By OLUMOFIN Kehinde Benjamin

If there is anything that is really sweet when gotten right, it is marriage. Yet, marriage can be very complicated and difficult to live in when real life romance become undefined on all front. And I think many married persons of whatever faith and convictions falls into the second category. Marriage is not just a romantic relationship, it is a contract….an agreement between parties and persons so connected in the intricate context agreed to. Recently, I was part of a contractual witnesses to a land agreement. All the contract details and conditions were clearly written with the help of a lawyer. Everyone on both sides of the agreement were given ample time to read and append their signature to the agreement. Except for unforeseen reasons, mostly due to greed on either party, none of the parties is expected to work against the agreement once signed.

That was how marriage contract are supposed to be. However, on the contrary, most married persons, including many who are reading this piece entered into marriage without clearly spell agreement on matters that’ll surely rise sooner than the generally “unprepared” fellows enters into when the wedding bell rang. I have wondered why married persons enter into a contract, without clearly defined agreement on matters that are of important to the life they hope to live together. Rarely will business partners go into partnership without a predefined details on investment and profit sharing formulae to guide their operations, which will be duly signed as agreed but when it is marriage, romantic love blindly leads on till the dotted lines are signed and couples are left to face the realities of the married life, having no definite idea of what is expected of both and how to reach a determined end.

All forms of contractual agreement in all field of life have written documents and unwritten codes and tenets that have been set in place to guide and help new intake adjust into the environment to minimize troubles with the system they are newly inducted into but when it is marriage, romantic love most of the times, override the judgment of lovers. Wedding papers are mostly sealed and signed with no defined understanding as to how life after wedding will look like. The thing is that, Many married people who got separated or couples getting to divorce their partner due to “irreconcilable” differences is not necessarily because of love lost but because most are generally unprepared for the life they now have together. Singles and unmarried should be told there are more to marriage than “I love you” and the promise of free sex. So there is a need to know what you want, define the life you want, and agree on them with your spouse to be, if not on all but at least on most, in order of importance, this is very important. What is IMPORTANT varies from person to person, and from one marriage to another. Take this for example, there are families where husband and wife operate a common purse, to them it is fundamental, without which nothing else matters financially once the matter of common purse is uncertain . While in many other families, common purse is not seen as necessary. This simply means that what is important to one family may not be important to another.

What is this telling unmarried singles? Define what you considered important, and agree on them, both in intent and extent you both can possibly compromise where possible without eroding personal happiness and collective marital expectations. However, in reality as seen in many marriages, these things are not always the case. For example a man that has no love for the kitchen may not suddenly grow to love attending to his wife in kitchen just because he’s now married to his heartthrob. That simply mean, a woman that defines love with how many hours a man spend in the kitchen with her has to correctly define her thoughts and marry a man only if he agrees to her fantasies, otherwise, future emotional hurts may be inevitable. A lady once said to me, “I can’t close from work, and still end up in the kitchen cooking for any man”. For a man that defines respect and submission of a wife by her dexterity in making homemade foods, where proper agreements are not reached, disappointment towards his new wife is inevitable, but if it happens he shares the same view with the lady, then they get to live as one in their marriage.

Singles, before you marry, you must be very clear on your expectations and agree on them (verbal and nonverbal) with your future spouse ever before the dotted lines are signed. Once the bridge of “I do” is crossed, making new agreements are rarely possible without dare emotional consequences. In many cases of single parenting, especially where such are not necessitated because of the demise of a partner, marital promises of love without clear definitions of terms and expectations is the trouble that birth single parenting and failed marriages. When it comes to marriage, romantic love alone is not enough. A journey that is not well defined, can never be run with clear cut understanding. Once you don’t understand what you want, and even if you do but couldn’t find someone that agreed with you before you get married, marriage will not automatically drop them on your lap. So the need to understand your contractual agreement before signing the dotted lines.

Never shy from talking and agreeing on romance and sex. It is not canal to talk about sex before marriage. Never assume your partner is a sex enthusiast just because you are one. That he is handsome and she’s beautiful may not mean he/she is romantic and love sex. Good physical attractiveness and being a sex enthusiast are two different things and so is romantic love and spirituality. Please talk about them, many wonderful unions are been threatened and stretched beyond necessity because the importance of sex and romance for one is little less important to the other. Lack of compatibility in sexual desires, romance and their regularity can spell doom for best of union where things are taken for granted before marriage. Marriage won’t fix what was not there before wedding so easily, especially when one had shied away from them before marriage. These are things many married people did not talk about and have stories of strains in their relationships that sometimes goes for years before a fair compromised are reached, if ever.

Few days before the wedding, a couple asked me during premarital counseling whose duty is it to pay rent, school fees, etc, especially where the man and the wife both are gainfully employed. They are wise and more so than many of us who had gone that same road before them. Many do have the questions on their mind, but courtesy and the feeling of not wanting to offend the other made them shy away from talking about it. Many women had been taken aback when suddenly their hubby asked them to start contributing to settling the family bills. Not because the man cannot solely cover the family expenses but because they don’t see it as the man’s duty to carry his wife financial burden especially when they have the wherewithal to bear it. So are men who have been more than surprised when wife refuses to help carry the burden of finance where they are obviously incapacitated financially for whatever reason. That your spouse covered up for you financially despite not talking about it before the wedding does not mean the couple next door are doing well on the same platform. What and who should contribute to the bills and expenses are the bane of many marriages.

If you are not married, don’t shy from financial responsibility talk, to assume your partner will be okay with your spending styles maybe a step too far. Many homes are yet to recover from such. If as a woman you have a job but don’t like contributing to offsetting family bills and expenses, let your man be aware before the marriage, he won’t be taken by surprise when you make your stance known after the wedding. If as a man your financial strength is strong enough to bear the family financial burden but still want your wife to contribute to family monetary needs because you don’t agree it is your sole duty, please let her know before you marry her, never assume she will love you with her money. Only few women came from that old block, and if your mom was like that please, don’t assume any other woman can be like your mom, or like the “good woman” next door. That a woman refuses to love you with her money does not make her a “bad woman”. It’s just a question of orientation. That is why financial responsibility talk and agreement on most discussion is a good foundation for a future marital bliss.

If you are the outgoing party type, and your partner is an indoor person by nature, please don’t fail to talk about it and reach a compromise that will guide you for the rest of your marital life. It can also be frustrating if you are a strong lover of spiritual matter, a seeker of spiritual meaning of things to get married to a partner who is less satisfyingly and uninterested in spiritual things. To see the tendency to go headlong in spiritual things with intentional focus on spiritual gifts and desire to express same in your partner before marriage and you are less concern about such things, to go ahead with marriage knowing you don’t share same spiritual value is to blindly agree to go on a journey you have no natural flare for. Where that is the case for either partner, frustrations are inevitable unless both grow along the line to seek after the same goal. Marriage doesn’t forge such an end easily especially when those involved have started ignorantly on a different footings. Marriage won’t make a partner who is indifferent to spiritual things suddenly turn to a lover of God overnight. Spiritual compatibility in marriage should not be taking for granted during courtship just like other issues I have raised.

Trying to make the other person live like you after you are married hardly have a happy ending. Don’t agree with a life style you aren’t comfortable with before marriage, hoping marriage will changed him/her perspective to yours afterward. Nothing is impossible but most marriages are not that fortunate. The married may make compromises and find a common ground to happiness when they discovered these things but in reality such are not always that easy. Talking and agreeing and figuring out these differences before marriage are far better but romantic love is blind and can make one sign a contract one had little or no understanding on the terms binding the union. Romantic love, often unintentional, hardly go beyond few months, or even days after the wedding date, the rest are lived in intentional love. Intentional love are made easier where terms and conditions of the life you are entering to with your partner are defined and fairly understood.

For the married lovers who already missed the opportunity to “define and understand” the marital life from the perspective of their spouses and not just on what they think are right and wrong, it is never too late to start redefining what you consider important and agreeing to see things from each other’s view and make compromise here and there. Sure, it won’t be without it attending pains and emotional stresses before common grounds are reached while in some cases, outright loss of personal expectations may be the price of failure to define the life you want to lead together before crossing the bridge called “wedding”. I understand some marriages may not be as fortunate as described and some more may have it far more agreeable than the others.

And to the unmarried I have these few advices…

1. Do not marry a woman you considered not beautiful enough. Her look will later loathe you. Women don’t grow more beautiful with age, their look only get more matured.

2. Do not marry a man whose financial status you consider poorer than you can cope with. If his status does not change too soon, your soul will abhor him.

3. Don’t marry a man/woman whose appearance you are not proud to be seen with.

4. Don’t marry without premarital counseling, if possible, attend sessions with more than one counselor. I recommend one in your church and another outside your church, if you both attend same church and if you are from different denominations, attending sessions from both sides may save you many troubles ahead. There is safety with many counselors says the Scripture. Why the Bible recommend more than one counselor is best known to God (Proverbs 11:14; 15:22; 24:6). Don’t ignore it.

5. Romantic love is beautiful, it is God’s way of sorting and setting up two persons for marriage. Romantic love is purely courtship behavior. Without it, we won’t get attracted to each other and without that physical attractions, there will likely be no marriage. That is why it is generally unintentional and does not fully engage the sense facilities. So as best as you can, try open your eyes and seek for advice of experienced married persons who has passed same way like you. They will tell you things romantic love is likely going to hide from you. That was in the mind of Apostle Paul when he says in Titus chapter 2 that the aged (experience men and women) should teach the younger ones.

6. Please, know that marriage should not only be about marrying whom you love but about loving who you married. This is why love after marriage is deliberate and intentional.

7. Make it fun loving you. Life is already serious don’t add yours to it. Love is the antidote to life difficulties, make it fun living with your lover. Make it easy for your spouse to love you after marriage, be happy, be jovial and be lively to be with. These may cover for many other lapses that can otherwise make a shipwreck of your marriage boat. Sometimes, married people are also the reason their partner find it hard to love them intentionally.  If you want to be loved, make yourself lovable too.. Whoever has friends must show them He’s friendly too (Proverbs 18:24).

_Written by OLUMOFIN Kehinde Benjamin, Group Admin, 3pG Christian Ministry and President, Fellowship of the Married and Matured Singles._