Those who ask me what to do about their abusive spouses and life-sucking marriages, I will tell them to get out.
There are no martyrs for marriage. For you to die or get into depression because you were ‘fighting for your marriage’ will not earn you a medal in the relationship ranking, nor will it be considered a heroic deed. Only your children will cry, not just at your burial but for the rest of their lives.
I am a writer, not a marriage counselor, consequently, my opinions are mostly sourced from a counsellor.
Conflict is normal and healthy but abuse and toxic behaviour towards a spouse is unacceptable and not part of a marriage relationship or even agreement. No woman for example enters a marriage signing off her right to protection and no one’s daughter should be expected to live in fear of being hit or beaten by someone who is supposed to use his physical strength to protect her.
No one’s son should be subjected to belittling and condescending attitude from someone who is supposed to be their partner for life. Personality clashes and squabbles have a healthy place but if we are not self-aware, we could be crossing the borderline to abuse and cruelty and labelling it as conflict.
If you are not sure whether what you are going through is a healthy, normal conflict, please stop being dramatic and seek a marriage therapist. Normalise post-marital counselling, the same way you do a balanced diet, financial investments, and retirement planning.
Human relationships are difficult because the people in them come with their own dysfunctionalities.
Almost every one of us has experienced heart wounds from our root families. Because there is no perfect human or family, premarital counselling is meant to help us uncover these, so that we start a family from a healed space.
But which two hot-blooded new lovers are willing to remove their tinted glasses and see the reality of who they truly are and how their new love is only but a figment of their collective experience and imagination?
Pre-marital counselling works wonders in the first year of marriage. The lessons are still fresh, and the love chemicals are even stronger now that you are officially and legally allowed to do everything under the sky that applies to being married.
Towards the end of the second year of marriage, however, if you have not put into place a mechanism, such as couple group therapy, you will notice that the good feelings reduce, and the conflicts build.
By year five, if you are still together, and any other year of marriage thereafter, all your unhealed heart wounds are triggered by inevitable life events, such as childbirth, loss of an income, change of career, and world views.
If you are heading to year seven, or twelve and you are growing apart by the hour, without any marital therapy, come behind the tent. You are like a grade seven student waiting to sit your national examinations but never having gone through the refinement and preparation of grades three to seven. You are clowns, lining up for a spectacular failure, grander than your wedding day.
Warren Buffet ranked among the top five wealthiest individuals in the globe is famously quoted as saying, “Marry the right person. Who you marry, which is the ultimate partnership, is enormously important in determining your life's happiness and success.”
Who you marry will either challenge you to be better, fan your wings to spur you to greater heights, or clip your wings, belittle your efforts and your dreams, and laugh at you as you shrink and shrivel.
Who you marry can cause grief and trauma to your children so much that they inherit the legacy of dysfunctionality and pass it on, like a baton to their own children and your generations to come.
Who you marry can be the breaker of chains and cycles and bring healing and restoration not just to the two of you but to your respective families.
