How much do you value your relationship/marriage? What can you do to ensure that your relationship/marriage doesn’t end up in the dustbin of divorce? The incidence of divorce and sour relationships could be minimized in our societies if certain things are taking into consideration. It amazes me to see or read about it in the papers how once a bubbling, love-infected relationship/marriage suddenly turned into hatred/sour to the extent that the parties must part ways. Then I asked myself where is all the sweet-nothing, “I love you till the end of the word” blah blah blah that usually pervade the early period of such relationship?

The most painful thing is the fate of seeds already produced by such relationship/marriage and the key-players or parties seem not to be aware of the darkness they might be plugging the offspring into. It is usually the children that bear the brunt of any broken marriage/relationship. As such, steps must be taken to ensure that the undesirable situations never occur.

How Much Do You Know?

Isn’t it a dicey and suicide mission going into relationship/marriage with someone you hardly known? How much of him/her do you know? What does him/her? Who does he/she hangs out with? What about his/her background and track records? What about his characters and attitudes?

It is a pity that many people these days never bothered to find out, at least, a little bit of useful information about the other person in their relationship. And unlike our fore-fathers, the incidence of divorce is increasing on daily basis.

Of course, some information could be well conceived but then it is just for a matter of time before the lid is blown open and the truth would be revealed. The fact is somehow, somewhere, someone would know something that could be useful and assist you to determine whether or not you should go ahead with the relationship. But how many people really want to go to such length these days before plunge into a relationship? A few of the people, and this is why there is many broken hearts everywhere.

It is possible that you might not be able to come up with any useful information before you go into such relationship, however, you would help yourself to use the first few weeks into the relationship as to gather enough intelligence information about him/her that would guide you as to the wisdom of continuing with the relationship or not. There would be little or no hurt if you should decide to call it quit at this stage based on your findings. Nonetheless, the danger here is that since the tempo of your feelings or emotions could be very deep at this early stage, you might be ruled by your emotions rather than your reasoning. And before you know it, you wouldn’t get committed to find out anything worthwhile and even if you do, you might be tempted to wave it off.

How many times have you heard remarks such as “it doesn’t matter if he smokes, I can change him/her as time goes on?” I know he womanizes, but he would change once we settled down?” Pipe dreams!

How possible do you think this is? I want you to answer that.

Facing The Reality

Probably many people allow the exaggerated romance between two people in romance novels and movies blinded them to the reality of life. Those love play portrayed in such circumstances does not reflect the happenings in the real world. A lot of young people have this wrong notion in their minds and went ahead into relationship/marriage and when they are confronted with the reality they rush out leaving hurt, woes and pains in their wake. They allowed their emotions to rule their reasons in the first place.

Thus to protect your marriage/relationship you must face the reality of the fact that people change constantly, even you. A man or woman might behave in a certain way at the early stages of a relationship especially during courtship and come up with a different kind of behaviour later on. And you will begin to wonder if you are not dealing with a different person. Of course you are. Our attitudes and behaviors at any point in time make us the exact person we were when exhibiting such behaviour or attitude. Circumstances and situations change; so also are people.

Unless you prepare yourself for such change or reality you might be devastated when it occurs. Who says your spouse cannot betray you? Have you been blinded by love to that extent that you cannot see the likelihood of it occurring? It doesn’t matter how long you have been together, the fact and reality is that it happens to other people everyday and you are not different from them. The earlier you realize this fact the better as it will protect you to a certain extent if eventually you have to part ways and it would enable you to pick up the pieces of your life where it was left off!

Be A Good Communicator

When your spouse/partner does some things you don’t like or approve of, do you voice out or do you keep mute and nurse your pains silently? How do you communicate your opinions to him/her? When taking up contentious issues, how do you express your grievances? Do you cry blue murder or do you approach the matter with calm and patience? How do you express your desire? Do you use body language or verbal?

Your response to all these questions will determine the survival or otherwise of your relationship/marriage. Often time, the cause of misunderstanding and divorce in relationship/marriage is as a result of poor communication between the parties. Some people find it difficult to relate with their spouses.

You should endeavor to communicate your feelings and needs, be it emotional, physical or spiritual, to your spouse? As a married woman, who says you can’t initiate the move for sex? You might not necessarily be verbal, but you can still express your need/desire for it through your dressing, perfume, looks and the way you comport yourself in the presence of your spouse. Remember men are moved by sight, sound and smell.

What more? You must be a good listener too! Women by nature really want to pour out their minds at the end of each day. A woman wants to tell her husband everything that happens that day from A to Z and God helps him if he doesn’t listen even if he has to pretend that he does, he must. An average woman believes that her husband would only listen to her if he still cares and loving.

Often time, a man too wants to return home and share his challenges and problems at work that day with his wife. Thus her listening and soothing response would go a long way to strength and motivate him to overcome any challenges he might be facing. Have you ever seen a man in tears? He definitely needs the attention of his wife at such critical time and she might only communicate her sympathy, love and support by mere touching and whatever you can imagine!

Re-Package Yourself!

It is amazing seeing a once dashing and very attractive woman turned to something else soon after marriage. I have seen many young married women like that. They no longer take care of their hair, look, body and general appearance. They believe because they have secured the marriage certificate and got the man hooked, it doesn’t matter anymore how they look or appear in public. After all, nobody would be interested in them again. What such women fail to understand is that their first admirer is their husband and they must do everything to constantly secure his attention if they don’t want to lose him to another woman outside.

If you really want to secure your marriage and ensure that your husband doesn’t look elsewhere, except in such cases where a man is so randy that no matter how attractive the wife is or no matter what she does he would still not be satisfied, you should always take care of your physical appearance. Don’t give up on what you have been doing that got him attracted to you in the first place and you should be in tune with time and changes in fashion and style. He is your husband and that means there is no limit to the extent in which you can go to seduce him. Give him a reason to always desire you and you will succeed in keep other women outside at bay.

I had an experience in respect of this re-packaging oneself when I was in the polytechnic. I had two female course mates that were ripe for marriage but no suitors. Then one day a friend of mine, who was older and already married, saw them coming and remarked that if the ladies could repackage themselves suitors will be rushing at them. In fact that was the first and only time I heard the word, repackaging, been used for human being.

Somehow the message got to them and before you knew it, their dressing and appearances have changed and they became more attractive and inviting. No they were not indecent in their dressing. And not quite long after that they both got married and are happily married now. Men are definitely aroused by what they see, what they hear and when they smell!

Create Time To Be Together

Just last week I was listening to a phone-in program on the radio where a married man complained bitterly how his wife abandoned him for the kids! Many a time some women create cracks in their relationships/marriages when they divert all attentions away from their husbands to the children. What they don’t know is that men are terribly jealous no matter who is involved and before you know it they would start dating other women outside.

Similarly, some men unknowingly issued tickets of infidelity to their wives when all they are after is work! work!! and work!!! They don’t come home on time and when they do they bring work from office. They travel endlessly to the extent that the poor woman becomes tired of loneliness and seeks companion outside her relationship/marriage. And before the workaholic husband could realize what is happening the damage is already done. The wife has filed for divorce.

The best thing is to get adequate time for every member of your family, let the family spend more time together and you should sometimes take a retreat that involves you and your spouse without any other member of the family interfering. Relive the sweet memories of the pre-marital time you had together. What about another honeymoon? Who says it can only be once? And before you know it, your relationship/marriage would forever be secured.