Mind Boggling
By Njeri Mucheru-Oyatta
Meeting my husband and getting married all happened in a flash. One day I was standing in the court corridors happily single and 6 months later, I was someone’s wife. I cannot say that I knew what to expect going into marriage. What I knew is that I was passionately attracted to the guy I was getting married to who was at the time willing to act in my best interests and I in his.
Timing was responsible for our meeting. Just like timing was the cause of my meeting my motor cycle day dreamer. I think that it was the choices we were making in our lives that made it possible for us to meet at the right place, at the right time. After I got to know my husband, I felt like I had known him for centuries. Like I had already met him before and before we were separated, we had agreed to meet at that time and at that place on that day when we met.
Examining our relationship to ascertain whether my husband was a means or an obstacle to finding my perfect being and thus my missing ‘something’ was an interesting experience. I did not fear divorce. Even at minimum thinking level, I knew that the experience of being married to my husband was a means to my finding the perfect me.
I decided to write down what I thought to be the recipe for a good marriage like mine.
To start with, we all know that whereas marriage to the right person is heavenly bliss, marriage to the wrong person is simply hellish. I was glad that I did not settle for good or better and expected better than best. It was a pleasant surprise to have my expectations exceeded. If you want a good marriage, then do not settle for anything less than better than the best. However, do not expect your timing to coincide with that better than the best if you are not making better than best choices in your life! You have to work on yourself and make yourself into the person you are looking for as best you can.
DO NOT carry any baggage into marriage. By baggage I do not mean children, I mean the heartbreak and other bad experiences you had encountered prior to marriage. Simply put, you must not judge your current partner based on what others in the past have done to you and do not expect your partner to compensate you for anything s/he does not even know about. You must be ready to start on a clean slate. To ensure that your baggage stays outside of your marriage, its back to you working on yourself to make yourself the best you know you can be before marriage.
DO NOT expect your spouse to be EVERYTHING you ever wanted. The only person who is that is your God, your perfect being. Your spouse’s role in your life is not to fill any void you may be experiencing. It is to bring out the best in you and propel you to greater heights than you would attain on your own. Most people who are happily married have oddly been in previous relationships which turned out to be hellish. This is because everyone you meet will either bring out the best in you or the worst in you. The person you marry must be one who brings out the best in you.
Marriage does not change anyone. The same person you are before marriage is the same person you will be in marriage. Marriage is not a life changing experience. Your life must continue even after marriage. You must continue pursuing your passions even in marriage and that person you marry must be someone who will facilitate and not inhibit that pursuit of your passions. You will need to make some adjustments to your home life, making sure to keep Feminism, Petty Squabbles and Vultures completely out of it, but that’s all.
Marriage is necessarily built on trust. If you cannot trust your spouse, then you are in for a rocky marriage. Trust is a choice you make. You cannot be with your spouse all the time and know where s/he is all the time. In any case, you do not have the time or energy to keep a tab on your spouse when you are busy pursuing your passions. Let your spouse continue with his/her life while you continue with yours. At the very least, you each need space to think and plan. Your spouse is simply your very good friend with whom it is mandatory to share a house and a bed.
When it comes to sharing a bed with your very good friend, you cannot avoid intimacy and you should have nothing to hide from him/her. Self-consciousness in marriage is an oxymoron and it will cause unnecessary tension.
If you want your spouse to know something about you, simply tell it to him/her. Trying to give hints or second guess or mind-read only causes frustration. Keep Petty Squabbles OUT!
It is very important to know that your relationship with your spouse is a confidential relationship. Not something to be talked about and discussed with others. The solution to your problems with your spouse lies in talking to him/her. Keep an open mind, remember that you are brought up differently. Talk and listen and be willing to understand a different view from your own. You are married to the person so only you know how best to address a difficulty you are having. Telling outsiders about your relationship problems only gives them something to snigger about and gives them comfort that your life is not as good as they imagined. Very few people will have your best interests at heart. Keep the Vultures OUT!
Feminism did not end the stereo-types assigned to men and women. It entrenched them. DO NOT assign any stereo-type to your spouse. The truth is that if a man sleeps with another woman, he makes a conscious choice to do so. It has nothing to do with his invaluable object going out of control or the other woman. And if a woman cooks and cleans, she makes a conscious choice to do so. It has nothing to do with her nature. Agree with your spouse on how to split the housework both at home and at the office based on your passions and abilities. Remember that you and your spouse are equal in different ways. There is no such thing as exact equality in any relationship. Keep Feminism OUT!
Good sex on a daily basis is a fantasy. It cannot even qualify for a dream come true. If that’s what you are hoping to get in marriage, forget it. I will repeat that you must not carry any baggage into your marriage. Do not expect your spouse to compensate you for any sex drought you experienced prior to meeting him/her.
In marriage, when it comes to sex, what counts is quality NOT quantity. I think that the best catalyst for good sex in marriage is rejection. Why? Because if you do not have sex when you want it and have to wait for it, the time you do get it, you are turned on to the maximum. The truth is that if your spouse does not want sex when you want it and you insist on it, bad sex is all you’re going to get. And good sex does not come from thinking about what you are doing and planning about how it will be done. It comes from doing what HAS to be done.
I mean if you are going to be bedding the same guy or same chick night in, night out, and you are looking for good sex, then the foreplay should last for a few nights. I think that when she has a headache or he’s tired and instead of sulking and going to look for it elsewhere, you extend the wait by revenging once, good sex is in store for you. After all, you cannot be married to someone who does not want to have sex with you!! In law, a marriage is not a marriage if it is not consummated, this means that, unless you are having sex, there is no marriage!
By Njeri Mucheru-Oyatta
Meeting my husband and getting married all happened in a flash. One day I was standing in the court corridors happily single and 6 months later, I was someone’s wife. I cannot say that I knew what to expect going into marriage. What I knew is that I was passionately attracted to the guy I was getting married to who was at the time willing to act in my best interests and I in his.
Timing was responsible for our meeting. Just like timing was the cause of my meeting my motor cycle day dreamer. I think that it was the choices we were making in our lives that made it possible for us to meet at the right place, at the right time. After I got to know my husband, I felt like I had known him for centuries. Like I had already met him before and before we were separated, we had agreed to meet at that time and at that place on that day when we met.
Examining our relationship to ascertain whether my husband was a means or an obstacle to finding my perfect being and thus my missing ‘something’ was an interesting experience. I did not fear divorce. Even at minimum thinking level, I knew that the experience of being married to my husband was a means to my finding the perfect me.
I decided to write down what I thought to be the recipe for a good marriage like mine.
To start with, we all know that whereas marriage to the right person is heavenly bliss, marriage to the wrong person is simply hellish. I was glad that I did not settle for good or better and expected better than best. It was a pleasant surprise to have my expectations exceeded. If you want a good marriage, then do not settle for anything less than better than the best. However, do not expect your timing to coincide with that better than the best if you are not making better than best choices in your life! You have to work on yourself and make yourself into the person you are looking for as best you can.
DO NOT carry any baggage into marriage. By baggage I do not mean children, I mean the heartbreak and other bad experiences you had encountered prior to marriage. Simply put, you must not judge your current partner based on what others in the past have done to you and do not expect your partner to compensate you for anything s/he does not even know about. You must be ready to start on a clean slate. To ensure that your baggage stays outside of your marriage, its back to you working on yourself to make yourself the best you know you can be before marriage.
DO NOT expect your spouse to be EVERYTHING you ever wanted. The only person who is that is your God, your perfect being. Your spouse’s role in your life is not to fill any void you may be experiencing. It is to bring out the best in you and propel you to greater heights than you would attain on your own. Most people who are happily married have oddly been in previous relationships which turned out to be hellish. This is because everyone you meet will either bring out the best in you or the worst in you. The person you marry must be one who brings out the best in you.
Marriage does not change anyone. The same person you are before marriage is the same person you will be in marriage. Marriage is not a life changing experience. Your life must continue even after marriage. You must continue pursuing your passions even in marriage and that person you marry must be someone who will facilitate and not inhibit that pursuit of your passions. You will need to make some adjustments to your home life, making sure to keep Feminism, Petty Squabbles and Vultures completely out of it, but that’s all.
Marriage is necessarily built on trust. If you cannot trust your spouse, then you are in for a rocky marriage. Trust is a choice you make. You cannot be with your spouse all the time and know where s/he is all the time. In any case, you do not have the time or energy to keep a tab on your spouse when you are busy pursuing your passions. Let your spouse continue with his/her life while you continue with yours. At the very least, you each need space to think and plan. Your spouse is simply your very good friend with whom it is mandatory to share a house and a bed.
When it comes to sharing a bed with your very good friend, you cannot avoid intimacy and you should have nothing to hide from him/her. Self-consciousness in marriage is an oxymoron and it will cause unnecessary tension.
If you want your spouse to know something about you, simply tell it to him/her. Trying to give hints or second guess or mind-read only causes frustration. Keep Petty Squabbles OUT!
It is very important to know that your relationship with your spouse is a confidential relationship. Not something to be talked about and discussed with others. The solution to your problems with your spouse lies in talking to him/her. Keep an open mind, remember that you are brought up differently. Talk and listen and be willing to understand a different view from your own. You are married to the person so only you know how best to address a difficulty you are having. Telling outsiders about your relationship problems only gives them something to snigger about and gives them comfort that your life is not as good as they imagined. Very few people will have your best interests at heart. Keep the Vultures OUT!
Feminism did not end the stereo-types assigned to men and women. It entrenched them. DO NOT assign any stereo-type to your spouse. The truth is that if a man sleeps with another woman, he makes a conscious choice to do so. It has nothing to do with his invaluable object going out of control or the other woman. And if a woman cooks and cleans, she makes a conscious choice to do so. It has nothing to do with her nature. Agree with your spouse on how to split the housework both at home and at the office based on your passions and abilities. Remember that you and your spouse are equal in different ways. There is no such thing as exact equality in any relationship. Keep Feminism OUT!
Good sex on a daily basis is a fantasy. It cannot even qualify for a dream come true. If that’s what you are hoping to get in marriage, forget it. I will repeat that you must not carry any baggage into your marriage. Do not expect your spouse to compensate you for any sex drought you experienced prior to meeting him/her.
In marriage, when it comes to sex, what counts is quality NOT quantity. I think that the best catalyst for good sex in marriage is rejection. Why? Because if you do not have sex when you want it and have to wait for it, the time you do get it, you are turned on to the maximum. The truth is that if your spouse does not want sex when you want it and you insist on it, bad sex is all you’re going to get. And good sex does not come from thinking about what you are doing and planning about how it will be done. It comes from doing what HAS to be done.
I mean if you are going to be bedding the same guy or same chick night in, night out, and you are looking for good sex, then the foreplay should last for a few nights. I think that when she has a headache or he’s tired and instead of sulking and going to look for it elsewhere, you extend the wait by revenging once, good sex is in store for you. After all, you cannot be married to someone who does not want to have sex with you!! In law, a marriage is not a marriage if it is not consummated, this means that, unless you are having sex, there is no marriage!
No comments:
Post a Comment