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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While dating, there’s that huge temptation of being interested in actually having sex than discussing the subject of sex and your expectations of sex in marriage. Majority of cases, you can bet that subject is not broached at all. One seems to wonder then, how do lovers jump from talking about sex to rather how many children they will want to have and what kind of home they will want them growing in? Sex precedes children (it’s actually what leads to children), so why don’t lovers discuss the sex itself before bringing in the topic of kids? Why assume everything about your sex life in marriage will just fall in place?
It’s fair to say that most dating relationships have little conversation about sex, forgetting that a great percentage of success in marriage depends on how you handle your sexual expectations in marriage. You may be surprised sex sometimes happens less frequently in marriage than you expect (after telling yourself you will have so much once you marry). And when that happens, how do you handle that mountain of unmet expectations?
Like Dr. Kim Kimberly puts it, “it is interesting that we live in a sex-charged world, yet talk so little about it in our marriage relationships. I think that going into marriage I felt like I knew all that I needed to know and that a great sex life would just happen. That theory didn’t hold water very long“.
There are a lot of realities about sex to discover in marriage than is out there or you may have even experienced in your many bouts of pre-marital sex. Everything else is different in marriage and you will get to learn that you need a lot more than just the sexual compatibility or attraction that makes you want to test the “forbidden waters” before locking it down. No matter how much effort you put in the “doing sex” rather than “talking sex” before marriage, chances are things will be a whole lot different in marriage even with all the experience you may think you have gained with pre-marital sex.
Married sex is a game changer and you can sometimes be left disappointed if you just assume things will just pick up perfectly once you’re married. You’ll be surprised you’ll have to learn loads of patience, experimenting, empathy, forgiveness, listening, understanding and a lot of “rewriting of scripts” from your pre-marital escapades. Very few couples get their sexual expectations met right from the honeymoon. You may be surprised to discover that very few people get it right from the word go, even for those who have been sexually involved before marriage.
It becomes therefore very important to have realistic expectations of and discussions on sex before you enter marriage with a truck load of fantasies and thinking you have mastered the act or got it all together in your head how things should play out.
OK, so here’s where we end for today. Till next time, do share your thoughts with us. Will love to hear them…we learn as we share!
©Mark Gadogbe (McApple), 2018
God has made everybody loveable. You don’t have to agree with it; that’s just what I think.
But if that is true, then no matter what, you should be able to find someone you can love and marry…unless you’re being too picky/choosy or keep having unnecessarily high expectations. Or maybe your problem is that you want somebody who’s exactly like yourself (which you can never find).
Things will be too easy in marriage if you find somebody exactly like yourself. God made marriage a training ground so that two individuals (opposites) can learn to better themselves, sharpening each other just as iron sharpeneth iron (Proverbs 27:17).
If you’re really serious, you should find someone…unless you want to sit for God to just drop an “already made” person on your lap or in your bed so you can just get on with it 😂. You are waiting for “your match made in heaven“, the exact person whose rib you’ve been created from or who is the product of your rib?
You may wait for eternity…or maybe I should ask, how will you even know or recognize your missing rib? Be there and keep searching for your missing rib or waiting arms folded for your Prince Charming…literally. Me “sef” do I know if my adorable wife has my missing rib? 😂 I’m not interested in any missing rib thing even if there is a 1:1 male to female ratio in my country or even the world. I know physically and spiritually, I will weary myself trying to dissect all the women in the world just to know and be sure she’s made of my rib. Every woman is a potential “missing rib” so drop all those long wish lists and just take one 😝.
The thing I like about men is that they will easily admit that Charley, I know I’ve lost a lot of time on getting a partner and I seriously need a partner because I’m not happy being still single at this age. But for today’s independent women, no way…their rhetoric is that they are happy being single and independent.
Well woman, keep telling yourself you are happy being single and you don’t need a man to make you happy or satisfy you because you can pleasure yourself down there. Of course nobody is dumb enough to expect you to cry in public for want of a man…but we know you “cry” when alone at night, bother God with a million prayer petitions and probably drink yourself to stupor over the thought of being single at 30, 40, 50?? What you should know about that false confidence is that you can’t tell everyone (the public) you don’t need a man and then have men come throwing themselves at you? You don’t need us, we not coming. 😂
Society is full of people and counting back to all the years since you started having feelings for the opposite sex, chances are that you have met a lot of people who could have been your “potential spouse”. You can’t say you can’t find a wife/husband. Where have you been looking all these years? Chances are you’ve been wasting too much time on people who don’t know what they want with you.
I know you will say I don’t understand the journey you’ve traveled, so I’m sorry I hurt your feelings. Let me leave it here before I hurt you further 😊. Best of luck then.
(PS: Don’t take this post too serious or as a judgemental piece. Nonetheless, we’ll love to hear your thoughts 😉).
©Mark Gadogbe (McApple), 2017
FACT: Years of research has shown majority of divorces are initiated by women.
REASON: Because women are just never satisfied in marriage because of their many unrealistic unmet expectations…or men are just unrepentant heart breakers??
Well, I don’t know…maybe you do?
We take life as it comes; not as we wish it to be.
“The trouble with many married people is that they are trying to get more out of marriage than there is in it”
~~Elbert Hubbard
…but I think you can’t get out what you have not put in. If we want a lot more from our marriages we must put in a lot more. Show love and be loved back. Communicate better and you will get good responses back. It’s like a love tank that must be filled before we can draw from it.
Like I said in my Valentine day post, “Happy marriages and relationships are possible! It’s all in our hands…it’s all in the effort we put into it. You can’t get happiness in marriage unless you put in happiness. You can’t reap love in marriage unless you pour in love. Marriage is empty from start…what you get from it at the end of the day is what you invest in it“.
May we find grace to keep pouring in love and not place too much unrealistic demands on our marriages!
Mark Gadogbe (McApple)
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Image sources:
http://cheryneblom.blogspot.com/2012/09/filling-up-empty-love-tank.html
http://lifencanvas.blogspot.com/2012/06/self-love-tank.html
True love, real love, genuine love….whatever!
Sometimes the problem is that many times the only definition and experience we (Christians) want to have of love is the 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 kind:
4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
It’s not a bad thing to want to experience this kind of love. Of course that is the ideal thing; that’s the best (Christian) model of love and what everybody desires.
But what we often fail to realize, I think, is that in reality or field of practice, the fact of the matter is that love (and the person loving you) will not always be kind, will not always be patient, will not always trust, will not always hope, etc. Sometimes or many times, love (and the person loving you) actually causes pain, hurts, disappointments, heartbreaks, etc and then we begin to ask if this love is genuine, real, true, the God-kind, etc.
When expectations of love are raised so high, when we get obsessed with experiencing at all cost what’s ideal…we often risk many things and could possibly be living out a “lie” and we could become our own enemies.
Is it not William Shakespeare who said “expectation is the root of all heartache”? And is it not Pushkaraj Shirke who said “love doesn’t hurt. Expectations do”?
There’s nothing wrong with wanting a love that’s perfect; often it’s just a rare commodity!
Cheers!
Mark Gadogbe (McApple)
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Image sources:
http://www.motionworkspt.com/content/expectations
It is often said that women marry expecting the man will change while men marry expecting that their hot, sexy and beautiful women will not change.
Often times, problems arise in relationships and marriages because people just presume their partners will never change; however possible that is! They often submit to the perception that they will always have the same needs 2 years, 3 years and even forever into the relationship/marriage as at the beginning of the relationship. They don’t want to buy the idea that their needs could even change almost abruptly just a month into the union. But truth is life changes our expectations and us.
If marriage is expected to grow or couples expect to grow together in marriage, then change is inevitable and we must embrace it. Some people are afraid of change but truth is a lot will change so better brace up! Change indeed is difficult but that’s just the hard truth.
It’s funny how sometimes our lovers will jump down our throats with retorts like “this is the way I am, better accept me for who I am and don’t expect me to change” only for them to totally change years later (after you’ve struggled to adjust to them) and still forget and continue to give same retorts. Come on dear, you’ve changed from who you were 2 years ago and I’m still accepting you for who you were 2 years ago as you asked me to, or should I now forget about the “old” you and accept you for the “new” you? But didn’t you know you were going to change into this “new” you when you were telling me to accept the apparently unchangeable “old” you? Haha!
Maybe I guess we shouldn’t just accept people for who they are and let it end there; we should accept them for who they are and make a lot of room to accommodate the many changes to come because they sure will come.
“The sex is going to change; your partner may be very gorgeous now but those looks are going to change. Interests, ambitions, things that you like to do together are all going to change. So if it’s the person underneath that you’re really attracted to, then the relationship’s got a really good shot”.
Even your priorities in life will change and a lot of adjustments will have to be made. It’s a reality that most young couples overlook. But we must know that as the years roll by, it will bring with it a lot of changes to our lives and marriages and we will need to change our lives to adapt appropriately to the changes. And it will be easier to manage the changes when you put your mind in ‘ready mode’ for them than to keep living the ‘lie of permanence’ and be rocked by many unmanageable surprises and stress.
The first change my marriage had to deal with (and still dealing with) is the long-distance marriage phase we entered into just about a month into our marriage. Hard as it is, we are managing just fine by God’s grace and we look forward to conquering the many other changes and adjustments ahead of us.
In any case, I think those who fear change or can’t manage change must not marry then because marriage is so full of change. A lot will change you and your marriage for good or for bad; and it’s a very tall list! But there’s joy in knowing that it’s all manageable as long as you are committed to working it out for your good. Just trust them into the hands of God as they come and see them work out for your good because without God in the equation, I bet the many changes will overwhelm you.
Cheers!
Mark Gadogbe (McApple)
PS: If you like it, keep not! Comment, share…and subscribe!
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