To have and to hold; in riches and poverty; in good and bad times; in sickness and in health. I promise to love you and be by your side, till death do us part.
I am not married, neither do I claim to be a marriage expert but someone said it’s only a fool who refuses to learn from other people’s mistakes and I would like to think of myself as not a fool. Life is full of lessons to pick and learn from, if only we care enough to do so but most of the time I think our attitude is ‘That can’t happen to me’ so we ignore and move on. Of course, until it happens to you. I for one stopped judging and pointing fingers after finding myself in some of those ‘I can never do that’ or ‘That cannot happen to me’ situations. I am now a firm believer that anything is possible so no judgements here. OK, intro done.
Marriage is a big thing ( or likes in today’s society, weddings are). Today, I’m not interested in the pomp of a wedding day but that which comes after. Plan for your wedding, prepare for your marriage. Premarital counselling is not just part of the process, it is there to actually prepare you for one of the most important and difficult roles in your life which I would like to call: being selfless.
One Pastor Tonny Gobanga of Stones to Rubies Church- Kenya, during a sermon, said ‘ selfishness is the number one enemy of marriages and relationships as a whole.’ He went on to speak about the significance of walking down the altar. The altar, back in the day, was a place of death and sacrifice. And so, a couple at the altar need to understand that the sacrifice of the ceremony that has to die is “SELF!!!”.
Jesus knew what he was talking about when he said ‘love your neighbour as yourself’. I mean, why did he have to spell it out so specifically because we are selfish in nature and so it is a great battle to go against yourself but we must, if we are to really enjoy life. I can bet you no one knew joy like the selfless people who have graced this earth. A topic for another day.
There are marriages all around me. People are getting married every other day. I am also noticing, people are fighting, and unhappy in their marriages every other day. People are in business-like marriages. As long as it’s still making a profit, I’m in’. Partners are having extra marital affairs left, right and centre and justifying them. Fir others, the battle is not infidelity but an addiction to one thing or the other. People in marriages are fighting one battle or the other and it ain’t funny. But there are also they who are happy; genuinely.
After hearing the sermon from Pastor Tonny about selfishness in marriages and relationships, I thought deeper about it and found words have never been truer. See, selfishness is about putting yourself first and thinking only of yourself. When single, your choices and actions are really just yours but when you get into a relationship you ought to change your settings.
Look at the fights you have had in your relationship/ marriage. If you’re separated, look at the reasons behind that and be honest with yourself and see if the reasons do not stem back to one partner, or both, having been selfish. When you do something, simply because it makes sense to you and you do not stop to think of how it will affect your spouse or children, you’re being selfish and that’s that. Of course, you will have justifiable reasons but we have seen murderers go free on the same grounds.
Allow me to use infidelity as an example in this post. Cheating is a selfish act and that’s that. You have a spouse, who, of course, is not 100%. 80-20 rule. Your fights will mainly be about the 20% ( I stand to be corrected) and you allow the 20% to be such an elephant that it becomes unbearable. Then, there’s that colleague or that friend or someone you meet somewhere, who will have the 20% and you find yourself clicking. And because you already allowed it to become an issue, the 20% I mean, you almost do not notice yourself slipping away. Why I think that is is because now you will have 100%. The illusion of perfection. The spouse provides the 80, the clande provides the 20. You are happy but what about the two people who’ s lives you’re now stringing along?
Do we ever stop to think about our partners when we are indulging in affairs and all? Do we care to feel the ring on our finger, to remind us of the vows we said before man and God? Of course, we don’t have time for such. We are getting what we want and we do not care at who’s expense. We do not like talking about our partners, with the 20% because it will force us to think about them and how our actions would affect them and more often than not, we would not be able to go through with it. But at who’s expense? SELF. So we block our 80% out of our mind to enjoy the 20%.
Think about that for now. I realise this is not a topic I can write in one post and be done with.
Have a selfless day!
Moulding Beauty
Miss Adoyo 