17/11/2021
REDEFINE YOUR HOME FOR THE FINAL LAP OF YOUR MARRIAGE
Good day to all my followers. It's being a long time you read from me. It was due to unforseen circumstances. My sincere apology for this. Now I am back and you will be reading from me regularly. I had the privilege to give a lecture on the above topic in a gathering, so I think it's worthy of sharing with you on this platform; as it has to do with building a happy home.
What Is A Home? A home can be defined as a place of abode, a place of birth or a dwelling place. but in marital context, a home can be defined as the abiding place of the affections, a place where you find happiness always, a place where cooperation brings the best out of every individual that make up that home and a place where care and love is exhibited unconditionally.
WHAT IS MARRIAGE? Marriage can be said to be a legally recognized union of a man and a woman coming together as husband and wife for the purpose of repocration and companionship. It's often said that there is no perfect marriage. this is true but we can at least make our marriage better.
No single marriage started on a sad note except an arranged marriage or marriage under duress. that could be forced on individuals. Every marriage starts on a happy note until some agents of distability starts to show up in the marriage. What are these agents of distability? they are:
☑️ Money
☑️ Pride/ego
☑️ Feminism
☑️ Infidelity
☑️ External influence
☑️ Choice
☑️ Poverty
☑️ Children
All the above mentioned could also be agents of stability, depending on how we handle them. Marriage is like a long distance race (1,500metres). It has four laps:
1) First lap is full of energy
2) second lap is the determinant lap; here each competitor would have sized up oneand other to know their strength. At this point a good athlete should be able to determine how far he or she would go in the race.
3) The third lap is the survival of the fittest lap. At this point, each athlete would want to place him/herself in a position comfortable enough to withstand the final onslaught.
4) The fourth or the final lap is the rejuvenated lap. This is the lap which all the hiding energy is activated, toward winning the race.
In marital context, the four laps are:
1) The first two years of marriage is your first lap, it is full of love, happiness and enthusiasm; especially when God blesses you with fruit of the womb, good job or promotion.
2) Your first eight years of marriage is your second lap. This is your determinant period. This is the time you decide how the future of your marriage would be like.
3) The first twenty years of your marriage is your third lap and the survival of the fittest period. At this period you begin to experience unusual changes in your spouse's characters. the struggle of who will dominate the last lap of the marriage comes to play. Wives at this juncture would want to use the children as weapons against the husband; the husband on the other part would want to maintain his dominiary power. It takes understanding and tolerance to survive this period. Around this period who ever wins the leadership battle rules till the end.
4) Then comes the final lap; which happened to be our major focus for this topic. It is the final home stretch.
The couples at this time should be in their late forties or early fifties. This period requires a lot of preparation if they would have a happy ending. This is the time the couples learn to turn the agents of distability to agents of stability as discussed below.
👉 MONEY; money they say is the root of all evils but it answeth all things. if you must end well in your marriage, do not allow money to control you rather, control money. At this stage, your wife may be the one financing the family for a reason or the other, appreciate and respect her. Any wife assuming this responsibility should also not get carried away. respect your husband. let your wife know your Worth. Do not keep secret affairs or have secret assets, for who knows when death would come knocking. So many men have done this for strangers to eat the fruits of their labour.
👉 PRIDE/EGO; Pride they say goes before a fall. Let humility be your watchword in your marriage, either as a husband or as a wife. Humility will bring peace and stability to your marriage and your children would learn from this; the resultant effect is that you enjoy the last lap of your marriage. Respect they say is reciprocal. It s not only the wives that must respect the husband, husbands too must learn to respect their wives.
👉 FEMINISM; Feminism is widely preached in our contemporary world. In as much as I don't see anything wrong in women being equal with men, this should only be practised outside the marriage; for God says "wives, respect your husbands" He did not say women respect men. Watch the advocates of feminism in marriage in the society, they are women with failed marriages and those who are not ready for marriage as mandated by God. And for husbands to gain his wives respect he must show her absolute love and care,, by this, peace in the last lap of your marriage is guaranteed.
👉 INFIDELITY: The most dangerous and cancerous agent of distability in marriage is infidelity. Men are eighty percent guilty of this act, though it subsides at later part of man's life due to old age, weakness, lack of money etc. So, if your husband is still in the act, relax, he will soon come home to roost. don't allow that to break your home, for you have better end to enjoy together.
👉 EXTERNAL INFLUENCE; Always use external influence to move your marriage forward by associating with the right people. Check the marital background of your marital councellor before you take advice from them, so that your case would not be like a learner driver being a driving instructor, or a blind man leading another blind man, they will both fall into a pit. A man or woman without a happy home cannot give any meaningful marital councelling; even as a pastor or Iman.
👉 CHOICE: Sometimes we need to compromise in our preferences, to give room to peace in our marriage.
👉POVERTY: Poverty cannot have better part of our marriage if we are contented in everything. Manage whatever you have to your satisfaction. Do not compare your home, wife, husband, meal and even children with others, for God knows why you are where you are and whom you are.
👉 CHILDREN: Yes children could be agents of distability or agents of stability. This depends on how we raise them. For our children not to become agents of distability in our old age we need to:
1) show them love always
2) Not discriminate among children
3) Husband and wife must love themselves while the children are growing, so that they can learn positive attitudes from them.
4) Not spoil them with our wealth.
5) parents must not set children against each other, especially mothers!!. Some mothers would set their children against their father so as to gain their favour. Remember the effort of that man on you and the children. He is the chief security officer of the home, the provider under any circumstances, the burden bearer the thinktank but benefits little or nothing at the latter part of his life. Some fathers die during their struggle to make the family happy while mothers are showered with cash, praises invitation to babysit in abroad while the father is left to his fate, yet some mothers will still tell the children the tales of how he beat them when they were younger and how he lavished his money on strange women; just to divert the attention of the children from their father completely.
Finally, marriage is better enjoyed at old age when all the children must have gone their different ways.
This is the period we look inward retrospectively to purge our indulgence on material acquisition.
All external influences like friends, colleague would be nowhere to be found.
The only person you are left with is that man, that woman. If we have not put things right towards enjoying the last lap of our marriage we can still make things right now so that we can have rest and happiness at the latter lap of our marriage. May the good Lord give us the strength to build a good home. Thank you and God bless.
