THE PSYCHOLOGY OF GOOD MARRIAGE RELATIONSHIP
In our age and time most marriage relationship are legally together but emotionally and mentally divorced. The couples may be admired for staying together through years, when in reality their relationship is waned. They put on smiling faces in churches and at public outings but this is simply cheerful deceit. The romance flame is dim while sex is epileptic at will, if not completely shut down. Most women use sex as a tool to seek for affection or control while men counterparts lack romance in their dictionary. According to Gary Smalley in “Love is a decision,” women are relationship oriented. “Women have a built in relationship manual…. A wife is a gold mine of relational skills”. Debra White Smith in ‘Romancing your husband’ said women have a thermometer that constantly measures the statues of their marital relationship. If their relationship is going well, then romance and sex will be excellent. If the relationship is ill then the romance dwindles and sex is infrequent or totally withdrawn. A lady once said ‘I could give excuses of having headache, pains and weakness or not in the mood.’ Most men pay little or no attention to women’s feelings and understanding their ever unfolding nature and world. A young man opined, ‘I too give excuses of work, weakness and illness.’ Funny world we live in! God gives, devil steals, kills and human hoards.
Williard F. Harley Jr in ‘His needs, her needs,’ said that while a woman’s first need in marriage is affection, a man’s first need is for sexual fulfillment. Another school of thought, Gary and Barbara Rosbery opined that both husband and wife’s first need is for unconditional love and their second needs are sexual for men and emotional intimacy and communication for women. Most women would tell you that their husband is less romantic while the men would wish their wives were more sexual. Dr Ross Campbell teaches that a woman has a difficult time initiating love for her husband when she feels the husband is not supportive in areas of family life, emotional and otherwise. The same is true of the husband family responsibility. He wants to know that the wife is ready and willing to help. A woman feels cheated to assume responsibility because her husband simply ignored it. That could make her feel insecure and uncomfortable in responding to his love. A husband feels willing to go extra miles, work over time for a wife he feels love and respect him; present him well to the children as a spring rock of authority and head. A wife can be wonderful at accepting love initiated by her husband amplifying it manifold and reflecting it to her children. Most women expect the man to take responsibility of initiating love. In response they return to them a priceless love, rewards and appreciation. These priorities must be set right. Of interest wives are more competent in the area of their love, caring and identifying emotional needs in men and children. Men desperately depend on their wives’ help in leading them in this relative foreign world of feelings. The woman must be careful to exclude badmouth and nagging since these deflate man’s inspiration to take responsibility and be sensitive to the wife’s needs as well as the children. I’m yet to see a man who loves his wife and hate the children.
Debra Smith observed that it’s very easy for a woman who feels emotionally cheated by her husband to stop meeting his sexual needs. After the woman stops meeting her husbands’ needs, the man in turn would decline to meet his wives emotional needs for romance. The cycle continues in a downward trend until the marital relationship is non existent. This could result into living like cotenant and divorce brings the marriage to a halt. Debra condemned this odd behavior and encourages couples to follow the golden rule. “Do unto others what you wish them do unto you in everything. Give and it will be given unto you…forgive and you would be forgiven [Matt 7:12; Luke 6:37-38].
Simply avoiding doing evil to others does not mean that a person is doing good. In the same view a woman or man may not do evil to each other but are passively ignoring or depriving his or her needs. When couples scorn their spouses in their needs for each other, they are living against the golden rule, ridiculing them for the need God placed within each other. Debra opines, ‘When your husband makes erotic suggesting by touches or words, towards sex, he’s treating you the way he wants to be treated. By this behavior he entreats his wife his needs…… If romance is what a woman needs, she should pour romantic synergies into her marriage. She should not wait to say it’s my husbands’ duty to romance me. By so doing she stops yearning to be romanced and step up to lay hold what belongs to her. She could set the motion by dropping him a text message or love note taped on his car steering or make candle lit dinner just for him; no complaining or murmuring. Even if at first your husband wasn’t romantic after a time the strong flame of your love shall sweep him in. On the same note, men can make their wives look forward to making love. Men could provoke that by making calls and thanking her for yesterday, stopping by shop to pick a little thing to show concern for her and children. The woman feels appreciated and loved.
Apostle Paul urges Corinthians saints, {1 Cor 7:3-5}”the husband should fulfill his marital duty to his wife and likewise the wife to her husband. The wife’s body doesn’t belong to her alone but also her husband. In the same way, the husbands’ body does not belong to him alone but also to his wife. Do not deprive each other except by mutual consent. Meeting the marital needs of our spouses is obedience to Gods commands and a choice we must make daily. It’s a priority and should not be neither compromised nor denied, by this way we build intimate relationship and good marriage that endures.
Evangelist Ogbonnaya, G. can be reached by email: gkapin53@yahoo.com