ring-bearer

I heard a teaching a few hours ago about marriage and character. How it’s so easy to be in a relationship claiming love couldn’t be more in any other relationship in the world than your own and when you are married to the same person you couldn’t get short of love for, loving now seems to be a challenge.

It’s said that 9 out of every 10 married men either cheat or will cheat on their wives. I honestly do not know the percentage or poll rating for wives but i guess it won’t be far from that either.

While some people have the gift of celibacy and are happy with being monks, ennuchs and nuns, some married folk can’t help envying them and wishing they were celibate in the first place.

In fact, many people have given up marriage as an impossible institution to succeed at one way or another. They believe that regardless of how much love and care a man and woman have for each other, once they get married, everything slowly unravels and ends up in shambles from the viewpoint of experience (bad experience in their own case)

Anyway, the truth is that the only way we can grow in marriage is if each of both parties commit to becoming mature and building character in marriage. There are married people whose spouses cannot pick their phone calls or read their text messages. Some cannot even tell their spouses the amount of money in their account. They believe it’s a personal thing especially because they slaved for the money in that account. “It’s personal” they say.

Trust becomes eroded easily in marriages like this. Some wives chase their husbands around town with phone calls in a bid to make sure that he’s not seeing other woman while using late night meetings as an excuse. Husbands and some wives kick vehemently against the eroding of their erstwhile independent lifestyles while they were single in marriage. They find very offensive an inability to go out at anytime they like, do what they want and buy what they want etc…. Someone or some people (spouse and children) sometimes need to approve before they can do those things.

It takes maturity or growth in character to live selflessly in marriage which is usually the lacking virtue in marriages that break up. Each party sees things from his or her own point of view only all the time.

Some partners in marriage even learn the art of manipulative negotiation by refusing to consent to some issues except they have their way. For example, some wives totally refuse or selfishly regulate their husbands having sex with them because they want this or that.

One 50-yr old man that was married for 30 years to his wife started having serious health issues. In fact, he had a terminal illness. In discussing with him, the doctor handling his medicals deciphered that the root cause of the illness was relational. He decided to speak with his wife and on investigation discovered that they hadn’t had sex in the last 20 years of their marriage. When he asked the wife why, she told him that her husband had a temper issue and she had thrown him out of her bed until he had completely sorted the issue. Imagine that.

The strength of a marriage is a pointer to the development of character on the sides of both spouses. It therefore makes sense to ask, “Are you mature yet? Do you have character?”. Do you ever see things from your spouse’s own end rather than yours? 

Partners who are willing to build character and grow mature have always noticed changes in their approach or response to things and issues. Wives who hated football became ardent followers of football because of their husbands; husbands who disliked going to the kitchen became excellent cooks etc….Your willingness to develop character would show in your willingness to learn. How “old” are you really?