Spending enough time together

Every good relationship needs spending lots of time together to GROW it. The moment, as a man, you say the magic words to your significant other, spending time with her becomes like her human right and if she does not get it, she’ll demand it big time.

But, a big question often asked is “how much time is too much time“? This question mostly arises because many guys feel their women demand too much of their time, and on the part of the ladies, it seems no matter the amount of time a man spends with them, he only seems to meet just about a quarter of what she needs.

Just recently, a guy mentioned that his girlfriend broke up with him over complains of he not making or spending enough time with her, does not call her often, etc. He felt those are frivolous demands. When asked if he thinks in his own estimation he does spend enough time with her girlfriend, he blurted out he spends even way too much.

Guess every relationship gets to experience those demand for time issues. I’m sure many people can relate.

©Mark Gadogbe (2022)

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Love Sometimes Gets Messy

Love is a good thing; people make it messy.
Be careful the kind of advice you give to people in love or blinded by love…for good or for bad. Some people are not wise enough to read between the lines when you offer advice.

Someone once told me “when two lovers fight in a toxic relationship and you advice one to leave the other, the next time they have make-up sex and re-establish their bond, the mess will be on you, because the one you advised will surely tell the other you proposed that they break up”.

Yes, it happens all the time. That’s how unwise love makes some people.
So, it is always best to avoid rubbing your mouth into people’s love affairs, and be especially wise even when they invite you themselves into it!

We all get tangled in that web sometimes and you just don’t know what to say or not to say.
It’s not our fault though; love sometimes just gets so unavoidably messy! 😊

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©Mark Gadogbe, 2021

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A gender-balanced post?

So, here I am thinking about the best form of asking a question without offending anyone. 😂🙈

Back in the days, one could easily get away with the question “Why get pregnant for a man you wouldn’t want to marry?“

But lately, a question like that could land one into trouble, irrespective of whether you wanted to direct the question to a particular gender, that is the female gender.

Most feminists would prefer or insist on the question rather asked as: “Why impregnate a woman who wouldn’t want to marry you or you wouldn’t want to marry?“

It’s probably the same question, or the import of the message might be same, but depending on the particular gender the message is directed to, it admittedly creates a totally different feel.

Sometimes our writer’s block does not stem from not having an idea or issue to write about. Sometimes it’s just the growing struggle to put on a gender-balanced lens so no gender gets pissed just because you said or wrote something directed at only one gender. Reality is that, many times, a topic or issue so simple to communicate becomes more difficult to put out just because of the need to use he/she or him/her. 😄🙈

©Mark Gadogbe, 2021

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Every man wants something in a woman

Know your man, then you’ll know his needs and how you fit in with meeting those needs.

Then, know yourself also, if you really are the one you think he really needs.

©Mark Gadogbe, 2021

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Never jump the steps

For many, their marriage story is somewhat like this: they were so consumed by love and unable to control their passions for each other and allowed it to blaze on until “unfortunately”, she got pregnant. Then, to avoid the “Christian shame” usually associated with such, they decided to get married quickly, before any of the “over-religious Christian critics” see signs of it. And then, it is only after the baby comes…perhaps with troubling symptoms, that they begin to hang their passions on the wall and do the all-important background health and family history checks, stuffs that they should have done way back! Not everybody gets so lucky to escape situations of this nature when you allow your erections and horny feelings control and determine your direction.

It is always a very difficult decision breaking things off with one’s lover of God knows how many years when hit with the inevitably ugly situation of not being “medically compatible” perhaps in your genotypes. On the other side of the coin is “family history“. Never underestimate the possibility of the one you met somewhere and fell in love with turning out to be a direct family relation. These stuffs may be rare but real; there are true stories out there of people it has happened to who had to bitterly separate because of incest. Not every culture deals kindly with incest and some have lost lives and beautiful futures. The gods in some of our African families may not be that forgiving as the God up in Heaven.

Avoidable situations of this nature in love relationships are what a good friend of mine describes as “jumping the steps”. Of course, it’s a simple principle in relationships/marriage that, when you jump the steps, you risk a great fall that either leaves perpetual damage or a big scar for the entire life of that union. The exception to the rule is only by God’s divine grace.

So, here’s the thing. When you meet someone or fall in love with someone, still try hard to not let your horny hormones take the better of you into sleeping with each other, worst case having unprotected sex, before making the all-important family background checks and medical compatibility tests. Stop fooling yourselves that love conquers everything…there’s love and there’s stupid love. That love may fly out the door at the first smell of trouble. When in doubt, ask the millions of people all over the world who have been abandoned by the ones they once thought loved them and nothing could ever separate them.

Surely, there’s a reason why God gave us brains to use even when we are deeply and madly in love. Never jump the steps!

©Mark Gadogbe (McApple), 2019

Does long dating guarantee marital success?

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.

Men are dogs!

I have to apologize that today’s post may be very controversial or too blunt to a select group of people or people who hold a particular opinion.

For all the ladies who blame all their relationship failures on men, I think they should go have a rethink. Call men dogs as much as you can but that wouldn’t change a thing; the worse it will do is make them more dogs to your disadvantage.

You see, because men are naturally the chasers, some of you ladies just sit down and do nothing and even after a man has won you over, you still do nothing…you still sit and wait to be chased and loved. Being at the receiving end always is the mindset of many of you ladies! Well, that’s good and men don’t mind doing that…but that’s where you are your own enemies sometimes.

Let me put it this way, the position of men as the chasers have made them learn their trade and it’s high time you ladies get up and learn yours. I’m not at all advocating that you become the chasers. Maybe when you read on, you will get it.

Do you know what a man goes through to get a woman he is interested in? Basically they do all they can to learn and get to know almost everything they can about the woman. They basically do a lot of researching anywhere, anyhow. Ask any guy and he will tell you whether he has not read one book or the other on women, looked at internet articles on women, etc. Don’t be surprised at the many men out there looking through sexual internet sites in a way just to learn how to please a woman (I’m not encouraging that though). You will even be amazed at the quantum of information out there about women. In effect, men get to know a lot of basic stuff about women (though “mysterious” beings most times).

The point is many of the ladies complaining about men sometimes know close to nothing about the men they have in their lives and how to please them so they can stick and stay. All many such ladies do is burden their men with many frivolous requests of buy me this, buy me that, send me money for my hair, shoe, dress, rent, etc. And when the few of their fellow ladies out there who do their homework well start getting their man’s attention off them, they start nagging and saying “men just can’t do without sex, they just can’t have enough of it, they can’t resist anything in pants“. I’m sorry to burst your bubble but many times it’s not just sex that keeps a man…men have very deep needs beyond sex.

Perhaps all you will ever know about men is reducing them to sex lovers…but I bet there’s a lot more about men that you have not focused your mind on to learn. You leave that to the ones you call “whores” and quite sadly though, they have learned to become good at what they do. You think they were just born that way? Ask many of them and you will know they learnt their trade. If any woman who snatches your man is a whore, then maybe there is something “good” they are doing that you’re not?

Well, men like creativity and trying out new stuff and mostly get frustrated with the same old thing, but shhss, don’t you ladies do same? Should I mention the new dresses, new hairstyles, new shoes, new jewelries, etc. that you want all the time? And isn’t that all some of you ladies focus your attention on even in a relationship? Some even claim they do it for the men, to look good for them. Well, very good…continue in that path alone.

Let me tell you my dear ladies, no man in his right sense will have a Jaguar at home and go looking out for a Kia car! Unless, there is something wrong with that Jaguar. So, learn to tend your garden very well and focus on the right things, the right priorities. Remember Mary and Martha and how the Bible said in Luke 10:42 that “only one thing is needful: and Mary hath chosen that good part, which shall not be taken away from her“. To keep a man, you need to draw attention to his very soul, the very things that make him a man, his dream, aspirations, etc. You can’t do that with just sex and neither can you do that if you don’t take time to study him well and help build him up.

Get up! and go learn something about men and discover their other elements. I tell you, men are the easiest to tame. Even the dogs you equate them with have being the best of man’s animal companion. But here’s the thing, you can’t even tame or train a dog if you know less to nothing about them! Get to work and start doing your homework well.

If you come back after reading this with those lousy remarks that men are dogs, then you are just incapable of managing a man.

You think the Bible saying “A GOOD MAN IS HARD TO FIND” is just for you quoting it aloud? You don’t even know that’s in the Bible, right? Oh, you think it’s only about “A VIRTUOUS WOMAN WHO CAN FIND“? and so you sit down waiting to be found and after you have been found you still waiting to be told what to do?

Then again, I think many of you have a crazy mentality that makes you think only men need women in their life because God said “It is not good for a man to live alone“. If it’s good for a woman to live alone, then glory hallelujah!

THE CHOICE IS YOURS as always. If you think you deserve a man in your life as a lady, then get up and go learn all you can about men and manage well that good man God blesses u with. Life is not all about wearing nice shoes and dresses and putting on nice makeup to get a man to sleep with you. Your value beyond that is what will determine if you will be kept as a life partner or ditched to the gutters.

©Mark Gadogbe (McApple), 2018

Relationships and the crazy things we do for love

Today is the 3rd anniversary of the day I officially proposed marriage to my wife with a ring. I used the word officially because I have always known in my heart that I didn’t need to pose the question “will you marry me?” before I can be sure that she would or wouldn’t accept to marry me. 

The circumstances of our relationship made me feel popping the question was just the Western world or movies thing that has become many African lady’s fantasy and I felt I was not cut out for that. That’s because for us, we have throughout the relationship made each other know clearly that it is a relationship leading to marriage and not just a short-term romantic relationship or testing of the waters or the “you have to kiss a lot of frogs before you find your Prince” thing. She was my first love relationship and I didn’t plan on jumping into a series of relationships. 

That’s the level of commitment we started with from day one and because of that we had countless times discussed topics relating to marriage and her actions have always proved she can’t possibly say no to marriage if I should pop the question anyday. In fact, I was not even planning on doing that “will you marry me” proposal thing but something happened and I figured it seems almost every lady wants the proposal with rings to happen as a way of launching the marriage phase before actually starting preparations for marriage. 

But for a guy like me who always wants value for money, I didn’t see why I should spend money on a ring that she may not even wear in public because of our cultural, societal and religious perceptions. At the time, though just 3 years ago, there was no way she was going to wear that ring to church (we being choristers and all the “pious standards” that makes you feel having a boyfriend is even a sin? 😂) or in public without having to answer to so many people who would ask too many unwarranted questions. 

It’s not like these days that rings have become a fashion thing that we see ladies wearing rings on all five fingers and nobody cares. And truly I don’t really remember she wearing that ring freely in the open…coupled with that confusion out there over which finger wears such rings, whether the marriage ring finger or middle finger and all that? 😂 So many different views out there on that thing…smh. Those days the old men and old ladies of the church will never spare you with a ring on whichever finger when not married 😂. Plus the fact that even if she wears it even, it will be for barely some two or three months before marriage made little economic sense to me at the time. But I’ve never regretted it because it makes a lot of romantic or emotional sense to women and we get to benefit from satisfying that need anyways 😂. 

OK, so back to what I actually wanted to share? Today’s anniversary made me remember possibly the craziest thing I made my wife do. We had started marriage counselling then I guess, and on one evening outing, I forced her to wear some miniskirt I bought for her during my studies in UK. 

It was a crazy suggestion and the way she looked at me in bewilderment spoke volumes. She’s not a miniskirt person and had never worn any before…none that very short. If you’re a committed church person like her, you would know she’s the type that obeys the “skirt must not go above the knee” rule to the core.  

And here I was suggesting she wears one so short that it can practically reveal her bum. 😂 She blatantly refused and even after I kept convincing her by suggesting she “do something crazy for once in your life“, she went like “what if we meet our Pastor or someone from the church?” That phrase got me, and I couldn’t stop laughing and all the while thinking “like seriously? who cares?” 

As usual I think I gave her all the arguments of whether she thinks Pastors are saints, whether she knows what their wives wear for them at home, whether she thinks Pastor’s wives don’t wear g-strings, whether Pastors never feel sexy and act like really bad boys in bed with all the Playboy moves or she thinks they quote scriptures when coming to sleep with their wives. 

I’m sure all that line of argument for a simple question bored her into just giving in and wearing the damn thing 😂. And I secretly took my camera along cos there was no way I was going to let that rare moment pass. 

But I can tell you the walk to the neighborhood restaurant to just grab some khebab and drinks and enjoy outdoor fresh air was her longest walk ever and the most sluggish and uncomfortable walk of her life. Nothing is ever so priceless as that crazy miniskirt night 😂.

©Mark Gadogbe (McApple), 2017

Marriage & Personal Development Author 

Everybody is loveable

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).

Problem of choice

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

Marriage killers

​”We put everything ahead of marriage and then wonder why it fails”

Whatever comes between you and your marriage is a marriage killer…be it positives like the Church, the kids, friends, family, and job; or negatives like addictions, bad habits, adultery, negative mentalities, etc. 

Whatever does not edify your marriage…watch it. Whoever is always willing to bring a charge against your marriage because he/she finds nothing good in your marriage should not be kept as company. Bad company corrupts good habits. 

In the course of a marriage, there is a lot of time to develop and to become divine lovers. That is where your marriage must get to. 

Work at it, pruning off all the negatives one step at a time. It’s possible to become divine lovers! We have the Grace; all we need to do is to put in the works. 

©Mark Gadogbe (McApple), 2017