Unsatisfied spouses are mostly bitter spouses. A lot of bitterness in marriage erupts from unmet needs and expectations. Find out what the need is and meet it. The key to a happy marriage is simply meeting the needs of each other.
#ShortNotes
©Mark Gadogbe, 2022
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I believe a right and timely information shared is a life saved, or possibly a marriage saved or reoriented. So, here are a few tips on getting a marriage set on a good Christian foundation for success:
Got a few tips of your own? Do share with us, you never know whose marriage that useful tip may help save. ❤
Cheers and may our marriages do great! 🙏🏾
©Mark Gadogbe, 2020
It’s surprising sometimes how we are able to always find time for every other thing or people in our lives except our spouses. We easily neglect our responsibilities to them claiming they should understand if they love us. They should understand we are busy for a reason. We’re busy caring about everybody and everything else which when taken out of our life or lost, would contribute far less to our depression and insanity than our marriage.
Fast forward and there’s a case of someone else or something else getting more of our spouse’s attention and we become bitter and defensive. Are we bitter for shirking our responsibilities and pushing them beyond their limit or boundaries in the union or it just must always be the fault of the other, justified or not? We forget people always understand and bear with us until a point where they can’t bear it anymore. How often do we think about our partner’s limits…how much they can take until they can take no more?
Everybody’s got their limits and no matter how much they love you, there’s a limit to how much they can cope or live with any situation. Oh no, it’s not only about bad stuff. There are men who can’t handle too much love or affection from a woman. They begin to feel like they are babies to their partners. There are men (and maybe women) who equally can’t stand too much attention or pampering from their partners. Sometimes it’s sad that we can spend so many years with a person and know very little about them because we always just go with the flow and never pause to ponder things…until something happens.
Could you be humble enough to admit that the breakdown in your spouse’s affection towards you could be self-inflicted? Is there not a cause for your spouse’s bitterness, changed attitude, ill behavior, addiction, low/unmatched sex drive, broken friendship, lost vibes, etc. and have you stopped to think about it?
We wait too long for things to blow in our face before we look ourselves in the mirror.
©Mark Gadogbe (McApple), 2019
The fact that you dated 10 years before marriage is no guarantee that your marriage will last better than those who dated for a year.
It’s about how much you learn about each other in every critical aspect of what makes a marriage work and what values or strengths the two of you possess that will make you good and compatible partners for the long haul. If you learned nothing from all those years, you and that beautiful relationship could be a waste and will not stand the test of time.
It’s never about the years; but what’s in those years.
Your works, just like scripture says, will be tested through fire to see what comes out depending on what stuffs you and the relationship are made of.
Today I read something very intriguing titled “LOVE YOUR SPOUSE LESS” from a marriage devotional:
“…In Matthew 10, Jesus gave a job description to His disciples, which included a warning that following Him would lead fathers to divide from sons and mothers from daughters—it would even lead to enemies in one’s own household. Not the family-friendly message we often associate with Christianity!
Jesus was clear that the disciples’ families could not take priority over the mission He was giving them. On another occasion (recorded in Luke 14), Jesus turned to the large crowds following Him and told them that any man who refuses to hate his wife for the sake of following Him can’t really be a disciple. Yikes!
“Hate your own wife” is probably not the advice you were expecting to receive from a study on marriage. But that’s how Jesus instructs the husbands who were interested in following Him.
Honestly, it’s a message we don’t like to hear. But Jesus was clear: You can’t follow Him if you’re clinging too closely to your family. No relationship takes priority over your relationship with Jesus. If you want to follow Jesus, you can’t even cling to your own life.
Count the cost. That’s how Jesus ended this dialogue in Luke 14. Clinging to Jesus requires loosening your grip—perhaps letting go completely—on every other thing in your life.
Are you sure you want to follow Jesus?”
Here’s what someone said to a friend who was denying her partner sex or withholding sex as punishment for some frivolous reasons:
“Better go sleep with your husband before someone else ends up sleeping with him! Unless you don’t want the marriage anymore, then it doesn’t matter; but if you do, babe run fast and go sleep with him like your life depends on it!”
The recipient of the message was so unhappy that the friend didn’t think about her feelings, or what her husband might have done but only to scare her and make it look like it’s her fault or sex just can’t be used as a reward for doing good.
But truth is, the friend had faced that sad experience before and was just saying the hard truth: withholding sex to get the good out of a spouse does not always work and can blow up in your face. Sex can be used as a reward for doing good but it also shouldn’t! Sex in marriage isn’t supposed to be optional. Neither is it supposed to be used as punishment.
Like it or not, the reality is that someone somewhere is always desiring your spouse and nursing the thought of sleeping with your spouse, and when you give them the chance out of negligence, they will. Oh yes, they will! And it will happen so fast before you realize it. When you play the loose with your spouse and they run dry on emotional satisfaction, you are only just slowly pushing them into the arms or bed of another.
Emotional detachment is something you must prevent in your marriage at all cost because you run the risk of losing your spouse once that connection fizzles out. And for many out there, it doesn’t matter to them whether it’s for a short spell, a day or two; if they get your spouse, they will seduce them with torrents of all that you are not giving them just to snatch them from you.
Sometimes, withholding from someone what’s fundamental to his/her survival can blow up in your face because they will always get it one way or the other. If respect is fundamental to a man and you withhold it, he will automatically seek it from or be easily drawn to another who offers it.
People are naturally attracted to and crave what they like and not what they dislike. Human beings love sex and crave it…and till eternity, people will always be tempted by it. That’s just the truth. This is something their life depends on and it makes them vulnerable to the extent that they could potentially go against their will to have it elsewhere when you refuse to offer it. They are not addicted to sex; it’s just a basic need for their well-being and survival. You say sex is not for survival? A billion marriages die from the lack of it, hello?
So, what’s the point? It’s simple: punish with anything but not with sex. Punish with anything but not that which is fundamental to a spouse’s survival.
©Mark Gadogbe (McApple), 2018
Imagine receiving wedding gifts that you don’t get to use years after your wedding. How possible is that? Well, it is very possible and very true in my case. And I believe it’s not a unique experience but one that is very common to many marriages. It is often the case especially when your loved ones who gave the gifts didn’t know what exactly your needs were and were left to just assume what will be useful to the newly married couple.
Recently my wife and I decided to reorganize things in our home and in the process, we chanced on a number of things including boxes of porcelain dinner sets, spice containers and some cookwares which apparently were gifts on our wedding. There were also some fabrics which never got sewn because apparently, they have either gone out of fashion or were not our taste in clothes. Those are just a few examples but that’s not the first time we realized how some of our wedding gifts turned out not immediately useful to us, and it still reminded us of how we would have traded them in for something immediately more useful, or probably should have done things differently like using a wedding registry. We personally had a lot of those stuff before getting married and they just became needless. Imagine having a blender or a microwave and being gifted same as a wedding present. Do you throw them away, gift them to someone else or keep them hoping the ones you already have gets faulty so you can use the ones gifted to you?
Simply, we failed to use a wedding registry and that’s why we experienced all that!
So, should there be weddings without receiving of gifts then? Well, I don’t know, but I don’t think majority holds a wedding without expecting gifts. The purpose is not for gifts but we naturally do expect gifts. And this may be funny but for some people, weddings are a huge financial investment and as such, they attach with it high expectations of receiving something back at least, otherwise they get depressed.
Giving of gifts is just how we show our love to people who are getting married.
There were things we didn’t have when getting married and we would have appreciated those items more if we had received any of them as gifts. But how would our loved ones (guests) know or have the slightest idea of our real needs or wants? It’s never an easy job planning a beautiful wedding. It is neither easy trying to get a meaningful gift for modern couples; it’s a near mental torture because you want to give something that would suit the occasion and that would most importantly be appreciated because of how relevant or useful it would be to the recipients.
That’s where a wedding registry like Zola comes in as a very beautiful resource for wedding planning and creating a unique wedding registry that represents a couple’s personality and style. Their beautiful online registry is very catchy, with easy starter guides and should typically be the go-to for modern couples that would love to create a free registry. The couple can choose a wide variety of wedding gifts they want (from a lot of major brands) and then their friends and family can access their gift list on the online store. It’s simple, fun, fully personalized and offers a lot of possibilities beyond the traditional way of doing things. A couple can get just anything imaginable.
A wedding registry is like a wish list but not a secret one hidden in your heart; but one that openly communicates to your family and friends (wedding guests) the items that you would love as gifts and that will be useful to you in your home. It’s like telling your guests literally “if you want to buy me a gift, this is what I want”. See it like someone asking you out for a drink and asking you what would you have. It’s a beautiful and elegant way or platform to ask for gifts tailored to your tastes and Zola is a sure bet.
It’s a great resource as it saves your loved ones the mental agony we all go through when picking a gift for someone because nobody likes to give a “not so useful” gift and nobody loves to receive one, especially not us modern couples whose tastes are quickly changing. Ever experienced how awful it feels when you give someone a gift and you never see them use it? Also, with the registry, when an item on the list has already been purchased, you will know so you wouldn’t have to purchase the same thing and the couple ends up having three blenders and not knowing what to do with them or having to trade them off for something else (if the registry has a good return policy). In essence, with a wedding registry a couple avoids ending up with a bunch of gifts they may not like or need.
A wedding registry is an amazing life saver for millennial couples and there’s a lot you can get out of the best ones like Zola.
Even if it is cash gifts you end up receiving from your guests, you can personally purchase the specific lovely items listed in your registry and it is always a joy for your guests knowing they contributed to or helped you get the best gifts you needed (must-haves) even if they didn’t personally purchase them for you.
Where to start on creating an awesome wedding registry then? It is always important to work together with one’s partner to set up a registry that captures the needs of (or gift items for) both partners and make sure there’s a wide price range of quality gifts (that can be cherished for many years) that your guests can select from. They must be gifts that suit or reflects your unique lifestyles or personalities and things that you will regularly use. The common things are mostly good kitchen or culinary items because you will always cook as a couple or host a lot of friends and family for dinner; or bathroom and bedroom items because a lot of sizzling moments are shared together there; or general items for the living room like decors that makes it shine because it’s the first space people see in your home. That pretty much covers every room in a modern couple’s home, right?
You may also include gadgets for family entertainment or items for outdoor life and travel because you will be having a lot of romantic getaways. You can also include some exclusive or fashionable items that you may only have a once in a lifetime chance of acquiring on a normal regular shopping spree but that you will adore forever. We all have that one thing that we only get to admire during window shopping and who knows, dreams do come true and by including that in your wedding registry somebody may just surprise you and give you a joy of a lifetime.
Nonetheless, you must know your target group (guest list) and know what they can afford so you can structure your registry accordingly. And not just what they can afford, but when you keep your family and friends in mind when choosing items for your wedding registry, you can almost guess what category of gift item each of them might give you. That maximizes your chances. And it will be important to set up your registry early to give your family and friends ample time to make purchases. Never also forget to send a thank you to anyone who manages to get you a gift. It’s just nice to be appreciated I think.
Anything is possible with a wedding registry because you are in control. So, jump onto Zola for your next big celebration and have fun with it.
We all enjoy the experience of doing something new and there’s always new ways of doing things and achieving great results.
© Mark Gadogbe (McApple), 2017
Marriage & Personal Development Author
My wife said something yesterday:
“Your willingness to learn and unlearn things helps your marriage to work. The learning is easy; the hard work is in unlearning a habit or an attitude that you have grown up with”.
I said in my mind, wow how beautiful! You can’t surely coexist with someone by forcing on them your way of life, your upbringing.
(PS: Still learning from my wife in marriage. She’s a storehouse of wisdom but she never talks on the “open market” 😜. If you want to know what she knows, you will always have to put her on the spot. Otherwise, you wait until I bring it to you. I’m the one that blogs the stuff and spreads it on social media. So I’m the one that gets called funny little annoying names too. But nothing spoil because sometimes I take the glory 😂🙈)
God has given you a great blessing in your spouse and in your marriage. God speaks highly of marriage because it is one of His blessings to mankind.
Focus then on the good in your spouse and marriage, and celebrate. Always celebrate each other! Always!
At the same time, realize that your marriage is bigger than you and your spouse. So, allow your relationship to also be a blessing to other couples (or even singles if you like). You don’t have to be a marriage “expert” to do this. You can help somebody from your unique experiences in marriage.
Finally, always bear in mind:
“what’s taken for granted will eventually be taken away; then you end up missing most what you least appreciated”
©Mark Gadogbe (McApple), 2017
”Every girl lives for her wedding day”???
Well, embrace your wedding day…prepare for it, celebrate it.
But after that few hours of fame, the spotlight on you will be gone forever…and the real work starts.
What’s scary?
Truth: “the first year of marriage is hard…really hard“.
And it’s even more when you don’t work at marrying somebody with similar goals, dreams and passions but rather in pursuit of the “soul mate” fantasy.
If only we (especially ladies) will think and prepare more for the marriage as we do for the wedding… like how we make sure, and spend sleepless nights planning for nothing to go wrong, a lot will change in marriages.
Why women especially? Because they are powerful stakeholders of the home. A lot depends on them; even though running the home is an equal partnership.
~Credit: Frank Powell
(Edited and expanded)
©Mark Gadogbe (McApple), 2017
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