STOP & REFLECT

Last week Thursday November the 26th was declared a public holiday to allow people to attend the Pope's mass at the university grounds as well as to take time as a Nation to reflect. While Americans celebrated thanksgiving day we in Kenya were supposed to be taking time to reflect.

We wonder how many of you did actually stop and reflect. But as we come to the end of yet another year, don't you think it is a good time for all of us who are married to stop and reflect on the condition of our marriage? And as we do so, may we suggest to you that you take time to first and foremost single out things that you might as well be thankful for. This might seem to be a difficult thing as you begin why? because we so often tend to focus on that which is not working and forget to celebrate and be thankful for what is working well.

This is because we spend a lot of time in the dark room developing the negatives in our spouses or relationship. We rarely get out of those dark rooms to see the sunlight and celebrate and be thankful for the positives in our spouse and relationship. Let me ask you Sir, when is the last time you appreciated your wife for taking good care of your children, cooking that good meal for you and giving you good sex?

What about you dear lady, when is the last time you truly thanked your man for the effort he is making to ensure that you are comfortable as a family, in providing for you and the children and for remaining faithful to you in these days of mpango wa kando? And so as we stop to reflect lets start on a positive note by being thankful and celebrating the good things in your spouse and in your relationship before we quickly look at what can or should be done better.

REAL MEN CRY

Ladies let me ask you…

·         Is your man unable to discuss his feelings?

·         Is your man determined to avoid his feelings?

·         Is your man unable to express love, sorrow, or pain?

·         Is your man unable or unwilling to cry?

·         Is your man insensitive to your emotions?·         

           Does your man physically leave the room when emotional issues are discussed?

·         Does he lighten the mood or change the topic when emotional issues are discussed?

If you answered yes to one or all of the above questions then you are not alone. In our experience helping couples in their marriage and relationships, Grace and I have found that this is a common complaint among women. Their men can’t, NOT just won’t, open up to them. Why do I say that? Some men, in fact a majority of them want to open up to their wives but just can’t. They are unable to or don’t know how to. 

According to Relationship Expert Dr. Gary Smalley, a man who can cry is a man who has learned some secrets about intimacy. But sadly, for many men it takes something tragic or life-changing before they understand this truth. Yet many boys emerge from adolescence with a strong sense that being strong and unfeeling is the “masculine” thing to do (no wonder the other day when our Deputy President cried in public it was deemed to be culturally offensive). When a male brain is saturated in testosterone, it doesn’t take much, even from well-meaning family members, to give a boy the message that emotions and feelings are only for girls.

Then when a man enters into a relationship with a woman and even marries her she expects him to show the very emotions and feelings that as a boy he was told not to show. For this to happen, the man must be willing to undergo a serious paradigm shift in order for him to now accept that it’s okay for a man to cry and openly show his feelings. After all contrary to what we have always heard, real men also cry. This paradigm shift is important but not easy and once it is achieved it can release a man to open up and become emotionally intimate, truly one with his woman like never before.

THERE IS HOPE EVEN IN THE MIDST OF DESPAIR

An affair is one of the worst things that can happen in a marriage. It completely affects your relationship and if not handled well has the potential of killing it and greatly affecting one’s life. My intention here is obviously not to advocate for affairs as they cause a lot of pain to not just the betrayed party but also to the offender. And so let me ask you, is there hope in marriage even after an affair?

I don't know what you answer to that question is. There are those who say that this is the only grounds for a divorce. And so they say that if they find out that their spouse cheated on them they will divorce them. If that be the case where is the place of forgiveness? Now I know that whether or not a marriage can survive an affair is dependent on many things the most important being the guilty party owning up and taking responsibility for their mess and truly showing fruits worthy of of repentance.

Research carried out in the US to find out what decision couples who had been hit by an affair made, revealed that 54% decided to stay married, 19% decided to divorce while 26% were undecided. In our experience working with couples who have found themselves in such circumstances, we have also seen that if there is a willingness for both parties to work at it, they can recover from the affair. Not only can they recover from that affair but it can end up completely transforming their relationship that the couple become more intimate than ever before.

In the coming blogs we will look at some of the things these couples have done to not only recover but to go beyond the recover.

PRINCIPLE # 9

FRIENDSHIP

In our experience working with couples it always amazes us how two people can be married and yet be living separate lives. They have very little in common, don’t enjoy each others company and are not friends.  They fell in love with each other, got married quickly but never developed their friendship. They were just lovers but not friends.

You see relationships should progress from one stage into the next naturally. We should first begin with a friendship that leads into a courtship and then if all goes well into marriage. It is at the friendship stage that we get to know each others’ likes and dislikes. We get to know their interests, their hobbies, their values, their families, where they are coming from, what their strengths and weaknesses are, what their dreams are and so on. It is an important stage of the relationship because if one is very keen, it is at this stage that you can be able to make an informed choice whether or not to move this relationship forward to the next level.

Unfortunately many of us miss this very important stage in a relationship and rush things through instead of allowing them to grow organically. We rush into courtship which itself is rushed into co-habitation or engagement then later on in life we start discovering that we really have very little in common. The relationship becomes strained and we continue to live together for the sake of family, our parents and the children we have. So we live unhappily ever after no wonder we start looking for something or someone outside our marriage that can excite us.

Marriages that are built on strong friendships have a higher chance of outliving those that are not.  Grace's advice to singles planning to get married is usually this, “marry a friend not just a lover”. Couples who are not just lovers but friends tend to enjoy each others company, have a lot in common and experience true companionship which really is the purpose of marriage.

PRINCIPLE # 9

FRIENDSHIP

In our experience working with couples it always amazes us how two people can be married and yet be living separate lives. They have very little in common, don’t enjoy each others company and are not friends.  They fell in love with each other, got married quickly but never developed their friendship. They were just lovers but not friends.

You see relationships should progress from one stage into the next naturally. We should first begin with a friendship that leads into a courtship and then if all goes well into marriage. It is at the friendship stage that we get to know each others’ likes and dislikes. We get to know their interests, their hobbies, their values, their families, where they are coming from, what their strengths and weaknesses are, what their dreams are and so on. It is an important stage of the relationship because if one is very keen, it is at this stage that you can be able to make an informed choice whether or not to move this relationship forward to the next level.

Unfortunately many of us miss this very important stage in a relationship and rush things through instead of allowing them to grow organically. We rush into courtship which itself is rushed into co-habitation or engagement then later on in life we start discovering that we really have very little in common. The relationship becomes strained and we continue to live together for the sake of family, our parents and the children we have. So we live unhappily ever after no wonder we start looking for something or someone outside our marriage that can excite us.

Marriages that are built on strong friendships have a higher chance of outliving those that are not.  Grace advice to singles planning to get married is normally this,  “marry a friend not just a lover”. Couples who are not just lovers but friends tend to enjoy each others company, have a lot in common and experience true companionship which really is the purpose of marriage.

PRINCIPLE # 8

Ability to resolve conflict

It was Bishop T.D.Jakes while making the movie “Not Easily Broken” who said that, “We got to do something to sustain our relationships. We are losing our ability to survive conflict in our own homes”. We couldn’t agree more with him as from our own experience in dealing with married couples; it is this inability to resolve conflict that is destroying many marriages.

Our attitude in conflict is first and foremost wrong. We are not willing to humble ourselves and admit that we could be wrong. We fail to have an attitude of teamwork instead dealing with each other as adversaries. It’s me against you instead of us against whatever it is that is coming in between us to put us asunder. When we fail to have a team spirit we end up scoring in our own goal. We should have a win-win attitude and not a win-lose one where at the end of it all we both leave happy. We all especially the men like to win, but what does it profit us to win an argument and lose our spouse?

We often times miss the mark because we are dealing with the fruit instead of the root causes. What sometimes we think is the problem, money, sex or in-laws is not the problem. There are many underlying issues that are the cause of the problem. Being aware of these underlying issues like our fears, unfulfilled expectations and unmet needs goes a long way in helping us understand not just ourselves but our spouse. The goal of conflict resolution is not that we come to an agreement, as we will not always agree, but rather to an understanding.

Understanding where my spouse is coming from and why she is reacting the way he or she is will help a lot in conflict resolution. Listening well to understand, providing a safe environment where we feel safe to open up and where our feelings are validated helps a lot in resolving conflict. Failure to listen well and to communicate well escalates conflict rather than d-escalate it.

Being sensitive to each others needs is also paramount. When upset, a wife should not criticize or deal with her husband contemptuously as this makes him feel disrespected and this in turn demotivates him. On the other hand by withdrawing or stonewalling his wife, a man makes his wife feel rejected and this adds fuel to the fire.