Marriage still viable if couples make right choices

While attraction is important, there needs to be a deeper connection based on common values because they are essential to the success of a marriage.

In a world where the information in the public domain shows that the rate of marriage breakdown is on the rise and news about cases of spouses frequently losing life and limb from the vicious actions of the other spouse, it is difficult to be positive about marriage.

However, there are many more people who are safe and happy in marriage than those that are not.

Indeed, many young people are still falling in love and dreaming of getting married.

DIVORCE

All around us are young men and women who are about to get married or have recently married and are enjoying their families.

We also have many divorced or widowed persons remarrying.

The challenge then may not be the desirability of marriage but the fear of whether one will be able to sustain the marriage and the trauma that comes with a failed marriage.

The pain of a failed marriage is not measureable. It is, of course, more painful when children are involved and a solution has to be found on how both parents should participate in their lives.

Legal terms like the best interests of the child, custody, access and maintenance that were never part of the family’s language become the norm.

CHOOSING A PARTNER
The breakdown also upsets a couple’s finances and property because it is inevitable that income and property that were intended to be enjoyed by the family together have to be split.

There is a lot of reluctance to do so, which only lengthens the pain and bitterness.

The question then that begs to be answered is; if marriage is so defining, what can we do better?

My personal conviction is that people need to be deliberate in their choice of marriage partners.

While attraction is important, there needs to be a deeper connection based on common values because they are essential to the success of a marriage.

BACKGROUND CHECK
In the traditional society, we are told that people were required to inquire into the family of the suitor and establish whether they had a history of such vices like witchcraft, theft and violence.

Towards the end of the last century, many people laughed off such advice and stated that they were not marrying the family but the good mannered man or charming woman.

In many of those marriages, it soon became clear that the good mannered man or woman was who he or she was brought up to be; that the spouse is a product of his experiences as a child.

If there was violence in the family, it affected him and he could be overprotective or even violent.

Any traumatic situations in the family left a mark.

FAMILY
Friends, my ten cents’ worth is that the existence of basic common values or the lack of them will confront a couple sooner rather than later; for some, almost as soon as they get into the doorway of their marital home.

Questions like how to treat the respective parents confront them almost immediately; for some people, parents come first and for others the spouse comes first.

How will you understand if your spouse dashes off any time his parents need him if you are not of the same view?

Issues around money and property become weighty when one person likes to live well and in the present while the other prefers to sacrifice wants so as to accumulate wealth.

Sooner than later, one spouse will be accused of being wasteful and the other of being tight-fisted and resentment will set in.

CAREER
Imagine a situation where one spouse believes that career should come first and the other puts family first.

How do the two co-exist with one having to be apologetic about the time the career takes from the family and the other feeling cheated about what they consider to be family time.

How about where one spouse really wants children and the other one does not?

Imagine when the children come; how does the spouse who did not want children deal with the demands that come with being a parent.

Matters of values are deeply-seated in people and are unlikely to change.

It takes a lot of effort and support to help people navigate the very thorny path of not having common values and it is better to prevent rather than try to cure the differences.

For the lucky ones to propose and get proposed to this Valentine season, may you spare more than a thought to whether you have common values.

Judy Thongori is a lawyer. [email protected]