I thought I had escaped the spell of serial disappointments when a guy I met online last year proposed to me early last month, February. Everything being equal, we planned to meet at Easter season during which he would visit Nigeria to formalize our marriage in a family-circle arrangement. I have been celebrating the engagement because I see it as victory at last for me. The shocker came on Tuesday when he called to announce the indefinite postponement of his visit due to coronavirus pandemic. I hope this one won’t go the way of my previous failed relationships. Michael West, please join me in earnest prayers and also tell me what to do to keep this promising man from slipping away from me. Why now? All these years that I have been lonely and searching, this demon called coronavirus didn’t surface.
The above statement was an online message from a reader who later called to express her frustration at the timing of the outbreak of coronavirus. She is a secondary school teacher who had serially been jilted at the threshold of consummating her previous relationships. In her calculated but failed attempts to keep a man, she became a single mother in the process. One relationship after the other, her desire to become a “Mrs” became futile.
Last month, she intimated me that she just accepted the proposal of her overseas boyfriend of four months who, from all indications, was more “serious, determined and ready” than her previous suitors. “He is a cool guy. Since we started the relationship, the level of our communication has been so wonderful such that you will think we have been together for ages,” she said, adding that she had been introduced to his family members here in Nigeria. She disclosed that she accompanied his mother to a family function recently where she was introduced to some key family elders as the “in-coming wife” of their son.
Given her narrative, there’s nothing that suggests that anything awry is likely to happen. The guy hasn’t changed his mind. She’s still in warm and regular communication with his family members here in Nigeria. All things being equal, I trust in God that this relationship will survive, become fruitful and endure for a lifetime. Please, remember this woman in your daily prayers. When it finally happens, I promise to announce it here.
Again, Sex Splits Newly-wedded Couple
I’m of the opinion that the Body of Christ needs a universal convention on the institution of marriage in view of the contradictions and doctrinal differences affecting Christian homes leading to the rising cases of divorce in the church. Like the Master had said in the Gospel according to St. Matthew chapter 19, “it was not so in the beginning.” Every divorce case has confirmed element of “hardening of heart” – stubbornness). One or both parties would remain unyielding, no matter the level of persuasion or mediation.
As we all know, the scripture didn’t cover or address some of the knotty issues confronting marriages today. Hence we need to rely on the Author of the Bible Himself, the Holy Spirit, to teach and lead us in moment of crisis. A situation where spouses are threatening themselves with lethal weapons or sustain bruises through physical assaults, yet, some fathers in the Lord would insist that separation is not an option is wrong. Cases where spouses have killed their partners would have been prevented had separation been allowed to happen. Through proper counseling, mediation and true reconciliation healthy and improved family life would have engendered. God, I’m sure, is not in support of any human creed that leads souls to untimely death. It is not every separation that leads to divorce. But where both parties can’t come to terms or find a common ground, then, it is pretty better to stay apart, well and alive than to be sent to an early grave in the name of staying in marriage at all cost.
Sometime in 2010, I’m aware of some moves by some church leaders to initiate a conference of fathers of faith to have a holistic view of the divorce, separation and violence ravaging Christian homes at this time. Many pastors’ homes, too, are under several tension and silent crisis. Extramarital affairs are on the increase because nobody wants to bell the cat among the leading fathers of faith. What many of them preach is at variance with the reality they know outside the pulpit. Quite a number of their followers are in a mess martially and they know what to say as a father but they don’t want to be quoted as leading their members “astray” or encouraging separation or divorce. Some thereby have backslidden or become hypocritical just to stay in the fold.
Just last week, a divorce case came up in Lagos. The headline caught my attention: “Couple Broke Up After One Month in Marriage.” Reading through the story, the kernel point of their issue was sex. The wife accused her husband of being a sex addict. “My husband loves sex too much. He doesn’t get tired easily. Whenever he comes back from work, he prefers having sex to any other thing. I wish I knew all these before we got married as I no longer have rest of mind in our marriage,” she alleged.
The husband, apparently tired of his wife’s complaints, didn’t oppose her request for divorce. He said: “I will prefer a break up because I can’t go out to have sex with another woman while I have a wife at home. I performed all the necessary rites (required to marry her). The mistake I made was not to have slept with her while in courtship because it was against our church rules and doctrine. I wish we had knew more about our individual sex life before we got married. My wife do get tired just after five minutes and I can’t deal with that.”
The point I hold here is that beyond the issue of sex, many married people are strangers to themselves due to the human rules and doctrines of their sects. I know a particular church where they treat adults as teenagers while in courtship but today most their homes are in shambles because they were not allowed to know themselves intimately. Pretense and hypocrisy are the traits of their betrothed adults. Overbearing nature of some leaders in enforcing sectarian rules have done more harm than good to the homes of their members.
However, I believe in keeping the “bed undefiled” precept of the Bible during courtship but the pervading aura of “touch not” have prevented many intending couples from boldly discussing some salient issues that would eventually define the success or otherwise of their marriages.
Quote:
“Cases where spouses have killed their partners would have been prevented had separation been allowed to happen. Through proper counseling, mediation and true reconciliation healthy and improved family life would have engendered. God, I’m sure, is not in support of any human creed that leads souls to untimely death.”
