Emotionally preparing your children for marriage

Agnes (not real name) complained to her mum that her husband to be hurts her from time to time. She said she thought that when someone claims to love you, the person would not want to see you sad or unhappy. But she found out that the case was not so with Ken. So, to her: “Ken does not care whether I am happy or not.”

As her mother probed further, she found out that Agnes wanted Ken to agree to all her opinions on every matter. To Agnes, whenever Ken holds a different view from her own it was interpreted to mean that he wanted to hurt her and does not love her enough.
Her mother then told her that the fact that he loves her does not mean that he cannot have opinions that do not agree with her own.

A good relationship comes when we learn to listen to what the other person is saying. You do not expect your wishes alone to be granted.

It is good for those yet to be married to know that in many homes where there is peace, such couples know how to lovingly and peacefully come to a place of agreement out of the initial opinions they have on any matter.

Just as Agnes’ mother successfully taught her on how not to take opinions that are different from her own as quarrels, war, or lack of love and care; that is I suggest that every parent should tutor their sons or daughters who are already married or about to get married. In fact, parents should not wait until their children are about to get married before starting to teach them on how to come to a place of agreement with a person or people whose views may not necessarily agree with their own. This teaching should start when children are still very young, struggling over who picks the toy first and so on and so forth.

Parents should also teach their children that they would surely feel hurt by their spouses one time or the other when they get married and how to handle those hurts. I have written on how to handle hurts in a previous edition of this column. Being in love does not in any way eliminate disagreements.

Many early marriages have packed up as a result of the couples entering into marriage with the illusion that “I shall never be hurt by my spouse because we love each other.” I have found out that many couples who say that are no longer in love and are those who did not know how to handle their spouses opposite views. Some of these spouses did not express these contrary views during courtship because they probably had “excess love” for each other, not knowing they will face those realities in marriage.

But with proper pre-marital parental counselling by parents to their children, the number of marriages that breakup due to “irreconcilable differences” will greatly reduce. Self-control, anger management, less-emotional fragility, negotiating skills among many others, are areas where parents need to train their children into emotional maturity before marriage. Love you!