THE ROAD MAP TO SUCCESSFUL MARRIAGE



Author: PRINCE FODAY

Introduction

The writing on this theme was inspired by the increasing level of divorces and separations among African parents in the Diaspora and at home, and this might be even be true for other continents. Marriage is an important institution and its sustainability should be a priority to mankind. Most marriages are short-lived due to improper appraisal by both parties. It is implied that, parties end-up in marriage because of love, though some marriages are spontaneous. The word “LOVE” means to look, observe, venture and engage. Love is misconstrued by many and some may judge it as mere passion for a relationship. True love needs to undergo an evaluation process before it can be determined. The bad thing with some parties is the inconsistency in behaviour. There are cases of people that show nice behaviour in pre-marriage relationship, and upon marriage, they start revealing their true attributes. It is this inconsistency that is leading to most divorces and separations. Before putting this piece, I took the opportunity to chat with lots of people on the issue. A school of thought told me that, “the best person to talk on the issue is someone with the experience”.  The other school of thought could not share this view. My personal opinion is that, whether someone is experienced or not in marriage, we need to open our doors to the pool of views on the issue. Learning is a continuous process and we should be ready to digest ideals at all times. We are living in the world of trial and error. The road map I am suggesting can be tested by anyone and I would be happy to have a feedback on the result. There is a saying that “You never try, you never know”. The model to the road map is from personal intuition and it is my utmost pleasure to share the food of thought with mankind.  The road map to a successful marriage can be expressed in symbols as M=F (CA, HH, DR, HR &O).  M is marriage; F is function of or depends on; CA is cognitive ability; HH is health history; DR is degree of resistance; HR is human relations; and O is others.

Cognitive Ability (CA):

Cognitive ability depicts one’s level of perception and not one’s academic credentials. There may be a conviction that education improves people’s cognitive ability, however, there are still those that contravene the hypothesis. A party with high cognitive ability will understand that he/she is entering into a relationship from a different background. Having this in mind and synchronising the differing background can be right for a successful relationship. Studying the likes and dislikes of each other can strengthen the marriage bond. Sound relationship thrives on openness and it is relevant for both parties to be transparent. Relationship should be built on trust and parties have to treat each other as mouth piece and promote domestic secrecy.  Both parties need to share and care for each other. Projects to be undertaking should be collectively discussed and resources put together to effect it. There may be variance in the level of domestic income, and the proportion of contribution to a project (s), depends on the strength of income from both parties. The parties can have their individual accounts for services, and there should be a unified account for domestic expenses and projects.  Negotiating to reach an agreement can be the right spirit in a relationship. There are some parties that are with the habit of attacking suddenly and irritating the other party when a burning issue arises. The sudden attack and irritations are wrong and unhealthy, and this needs to be replaced with diplomacy. The diplomacy involves studying the party’s right mood and creating an agenda for discussion. It would be a good idea to table issues and discuss it to reach a compromise.   Looking at the trend of relationship for those in the Diaspora, most of the divorces or separations are caused by weak cultural assimilation, and the ill-assessment of their partner.  Most people in the Diaspora are yet to try and understand the concept of cultural assimilation. Cultural assimilation is the application of a compromise between home culture and foreign culture.

Health History (HH)

The check for the health history can be a relevant factor in the decision making process. Common illnesses like flu, temporary pains and others not mentioned are irrelevant in this case. Terminal illness like HIV/AIDS and some others are dangerous for a marriage relationship, though it could be discriminatory (a critical issue when it comes to human rights). The question now is, how can one know that the person wanting to wed is affected by such illness? Well, through voluntary health check by partners. Blood group match check can further be important. Most people due to ignorance blame their partner to be impotent or un-reproductive without testing the blood group. The male partner may be impotent and may not be cognisance of this due to lack of health check. The female partner may have growth in the fallopian tube that may have developed at early age, and may be unaware, due to lethargy in health check. A health history check can enable the parties to identify health problems and provide a solution for a happy relationship, particular minor and solvable health problems. Basically, a partner with weak health history can increase expenses at domestic level. Money meant to be saved to meet domestic welfare will be largely spent on health. However, except for terminal or strong health problems, where there is love and the fact that the partner reasonably satisfies the other parameters to a successful marriage, minor and soluble health problems should be considered irrelevant.

Degree of Resistance (DR)

Showing a strong resistance to interference can sustain your relationship. In Africa and most continents, people are highly vulnerable to external interference to relationships. It is hard to see someone that keeps to one relationship. The case for Adam and Eve is a living testimony of mankind’s vulnerability to the test of resistance to centrifugal forces. The test of the vulnerability to the resistance became evident when I was in secondary school. There were two couples that were in close relationship and we orchestrated a move to test the degree of love. We realised that the female party had a weak degree of resistance, and this was also the case for the male party. In politics, people can stage manage an interference into an opponent’s relationship to seek competitive strategies. Competitors in business should be aware of such interference into their competitive strategies.  It is incumbent to evaluate the degree of resistance to external factors before wedding a party. The degree of resistance can be weak or strong, and it is easy to identify this in a pre-marriage relationship. There are internal and external pressures from friends, relatives and the general public that will have negative effects on a relationship. A party may easily yield to views and issues from friends and relatives, thereby creating tensions in the relationship. It is necessary to watch-out for these unhealthy elements in a relationship.

Human Relationship (HR)

It is imperative to assess a partner’s relationship with interest groups (parents, relatives, friends and the general public). Sound relationship with interest groups can be good for someone interested in to wed. The degree of relationship may be weak or strong. Someone with a strong relationship with interest groups can promote sustainable relationship and peace. In most cases, a weak relationship with interest groups will render the marriage temporary.  A partner with a healthy relationship can increase domestic cash inflow and open opportunities. Imagine if the wedded parties open a family business and one of the partners does not maintain good relationship with customers. The unhealthy relationship will definitely lead to high customer turnover (that is the proportion of customers leaving the business at the end of the financial year). This reminds me of a man who was running a bar business with his wife at their premises. The wife’s sound relationship with clients made the business to flourish. The husband, because of weak trust in his wife, became suspicious and tensions started building-up out of jealousy. The baseless jealousy coupled with violent actions in the eyes of the clients resulted to the customers leaving for alternative outlets. The business ended-up closing, and due to the fall in domestic income,  violent emotions continued to the extent that the man was jailed for inflicting serious bodily harm on the innocent wife.

Others

There are other factors like family history and level of productivity that can influence marriage. Family history involves an analysis of the partner’s parental background from the angles of religion, nature of marriage and culture. The level productive is based on the party’s degree of pro-activeness in generating domestic income. It is important to investigate whether the partner hails from a family that wed only to a Muslim or Christian or not cognisance of religious background. There is the likelihood that people from divorced or separated families may be prone to such end results in a relationship. People from polygamous or tribal-oriented or sectarian-oriented families are very likely to adopt the culture, and so, one should be careful in entering into a relationship from such background. One should be watchful whether the partner is highly income generating or weakly income generating. A hard working or high income generating partner is sure to increase domestic income and promote peace. Productivity cannot be judged from academic or professional credentials. A woman or man may not have academic or professional credentials, but can be very enterprising. It is the enterprising nature of a partner that needs to be identified. However, a partner with strong enterprising flair can influence the weak enterprising party, but this depends on the weak party’s level of understanding and cooperation to progressive strides.  

Conclusion

The consideration of the suggested parameters might help in achieving a successful marriage. There is the need to look before leaping. Some school of thought may say that love is blind. However, it is relevant to open your eyes and evaluate the relationship entering into. A major mistake made in selecting the wrong partner can lead to an unpleasant setback. There are cases where people take harsh actions (like killing their partner and many disheartening actions) due to hurdles in the relationship. A father recently told me that, "his son killed himself from frustrations from his wife by falling from the 10^th floor of their house".  There is a situation of someone who killed himself and the children because his wife disserted him.  You will never like your partner more than his/her parents that suffered for her/him. Or, it will cause pain on your parents, friends and relatives for anyone to harm or kill himself due to frustrations from a relationship. Why the senseless action? You have a life to live and it is senseless to destroy a life you did not create, rather than allowing hiccups (whether serious or mild) to lead you into unwarranted action. We have a reason for living on planet earth and our lives are are destined by God. The life we live has no straight line curve and is open to challenges (that is hurdles are inevitable and cannot be avoided as long as you are human).There should be self-discipline or restraint when faced with an unpleasant scenario. What Peter would not like to be done to him, should not be done to Paul, so do not inflict pain or harsh punishment on your partner when the going is tough. It is good not to allow stressful situation to drive you mad.  The best step for a serious hitch, that is unsolvable in a relationship, is to embark on an exit strategy. There are many pebbles on the beach or sound partners out there. Making the right decision is based on sound and comprehensive assessment. The marriage model developed can highly assist in reaching a sound decision.  The path to successful marriage has a direct relationship to the partner’s high level of understanding and cooperation, reasonable health history, impeccable attributes to external and internal disturbances, and pleasant relationship to interest groups, ideal family background and positive entrepreneurial skills.  Relationship should be based on trust and collective efforts for mutual benefits. A relationship with divided interest and vulnerable to internal and external forces cannot be sustainable. Marriage bond is like two parties uniting their differences and modelling it for the general good . I have to end this journey with a scripture from the Bible (Ephesians 5: 22-33). Let wives be in subjection to their husbands as to the Lord, because a husband is head of his wife as Christ also is the head of the congregation, he being a saviour of his body. In fact, as the congregation is in subjection to Christ, so let wives also be to their husbands in everything. Husbands continue loving your wives, just as Christ also loved the congregation and delivered up himself for it, that he might sanctify it, cleansing it with the bath of water by means of the word, that he might present the congregation to himself in its splendour, not having a spot or a wrinkle or any of such things, but that it should be holy without blemish. In this way husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself, for no man ever hated his flesh, but feels and cherishes it, as Christ does the congregation, because we are members of his body. For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and he will stick to his wife, and the two will become one flesh. Nevertheless, also, let each one of you individually so love his wife as he does himself, on the other hand, the wife should have deep respect for the husband.

Author:

Prince Foday

United Kingdom