What is your personal cross? Have you accepted to carry it without complaining or you are working hard to have others carry it for you. At family level, people don’t want to carry their own cross. At any slightest of a challenge, they want an easy way out.
On 5th June 2010, a former old boy at Makerere University called asking for help in his wedding preparations. He requested that I support him as his best man. I hesitated, but he insisted. That evening he came to my office and we reminisced the University times and how we were buddies. He had been a close friend during our time at campus in the MBA class. After almost two years of no contact, this call came like from a stranger. Nevertheless, once a friend, always one. I appreciated the call and the request. At my office he told me about the wife-to be. Jane had been in our same class. I was cornered. I agreed to support the wedding, as I stood up for a handshake to appreciate my friend’s maturity to settle down as a family man. Immediately he grabbed by hand, he looked directly into my eyes and said “and you are my perfect best man. Same height. Same skin complexion. And my wife to be knows you very well and you know us. Please support me as the best man.” Without thinking twice, I said no worries. I will be with you along the way. Promise me one thing: you will never divorce. To which he answered swiftly, “of course not. You know me, I don’t repeat myself.”
This was my third time in this role. I invested in the suite, and everything needed to succeed in that role.
Three years later, about late 2013, the wife made a save our souls call to me at about mid-night. These are people we supported from start to finish. Once they wedded and bid us a farewell to their Dubai honeymoon, no one ever called again to even say thank you. As Christians, we always say “when you do good and no one thanks you, you will be thanked in the afterlife.” I picked the call. The voice their side was struggling. My husband just came, and I have been tolerating him. But today he came home with another woman!
There are things you hear and pinch yourself whether they are true or not. As married people, how do you let a situation deteriorate to that level? As these questions were going on in my mind, I told the woman to confirm whether the husband has come a long with a prostitute or a friend helping him to come home safely. If it is the latter, she should not be alarmed. Instead thank the woman and let the husband in. Thank God the woman was identified as friend of the family who saw the man too drunk to drive. She had helped drive the man home in her car and had parked the man’s car at the bar.
The wife was not convinced. She investigated and got shocking news. The woman had a child with the husband. And they were planning for an introduction. The man was a player! She followed up the two love birds and noticed the man left home for work only to branch to the other woman’s house and stay the whole day. I listed to this story with my mouth wide open. It was a typical Nigerian movie storyline. In just a space of three years, the marriage had broken so deep that getting it up and working seemed impossible.
And that is how I suggested to the woman, to get a copy of the book, “The five love languages: the secret to love that lasts” by Gary Chapman. This book is a real marriage fixer. I recommend it to all of you my readers. It explains that each partner in the marriage has got their own love language. If their partner fails to identify it, it leaves an emotional empty love glass which leads to differences. Some people’s love language is acts of service, others it is gifts, while others is touch and for others it is words of encouragement. If your wife’s love language is touch and personal presence, it will not matter how much gifts you give her, if you dont give her your personal time and presence. Be there to just talk with her. Go for a walk or have a private time, she will stay emotionally empty. And such will create gaps in your relationship. If not fixed, such will make one of the partners to look elsewhere to have their emotional love glass filled by an outsider!
As a married person, you must accept your cross or marital problems and face them head on. Work on fixing the problem. Don’t look for the easy way out – divorce. The fact is second marriages have a high rate of divorce. So, stick to your first marriage and carry your cross by fixing the root cause. Visit my blog for more life changing books.
In this season of lent, may God give you the wisdom and awareness to accept your personal cross and carry it to its destination.
