Marriage is a Continues Schooling

The fact that a man remains a husband makes him not only a survivor, but a person who understands marriage. Yet, each day, a husband is faced with temporary defeats that if allowed, will rob the marriage of lasting relationship and happiness.

‘Marriage is a long journey, not a destination. It demands a strong and positive self-imaged man called a husband to command it.’

Hopefully, a husband must also understand that the future of the marriage relationship rests in the lessons he learns from these temporary set-backs. One set-back is conflict in the home. Once couples are married, they have to deal with the inevitability of arguments and conflict. Couples who deal poorly with arguments and conflict build up a history of negative emotional interactions that erodes marital satisfaction.

‘Husbands, in the same way be considerate as you live with your wives, and treat them with respect as the weaker partner and as heirs with you of the gracious gift of life, so that nothing will hinder your prayers. Finally, all of you, live in harmony with one another; be sympathetic, love as brothers, be compassionate and humble. Do not repay evil with evil or insult with insult, but with blessing, because to this you were called so that you may inherit a blessing.’ (1 Peter 3:7-9)

‘Men are protectors and maintainers of women…’ (Qur’an, 4:34)

Karney and Bradbury reviewed a few studies on marital satisfaction and created the vulnerability-stress-adaptation model. As the name implies, the vulnerability-stress-adaptation model involves three main concepts:

©      Vulnerability – each partner brings strengths and weaknesses to the relationship, including personality, beliefs and attitudes about marriage, and social background.

©      Stress – various life events can cause the partners to experience tension and aggravation.

©      Adaptation – the partners engage in processes to deal with conflict, which vary in terms of how the partners communicate and support each other.

How well couples handle conflict and stress depends on their vulnerabilities, the kinds of stresses they face, and their processes of adaptation. Couples, who handle conflict and stress poorly to the extent of inviting third parties, become less and less satisfied with their relationships over time.

Every husband must be able to identify and practice the best means and form to resolve conflict between him and his wife.

A married man is an effective and efficient husband when he is an active peacemaker, i.e. building bridges of common understanding in order to achieve a long term relationship.

Should you reason, agree, apologize, fight or leave? Which is your benefit and to the benefit of those you must protect? Arguing often makes your wife defensive and determined to prevail.  As much as possible avoid conflict but if it occurs, below are general principles that every husband must adopt in conflict resolution at home:

1. Remain calm and detached.
2. Let go of your anger. It only clouds the issue and draws you into a quick response.
3. Allow your wife to rage while you consider the appropriate response.
4. Whenever possible, use kindness as a weapon against evil.
5. Neutralize shouting with soft words.
6. Answer threats with serene confidence.
7. Speak plainly.
8. Don’t use foul language or sarcasm.
9. Breathe deeply with long exhalations.
10. Maintain your presence. Don’t exaggerate.
11. Think about an interesting time you had together
12. Don’t lie.
13. Attack the argument and not the person.
14. Don’t invite a third party.
15. Pray for your wife.

In fact, husbands who use humour and gentleness to soothe the feelings of their wives, and who respond calmly to the negative emotional expressions of their wives, are more likely to resolve conflicts in the home. Other characteristics which do not help in conflict resolution in the home are:

• Criticism – instead of complaining about behaviour, you attack your partner’s personality or character, usually with blame. Criticism of personality also comes in the form of listing complaints about past behaviours and thereby suggesting a character fault.
• Contempt – contempt is criticism that is intended to insult and psychologically abuse a partner. Contempt reflects a very negative view of your partner.
• Defensiveness – defensiveness is a way of avoiding taking responsibility for setting things right by denying responsibility, making excuses, attributing negative thoughts to partners, using one’s own complaints to counter a partner’s complaints, and simply repeating oneself.
•  Stonewalling – stonewalling is a break down of communication. The partners turn into ‘stone walls’ and stop responding to communication.

Also, a husband as a diplomat must use his creativity and imagination to turn unpleasant lessons into pleasant ones in the future. This calls for the husband to occasionally sit down and reflect on the success and apparent failures that the marriage has gone through.

As the husband reflects, he must ask himself what went well, what didn’t go well, what could have been done differently in the future to get the best results. A husband can’t expect to obtain happiness in the marriage from doing more of the things that aren’t working. Although, some things take practice in order to gain comfort, a husband is not seeing improvements and results from certain practice, that’s a good sign that, he is doing or taking the wrong approach.

Knowledge is the Power behind Marriage

The husband has one clear and unavoidable primary obligation: to provide his wife with the necessities of life. However, there are some basic characteristics and facts that every effective and efficient husband must know and possess.

One of the greatest differentials between successful and unsuccessful marriages is the amount of adequate knowledge that the husband possess. Some people would think that money would be the most important factor for the success of marriages, but with my over 10 years of teaching on the subjects of sex and marriage, I have come to know the truth that having money alone does not make marriages successful.

Disaster and misunderstanding strikes in marriages when husbands run the marriage life on limited knowledge. Not understanding the possible obstacles and dangers facing the marriage due to ignorance. Besides, the Holy Scriptures says lack of knowledge makes every establishment like the marriage institution perishes, and also instructs husband to have knowledge and understanding when dealing with their wives.

‘…Likewise, ye husbands, dwell with them according to knowledge, giving honour unto the wife, as unto the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of the grace of life; that your prayers be not hindered.’ (1 Peter 3:7)

Husbands are not wise when they succumb to the casual and common way of joking about how difficult it is to ‘understanding females.’ Any human being (male or female) is complex in personality and behaviour. So no one is easy to understand. The Bible does not say it will be easy to understand a marriage partner, but specifically commands a husband to have an extensive, practical knowledge of his wife and her ways, and to live with her in light of that knowledge.

It is important for every husband to make sure that he gets enough information to carry out the tasks that he desires to make the marriage successful. Although, our generation is a generation of abundance knowledge, there seems to be inequalities between husbands when it comes to getting good results from the information that they acquire to build their marriages. This seems to be because, many husbands do not know that they need more than just the mere acquisition of knowledge, they need adequate knowledge. For example;

In authority wise, the husband is the first among equals in every marriage. The power of the husband evolves from their wives. Without their wives, they are no husbands. Children do not make husbands, but wives do.

The above statement can only be understood and comprehended by husbands who are in tune with adequate knowledge of the times. It is only through knowledge that a married man will understand his new duties, responsibilities and function as a husband.

A husband may be able to acquire adequate knowledge from several sources like;

©      Books and magazines

©      His own experience and that of others

©      Counsellors

©      Marriage seminars

©      Music, movies, sports, games and paintings

©      Internet

©      Television and radio talk shows.

Knowledge is indeed power. Without knowledge, marriages will always be unsuccessful. Knowledge feeds our desires with an awareness of alternative choices. Husbands with adequate information on how the 21^st centaury marriage works are able to gain advantages in life that the ignorant often miss out.

Great opportunities that can heal and advance our marriages do come knocking on our doors often, but when a husband lacks certain information, the marriage relationship misses the chance to seize these new opportunities forever.

A Married Man is an Entrepreneur

One of the main reasons for weaknesses in marriages in Ghana that may lead to divorce is husbands’ inability to stump their authority at home and adequately appreciate and perform their marital duties and responsibilities as entrepreneurs.

 Until every married man sees himself as an entrepreneur, marriages will always be at the verge of breakdown and try and error.

An entrepreneur, a loanword from French, which was first introduced, loved and defined by the Irish economist, Richard Cantillon can be defined as;

‘…a person who undertakes and operates a new enterprise or venture and assumes some accountability for the inherent risk.’

An entrepreneur can also be defined as a problem solver, a person who solves problems for people at a profit. Entrepreneurship is often difficult, as many new ventures fail from the beginning.

Marriage, as every business institution is an adventurous, interesting, risky and full of blessings, and it must be run as such. Business entrepreneurs (just like married men) often have strong beliefs about an opportunity and are willing to accept a high level of personal and financial risk to pursue that opportunity.  

Sometimes, it tastes like honey, other times it’s extremely bitter. Many times, the performance of a married man’s roles become stressful due to role conflict and his inability to define his roles properly, however he is expected to perform these tasks any way. Both entrepreneur and married men must and do have these personal traits as stated by John G. Burch (Business Horizon, September 1986);

•    A desire to achieve: The push to conquer problems, and give birth to a successful venture.
•    Hard working: It is often suggested that many entrepreneurs are workaholics.
•   Nurturing qualities: Willing to take charge of, and watch over a venture until it can stand alone.
•   Acceptance of responsibility: are morally, legally, and mentally accountable for their ventures. Some entrepreneurs may be driven more by altruism than by self-interest.
•    Reward orientation: Desire to achieve, work hard, and take responsibility, but also with a commensurate desire to be rewarded handsomely for their effort; rewards can be in forms other than money, such as recognition and respect.
•    Optimism: Live by the philosophy that this is the best of times, and that anything is possible.
•   Orientation to excellence: Often desire to achieve something outstanding that they can be proud of.

Securing marriages in Ghana

Looking at the growing rate of divorces, court cases for alimony, physical abuses and single parents; it does seem as if handling a relationship can be a tricky and often a taxing issue. Yet, critical analyses of recent contracted marriages in Ghana as against the increasing rate of divorce indicate that our attachment to marriage as our basic social institution is weakening.

For example, in the Central Region of Ghana alone, the contracted marriages of 2007, 2006 and 2005 were 85, 113, 91 respectively, but the average number of divorce in the same region is 4 in every week. This means that, an average of 16 marriages break-up in every month and a total average of 192 registered marriages break-up in the Central Region of Ghana each year.   This figure of 192 divorces as against 85, 113 or 91 contracted marriages in a particular year in truly alarming, and this calls for a stricter look at the marriage institution once again.

People marry for many reasons, like love, happiness, money, companionship, physical attraction, desire to escape from an unhappy situation and the desire to have children. But marriage goes beyond these interests. It is a commitment with love and responsibility for peace, happiness and development of strong family relationships. It is the sacrificing of your freedom to attain the ultimate happiness for your partner. It involves emotional and legal commitment that is quite important in any adult life.

In the eyes of the law, marriage is a contract whereby a man and a woman agree to enter into a union for life for their mutual benefit, to provide each other with companionship, sexual gratification and economic help and to procreate and raise children.

The role of husband and wife to each other is a matter more of custom and tradition than of law. Marital role can be defined as set of attitudes and behaviours a spouse is expected to demonstrate in the content of the marriage relationship.

Marriage, although it merits being called romantic, passionate, strong, resonant, robust, hardy, solid, indestructible, indissoluble institution, is actually full of hard times and hard lessons that no one can ever prepare you for. But in the end, those are the things that give richness to your relationship, and make your love life even deeper and stronger than when it began. It’s more delicate and unsteady than you think. You co-habit with your spouse 365 days a year. Of those 365 days, how many were good days? How many were bad?

When you get married, you think that as long as you have picked the right man, you’ll be happy together until death do you part. Then you wake up one day and realize that no matter how great he is, he doesn’t make you happy every moment of every day. In fact, some days you might wonder why you were in such a hurry to get married in the first place. You think to yourself, ‘This is not what I really want in life’.

Human beings, you may have noticed, are not simple creatures. Your man has mysterious, unplumbed depths, and from where he sits, you’re pretty complicated, too. You have to learn each other the same way that you once learned earth science or world geography. And getting married doesn’t mean you’re done, it just means you’ve advanced to graduate-level studies. That’s because every time you think you’ve mastered the material, he’ll change a bit. And so will you. As two people grow and evolve, the real work of marriage is finding a way to relate to and nurture each other in the process. Therefore, in marriage, two universes come close together.

Top Ten Ways To Save Your Marriage

If you are worried about your relationship and searching for ways to save a marriage, here are 10 tips you must know.

1. Don’t be afraid to say, “I’m sorry.” Many times you get angry over something very small and insignificant such as leaving a light on or not closing a door. If you let enough of these inconsequential problems pile up they can turn into something larger. Remember to apologize when the occasion calls for it.

2. Financial matters are often argued over. Give some thought to this and come up with a plan and a budget. Perhaps a joint savings account where you keep some extra money for those things you want that are not really necessary items.

3. Don’t be selfish. Every now and then give in to your partner and let them choose what movie to watch or what restaurant to eat at.

4. Another tip on ways to save a marriage is not forgetting to say thank you. This is important. If you never say thanks, your mate may begin to feel taken advantage of. This is true for small things and big things.

5. Surprise your partner occasionally with a small gift or a favorite meal. You’ll be amazed how good this can make you feel.

6. If you are angry with each other, don’t take that time to discuss important issues. Wait until you have cooled down and are calm.

7. Don’t bring up and rehash past mistakes. Let them stay in the past.

8. Think before you speak. Often we speak critically and say things before we have a chance to filter those thoughts. Count to 10 if you must.

9. Accept his or her annoying habits. Everyone has them and, surprisingly, these are the things you would miss if they were gone.

10. A final tip on ways to save a marriage is to ask what your partner is thinking sometimes. Don’t just assume you know.

Sensual Dysfunction

To be a great lover and the woman to fully enjoy, the man must master the art of foreplay. Lot of men think foreplay is a pre-requisite to a good sex, whiles their women also perceive foreplay as an integral part of the process of sex itself. Therefore, foreplay can also be defined as the method by which the woman’s level of sexual excitement is increased and allowing her to have sex and enjoy it.

Sometimes in the foreplay leading up to penetration, a man’s erection softens or even disappears altogether. This is quite normal. Erections come and go during sex. All that’s usually needed to restore firmness is a little more direct stimulation such as oral sex or the contact of his penis with his partner’s vulva.

1. Fear of Rejection

In the real world, sex is more likely to be impeded by anxiety. Fear of rejection, fear of not meeting the partner’s expectations, and fear of not being able to perform are among the most common emotional barriers to intercourse. Some dysfunctional people harbour feelings of guilt over their sexual needs, or lack the skill or desire to stimulate their partner. Even mild anxiety can impede or disable sexual performance. Ignorance and inexperience contribute their own problems.

“Frequently, for instance” reveals Dr. Helen Singer Kaplan in Psychology Today, “neither spouse knows where the clitoris is or recognizes its potential for eliciting erotic pleasure. They have intercourse as soon as the husband has an erection, and he ejaculates without considering whether his partner is ready. Such couples genuinely wonder why the wife does not reach orgasm.”

Self-hatred manifests itself in a number of anti-erotic behaviours. “Some women are reluctant to act seductively for fear of rejection and ridicule. Young women … express the desire to look ‘sexy’ and wear seductive clothes, but fear that men in particular will think them grotesque. … Many obese persons attempt to hide their bodies under cover of darkness, or keep their clothes on during sexual intimacy.”

2. Fear of Touch

For many men, the opportunity to be touched, even casually by a woman is arousing. And, no, it’s not because men are different than women innately. This is because boys are often raised with little physical nurturance. Some men are so touch deprived that they shut off the awareness of the need for it entirely. As a result they appear cold, distant and emotionally unavailable. They have little understanding of why a woman wants to be touched or cuddled. It completely baffles them.

Many cultures within the larger Ghanaian culture work to toughen up boys and assume that cuddling, hugging and kissing boys makes “Mama Ba” (Mama’s boys) out of them. This creates an environment in which our male children are raised without physical touch. Yet we know, from years of research that touch is a basic need. Babies deprived of touch do not survive; they will quit eating and die. While men, even 5 or 6 year old boys are not infants, they, like all of us have a basic need to be held, to be touched, and otherwise physically nurtured. This need for touch can be hidden away for years, until perhaps in their early teens, a girl steals a kiss or holds his hands. Suddenly he finds himself aroused and from that moment on, associates touch with sex.

Then these poor guys get accused of being hyper sexual because the need for touch, which has been repressed for years, suddenly emerges as sexual desire. The hormone oxytocin carries messages of bonding, safety, overall well being and of love to our brains and to our bodies. It also increases sexual arousal. This hormone is released when there is any type of skin-to-skin contact. This generally happens at the same time as the developmental hormonal changes of adolescence, further complicating matters. From the male perspective then, touch is equal to sex.

Couples observed touching affectionately test as being more securely attached and having a more satisfying sex life. If you are unhappy with the amount of sexual activity with your partner, notice what happens when you become more affectionate in general with each other. Increasing overall affectionate behaviors can have a positive effect on each of you individually, as well as increasing the amount of sexual activity between you.

Touch alone can transform the quality of your relationship.

If you are not feeling safe enough with your partner to enjoy copious amounts of affection, you might want to ask yourself why not. Is this because of your own discomfort with touch? Or is it because you fear that touch will initiate sex when that is always what you want? Is your partner uncomfortable with touch and therefore reluctant to express their affection physically? These are all questions that you and your partner should discuss, certainly before committing to a long-term relationship.

3. Fear of Pain

During sexual arousal some things that might otherwise be painful (such as the application of ice) can be pleasurable. Spanking, for example, is not really painful when done in a restrained manner to the buttocks. But some people will allow themselves to endure real pain or humiliation if they feel the pleasure or rewards of a relationship still outweigh the benefits. A person may endure cruel treatment or even beatings for the sake of love or hot sex. In some cases the treatment is a cost paid for a rewarding relationship, in some cases it adds “spice” or there may be a confusing mixture.

Nonetheless, erotic arousal can be coaxed, and this can often be done by creating the right mood, creating a feeling of safety, familiarity and pleasure in touching, and by expressing appropriate consideration and interest. Being “seduced” (an enjoyable game played by two consenting adults) can be a pleasant kind of attention.

In such cases “seduction” can be a gentle way for one or both participants to safely explore how far they really want to go. Some people attempt to find aphrodisiacs to simplify the process, but there is no aphrodisiac that compares to enthusiasm, i.e. finding the keys to a person’s personal erotic interests (when they exist).

In both sexes, early sexual excitement is marked by blood rushing to the skin surfaces and to the sexual organs, causing erection in the man, clitoral swelling in the woman, enlargement of her breasts and nipples and usually his nipples too, a bit of secretion from the penis, lubrication of her vagina, and muscular tension as well as a flushed appearance to the face and chest.