How To Make Your First Wedding Your Last Marriage
Wedding is one special moment that many people, especially the young ladies look forward to making their most remarkable event in life. A successful wedding is an art but a beautiful marriage is a science.
In other words, it takes passion to wed but requires a skill to remain in marriage. There is a lie that is becoming more and more commonly acceptable in our world today,’ that marriage is one game where everyone outside wants to come in and everyone inside wants to go out’. There are things an individual must know and do to enjoy marriage if he or she is not going to merely endure it. In just a decade of counseling several intending couples, I have realized that many people invest much of their interest and resources in wedding than in marriage.
It’s important to make your wedding day your best day as much as possible but even more important is to ensure that your marriage will satisfy all your life aspirations. The web of wedding planning without a plan for the marriage is the frustration of many homes today. Wedding is just an event but marriage is another life altogether. It is sad we live in a society where family relations and peers put a lot of pressure on intending couple to prove their love and financial worth by making an elaborate wedding ceremony. Many young couples have ended a great wedding ceremony only to begin their new life in marriage in debt. It is unwise to spend more than 30% of your total capital as an intending couple just on one day event.
You need to be aware of the fact that nothing breaks a marriage than when a man is broke. It is a fact that have been proven by many family statistics that more 80% of marital crisis, separation or divorce cases are financially related. New couples should develop at least a basic one year program of turning your new ‘bride into your pride’ before saying ‘Yes I do’. It is unwise and completely unfair to desire a life partner when you have no plan to impart the person positively.
This is not just about making material provisions available but also providing spiritual visions for a higher life in marriage. I discovered an amazing fact through several marriage statistics, especially in the United States that more than 65% of marriages break up in their first year and that any marriage relationship that survives the first year has a potential to thrive for life . The reason is because everyone’s personality had been formed by various challenges, experiences, people and places, and so it becomes a first class ignorance for anyone to claim that he or she knows the partner too well in just a few months of dating before wedding.
Actually, your first year in marriage is going to be childlike but don’t make it childish. Being childlike, it is going to be full of surprises of the good, the bad and the ugly but do not make it childish by foolish talks. We are told in scripture that faith without work is dead. Another scripture said that now abide these three; faith, hope and love, but the greatest of these is Love. Therefore, if faith without works is dead and love is much greater than faith, then it takes hardwork to walk in love. Any man or woman with a successful marriage will testify to this truth that he or she works harder in his/her marriage than in the business place.
Love is more than bed exercise, it also involves table talk and ‘life reality show’. As a man, If you must build a lifetime marital institution, you must obey the instruction of Love. The reason God commanded the man to love his own wife is because men have the natural tendency to ‘love’ whatever looks good to the eyes and his emotion liked at the moment. You will be shocked to know that many of the vehicle accidents in our cities, eg Port Harcourt, Lagos, Abuja are not just caused by blood sucking demons as we often blame the devil for every wrong thing but by men who are falling in ‘love’ while driving. I will encourage the Federal Road Safety Commission to add to their list of traffic warnings ‘ if you love, don’t move’ just as we have ‘ if you drink don’t drive’.
You have overcome lust(fake love) to the degree that you are able to control your eyes. On the other hand, women are commanded to submit to their own husbands because women have the natural tendency to take premature decision like Eve, over what they need a direction from their husband. It is easier for a man to enjoy the submission of his wife when he already has a mission than when the woman is carrying the mission statement of the marriage.
A successful marriage is the ability of the man to manage the weakness of the woman and when he can no longer manage this responsibility, the marriage is declared a failure. 1 Peter 3:1-7/1 Timothy 2:11-15. Don’t ever disclose your marital challenges to anyone that is unqualified to proffer solution to your situation just as you don’t go to a carpenter’s shop for child delivery when you are in labour. A wrong advice can destroy a marriage faster than a bad habit. The future of your marriage is determined by whom you are willing to trust with your secret battles. On the other hand, there are couples who would rather fight like cat and dog than seek anyone for a healthy counseling.
Most often, when this kind of couples finally open up,their marriage is closer to the grave than can be easily revived by counsellng. I recommend a regular marriage checkup for a healthy and fulfilling marital destiny. Don’t just wait until your marriage is in trouble before you learn to go for marriage check up, just as many people in our society only visit the hospital when sickness is almost killing them. Prevention is not only better than cure but it has also been proven to be much cheaper.
You can carry out your marriage check up through any of these ways, eg,
- Try to revisit some of the important spots during your honeymoon when the romantic fire was first ignited.
- Schedule an appointment with an older couple whom both of you respect and admire or the pastor that joined both of you in marriage at least 4 times a year.
- Attend at least 3 wedding events with your spouse every year as it creates pleasant moments to cherish one another after a great chase before your own wedding. Note: it must not necessarily be a family relation, it could even be a church member, a colleague at office or a neighbor.
- Endeavor to attend Relationship Programs or Couples Fellowship as that will create room for you to understand how others are succeeding maritally and some times what not to try at home as World Wrestling Federation often warn after every advert.
- Be open to your parents if and only if they were role models of true love.
Now this last option ought to be the first principle in an ideal society but since many parents never enjoyed their own marriage in the first place and in-laws often come out too raw, they could be overbearing when given this opportunity. It’s important to leave this option as the last resort before the village elders hear how your wife burnt your pot of soup.
Finally, you must be aware of this fact that there is no guarantee that if you leave your present marriage for whatever reason that another marriage will make you a happy person no matter whoever is involved. Please don’t treat as common or talk down or your partner that you once cherished as a treasure. I have found out that people only despise their spouse when they are suffering from comparative analysis between their spouse and one Mr Rich Handsome or Miss Pretty Sharp. What you may not know is that most people that you are so crazy about cannot even to afford to live with your type. Be content with your spouse and always celebrate yourselves and you will provoke the best in one another. See You on the 14th February for Sex Revolution!!!