Marriage is one institution that gets so much buzz but is the buzz about the marriage or the wedding? Some people while thinking about the idea of getting married tend to focus more on getting there than what will happen after they get there. This explains why things may go awry after the party rice has been eaten, gifts have been received and everyone has gone home.
For a relationship that is potentially headed to marriage to work, there are some questions the people involved need to ask themselves. Be honest to yourselves as well when giving the answers.
Is the relationship emotionally balanced?
No two people in a relationship love themselves equally 100% of the time. Sometimes the woman has to bring 80% while the man has 20%. Is one person always seemingly more interested in the life of the other? Are you listening to respond or listening to understand? Where you find out that the relationship is not balanced out, this could be a potential problem in future. If one partner is always carrying the relationship alone for long stretches while the other barely skates by doing the bare minimum, eventually the partner shouldering that emotional responsibility will get tired. Usually the fundamental reason for this can be that one person is more committed than the other who isn’t willing to do the work or is not even interested to begin with. If this is a problem, as you answer this question you might want to take a step back. If you are the person who shoulders the emotional balance, ask yourself if you will be able to do this for your lifetime as that should be the duration of marriage. Your honest answer should guide your next step. If you are the one not giving anything or not giving enough emotionally, be candid and ask yourself why that is so. If your answer is one that is subject to change, then you can go ahead. If you think it won’t, you need to consider a break. Not being emotionally invested can lead to resentment on both sides in future.
Are you more interested in the wedding rather than the marriage?
Sometimes when people are in a relationship and they start thinking of marriage. The thought process is usually things like: Will he or she be accepted by my family? Is he or she making enough money, what will I want the wedding be like, what venue will I like for the reception, etc. People don’t really focus on what will happen after the ceremonies are over. Whether your family is accepting or not, while that can put stress on the relationship, you will have to be the one who lives with your partner for life. No matter how fabulous your wedding ceremonies are and how much you wow your guests, marriage actually begins once all that is over and the decorations are stripped away. If your thoughts focus more on the wedding than the actual marriage, it is time to reevaluate your priorities. You want to think about what kind of partner will he or she be in a crisis? What are their views with regards to raising children? Not on what kind of souvenirs will I give my guests or what kind of wedding gown will I wear.
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What are my deal breakers?
Deal Breakers – This is one very crucial thing that gets ignored. She doesn’t know how to cook. You rationalize it with ‘she will learn when we are married.’ You are married and still in the honey moon phase and she still doesn’t cook, you again rationalize with, ‘when the children come, she will learn.’ Now the children are here and Aunty still can’t cook, in fact, she tells you she doesn’t want to learn and then drops the bombshell: “Afterall, when you met me I didn’t know how to cook, why didn’t you complain then?” Oga, if you knew not being able to cook was something that will bother you, it should have been addressed before you said ‘I do’. As a couple, it is necessary to talk about your deal breakers, what you can tolerate and what you can’t. The ones you can tolerate, to what degree can you tolerate it. A man once said his resentment towards his wife was that she doesn’t use the toothpaste tube from the bottom. This caused a lot of problems. Something as little as that! What happens when you don’t discuss your deal breakers is that those seemingly little things become building blocks for the big things. Resentment and ultimate falling out of love doesn’t start overnight. It starts with deal breakers that weren’t dealt with and grow from there.
Are we good conversationalists?
“How much do you need for your hair?” “How was your day?” “Have you heard Olamide’s new song?” These are conversation starters; they don’t make up the conversation. They should not be all what the conversation is about. As a couple if this is how you communicate, you need a reevaluation ASAP! Conversation according to the dictionary means ‘a talk, especially an informal one between two or more people, in which news and ideas are exchanged.’ Synonyms to it are words like discussion, gossip, heart-to-heart and so on. The above doesn’t really fulfill the above requirements. If you can’t hold deep conversations about life, your views, goals, ideas and so on with someone you’re in a relationship with, this is a very serious problem. A marriage may be physical but that is not what sustains it. In relationships, guys tend to focus on the sex they may be having, the ladies on how much he’s giving me, strip that away and you have to actually talk to each other. This aspect needs to be sorted out before you even consider marriage.
Are our goals aligned?
Hakeem: When I complete my pilot’s training, I want to move on and fly international routes.
Simi: I would love to raise a family where we eat dinner together every night.
The above are admirable goals but those two people are headed in a two-very-different directions and shouldn’t be together long term. No matter how enticing the goals of the other person are, if it doesn’t align with yours, there is no point. When two of such people get into a marriage together, someone will have to forgo his or her goal and that ends up with one person feeling unfulfilled and unsatisfied. Resentment sets in at this point. This is where a husband could say my wife is jealous of me. The truth is she actually is not but in your successes she sees her dreams that got shelved and that is what she resents. A man could now say ‘my wife’s high flying job makes her disrespect me.’ She may not be disrespectful but just ambitious. If your goals had aligned, each person should have been prepared to deal with the outcome of each other’s goals.
These are just some of the numerous questions that people need to ask and give honest answers to. They could very well be the foundation of your success when you eventually get married. While you cannot predict everything you will see in a marriage, you can be better informed and prepared so as to have an added advantage.
