21/05/2024
142/366.
It is a human thing to find faults in others and exonerate one’s self when things are not going as planned or expected.
When a relationship has issues, people are not as quick to take responsibility as they are quick to apportion blames to the other person.
A young wife reached out to me for counsel about her marriage, this is something I get often; she did not want a one off advice, she wanted to work with me to achieve her goal - a happy marriage.
She had a long list of her complaints and grievances about her husband and his family dating back to their wedding preparations.
While I listened, I took note of things she could have done better including calling off the wedding, but she did not and now has children, so my focus was no longer on that, but how to move forward.
She obviously wanted the same thing hence she’s looking for guidance.
First question I asked was, what is your idea of an ideal husband. Can you give me attributes of the type of man you would be happy to share your life with.
She gave me seven attributes, good ones.
Next question was what qualities do you think the wife of this man should possess; and she listed about seven qualities of the kind woman this idle man deserves.
Next question was, how many of these qualities/ attributes does your husband possess, she said five out of the seven and mentioned them, the fifth one was not a strong quality he had but he was making attempts.
Next question was, how many of the qualities of this idle woman do you possess, she laughed and said two.
I was impressed!
She took responsibility and was honest with her self evaluation.
She had come with a load of complaints and dissatisfaction about her husband, all very valid I must say, but this little exercise brought to light her own deficiencies.
Now this is not to say, her husband did not have issues, no. It was a case of removing the log in your own eyes.
I would always say that in marriage, self appraisal is very important, after both parties should appraise themselves individually, then do a joint appraisal.
This should happen from time to time.
Throwing blames and shades at your spouse will only end up in arguments and prolonged issues. When both parties are able to take responsibilities for their actions and shortcomings, change, compromise or adjustments are possible.
So I gave her a couple of tasks to do, she came back every week to report progress, other times she reported relapses, but guess who was enjoying the new atmosphere in the home more, her.
She began to have more peace, she is more gracious with words and reactions, she is learning patience.
The peace men claim they need from their wives, is enjoyed more by the wives. When there is peace, a wife is happier.
If we do performance appraisals at work and take stock in business, if we seek for reviews and feedback from clients and customers in order to improve our product and services, then we should adopt same strategy in marriage to keep the flame burning and succeed at it.
Marriage is part of life. It is not a fairy tale. There would be fairytale moments, but It is life and it is serious.
Cheers 💕
