HOW TO HANDLE FAMILY PRESSURE IN MARRIAGE

Pressure can be handled or resolved by everyone who knows earnestly what marriage is all about. That is why it is said that, “marriage is for the mature people and not for children”. This is because there is a time of crisis and this pressure period could be termed-”crisis period”.

If one fails in marriage, it seems he has failed in many things; the reason is that, there will be no inner peace, rest of mind and settlement in life. As it is applicable to a man so also it is to women. I believe that God will and can help you maintain your marriage without falling victim of any pressure in Jesus name, amen.

All other pressure may be called external. The worse pressure is the internal pressures which entail the ‘victimization’ from either the husband or wife, e.g. Husbands regarding the wife as a second class citizen in his house or as a daughter from another family. This situation does not allow the wife and the husband to plan together, eat together, or bath together.

Neither does it allow them to share ideas with one another for the better future of the family nor reason together. Their accounts and endeavors are being handled separately. In the case of couples living in agric settlement, produce are being shared either by the wife or the husband. Some husbands will only provide farmland to the woman to clear and plant by herself.

The only thing which joins them together is when they want to copulate for the cause of reproduction. The modern day people may say that only happen in the primitive age but i want to tell openly that this similar life is still practiced in the modern day marriage. I met a friend who said he can never eat with his wife from the same plate. Inquiry revealed that because of their culture or custom, the husband counts it a taboo to eat with his legally married wife. The friend told me that he would prefer eating from the same plate with his little son, born to him by the same woman.

Some men do consider it a taboo sleeping together in the same bed with their wives. Some would prefer buying food stuff from the market by them than giving the money to the wife lest she divide the money into two and send to her parents. Other men would want their woman to be full time house wives whereby the only work the woman is obliged do is to handle every domestic duties without trade or secular employment. When asked why, the reason given was that, she will be exposed to another man which may lead to committing adultery.

Victimization is that kind of pressure which linger long because it is within and is difficult to solve except the man changes his attitude. Recently, i aided in settling a couples internal victimization. This man batters his wife with a waist-belt and there were bruises all over her body. Why did he do that? He claimed the wife went to an unknown destination without his consent. Of a truth, the wife did not inform him about the actual place she went to. But does that warrant severe battering instead of mild rebuke?

The idea of supremacy makes many men humiliate their wives forcefully to make them humble or bring them to unacceptable and unlovable subjection with grievances and murmuring in their heart.

Men complain of little things that don’t matter such as the food being cooked late, the husband’s clothes not being washed on time. Where there is a child or children in the family, the complain would be, why leaving my child to be cared for by someone else? Why didn’t you help my child while fetching water and why did you send the child to market? Some married couples fight at mid-night.

Some marriages have more than ten commandments, dos and don’ts makes such marriage boring. Don’t touch this or that, don’t sit here or there, don’t talk with the neighbor when he or she is there, don’t keep or hang children cloths here or there, don’t allow people into the house, don’t enter my personal room, don’t eat in the sitting room, and don’t visit relatives without my approval and so on. Laughing with a neighbor or someone on the road can easily cause fight between husband and wife, extending gift of any kind attracts punishment and maltreatment either from the husband or wife.

I know a man who said any day his wife gives food to a neighbor or relations; it will attract separation or heavy punishment on the wife. When inquired why, he said because he was born into the family where they are not used to sharing with others.

Nagging attitude is one of the inner stress or challenge many married partners are facing. This is mostly practiced by women. The Bible says in Proverbs 21:19, 27:15 “it is better to dwell in the wilderness, than with a contentious and angry woman”. “a continual dropping in a very rainy day and a contentious woman are alike”

The same Proverbs 25:24 says “It is better to dwell in the corner of the housetop, Than with a brawling woman and in a wide house”

A nagging woman is a person who does not allow the husband to rest from the journey, office or work but will greet him with a report of a fight between neighbors with herself during the husband absence. Such a report will be with anger, trying to provoke the husband to revenge on her behalf, if the husband is a person who is contentious too like her, fire and quarrelling will burst out and this could result in police case or any regrettable action.

By Pastor Okokon, Vanguard News