, but would usually try to take turns ensuring that the other would have something that was valuable and meaningful, at the cost of getting something we wanted to be deferred.

For example, we needed a new car and my husband had his eyes on the fully electric Ionic and had spent months doing research on it. I wanted to do an MBA and it seemed like it was good timing for me to complete it……we bought a Toyota Aqua (we both love it….now).

Hopefully, when I get a better paying job because of my new job in the future, my husband will have a car he wants.

It’s important to say that my husband’s job isn’t to make me happy. Neither is my task, to make him happy. It should mutually be our desire to want to out-give one another. I’ve often found, doing something that truly pleased my husband, meant that somewhere in the near future, chances are he would want to reciprocate the kindness….though I am not motivated for that reason (I must often check my heart).

Setting a culture of giving early in marriage is vital. If you are married for many years, I challenge you to give and be sacrificial, regardless of the outcome. I believe, if you continue giving with a good heart without expecting anything, in the future, you will at some point be met with reciprocation.