'That marriage can be saved!'

Staff Writer | Thursday October 7, 2010 00:00

'A man arrives home very angry. He calls out to his wife whom he immediately begins to kiss passionately. He then asks the wife if she knows why he is kissing her in that manner.'

'I am shocked,' says his wife. 'You have not done this in many years.' To which he replies: 'It is those kids kissing at the university gate who made me angry.'

'Incidentally, he had seen a young man and a young woman kissing as he passed by the university and was mad to realise that the two unmarried love birds were so free to demonstrate their love for each other when he could not do the same with his wife. He was outsmarted by kids! Unmarried children, for that matter!'

This was one of several humorous anecdotes told by Reverend John Phillip at a marriage seminar over the holidays. Phillip was invited by Pastor Phodiso Baitseng of the Global Divine Family Harvest Church to help him teach couples the Bible way of saving their marriages. And the Bible, it turns out, counsels against dull, sexless, conflict-ridden marriages. Phillip said three main issues stand out as the major causes of marriage breakdown: Finance, sex and communication.

'Failure to budget together will cause conflicts in your marriage, even if you are properly using the money,' Phillip said. 'You need to sit down together, draw a budget and stick to it.'

'Your wife should know what it is you put into the vehicle to make it move and how much you spend. She can't just be riding a vehicle when she has no idea where the fuel is coming from. Similarly, women should sit down with their spouses and write the grocery list together.' Equally important is the issue of sex in marriage. 'Sadly, sex has become such an uncomfortable subject that people squirm whenever you discuss it,' Phillip said, breaking the pious embarrassment in the auditorium. 'Failure to freely discuss issues of sex in marriage has led to many marriages breaking up.

'You need to break the routine in your sex life,' he said. 'Be creative. Bring back that initial romance. Who said couples cannot be romantic? If you are the busy type, set aside a specific day during the week and let nobody, (not even) your pastor or your children, tamper with that time.

'When your pastor tells you to come to a meeting, tell him: 'Sorry pastor, we have a little private arrangement at home and I must be there.' It is not just in bed that couples need to be romantic. Learn to hold and to kiss, even publicly.

'We have been brought up to believe that doing such things is alien and embarrassing. I say if it brings the spark back in your relationship, then do it! Go into the shop holding your wife and kiss her if you want to. Let people envy you or hiss. She is your wife! That they will know, plus the fact that you are in love.' Phillip said too many marriages have become lacklustre because couples denied their love the basic nutrients to keep it growing. 'Early in your relationship, you used to crack jokes. Where have they all gone? Find that laughter and laugh together again.' Perhaps the worst of the three marriage wrecking vices is lack of communication.

'This is the most common thread throughout most marriages where there is a conflict,' said Phillip. Usually failure to discuss little things results in those things becoming big when frustration and anger set in, making the issues difficult to resolve.

'It is important that as a couple, you communicate with your spouse to work out issues and resolve problems,' he said. A recurring problem that he has come across is of men who will not talk about their problems - not even to their spouse.

'The problem is that Batswana men have been brought up to believe that a man should not show emotion,' said Phillip. That, he said, tends to cause a lot of problems in marriage.But couples need to appreciate that they are different and do not need to always agree on things. However, they should learn to compromise, he said.'Compromise is borne out of mutual respect where each partner accepts the other as he or she is and does not try to manipulate them.

'The Bible exhorts you men to love your wife as you love yourself, and women to respect your husband.Compromise is also a by-product of commitment. Genuine commitment is doing as the Bible says: 'Forsaking all others... For this reason, a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh,'' he said, adding that couples need to consciously put time and effort into their relationships for true marriage fulfilment.

'Marriage is not about bearing grudges. It is about forgiveness. Forgiving your partner even when you do not believe he or she deserves forgiveness. Mercy is what you give to your partner even when he or she does not deserve it. You do it because you love the person.' Spouses need to forgive because for as long as death does not part them, they will have differences which, without forgiveness, will render their marriages dysfunctional.These differences, said Phillip, emanate from the fact that marriage entails a union between two adult species of the human race - male and female - each with his or her own characteristics.

'Even if you look at the Bible, God did not create Eve from the same place he created Adam,' Phillip said. 'She was created at another time when events, weather conditions might have been different. In simple, Eve was created with her own spirit, her own characteristics.' Therein, said Phillip, lies the solution to the myriad of problems besieging the marriage institution today: couples appreciating that they are different and learning to accommodate each other's different traits. That way, the differences between men and women could be harmonised to create a perfect marriage.

'Often people talk of the husband as the head. I say yes, he is the head but he needs the neck, the hands, the legs and the rest of the body. That is the woman. The head cannot function alone, neither can a body without a head.'

That perfect relationship will be complementary and not abusive. Phillip challenged partners to set aside some time during the day to think about their partner. 'Think what you can do for her on that birthday. Bring him a present,' he said to the largely youthful assemblage.

'It was worth it, I really am looking forward to something like this again,' said one of the couples outside the meeting place. Infact, that is what Pastor Baitseng promises:

'The Church cannot afford to be a bystander at a time when the institution of marriage is under threat,' he said.'This is especially so because the Church is equally affected by divorce as the non-churching community. We shall be having more of these, not just for Christians but for all married couples.  'It is clear that most couples getting married are poorly prepared for marriage. Whatever information they have about the institution of marriage comes from poor parental examples, television and the movies. It is because of this that the rate of divorce in Botswana is growing. We shall have more of these seminars to help people stay in their marriages.'