True Love as Service to Each Other
Every human being desires to love and to be loved. This is no less on the part of the woman or on the part of the man, hence both men and women have equal need to be loved and to love. So, how can this love be truly expressed? In addition to the points made in the Part 1 of this piece, love within marriage is also best described as a call to SERVICE – offering of service to each other. Let your love be shown in your genuine care and service to your spouse.
Rather, our culture or practice of daily life shows that often, the man sees himself as the one in the position to be served by his wife. In fact, it is below him, and below his dignity as a man to help the woman. Many men leave it to the woman in the house to struggle and sort out the house issues. It is basically her problem.
As the man, you may say you provide money, that is, if you do at all. Even where the man provides money, money does not take the place of your physical care and assistance. In some cases, the man does not have the means to provide and care for the woman nor for the home, neither does he give the necessary help to the woman at home.
Women are learning to care and provide for themselves as marriage is in many cases no longer that safe place where both of you pull together to make life easier for each other. That sense of service has become skewed and it is the woman who is expected to offer service to the man, all the time.
What we find is that many wives have become glorified house girls. She goes to work just as he does. Or she alone goes to work. Or she goes to work and takes care of the kids. Yet, in all these cases, she is left to do house chores like that is all that life has assigned to her that day to achieve. This is very often taken for granted and women are burdened with responsibilities and cares, and even demands on their physical strength.
In the days of our parents and grandparents, mothers stayed home and worked in the house full time with numerous childcare tasks. Some added farming to that as well. Today, women, just like men are out there labouring in the marketplace, in offices, in business and are making great strides. In the midst of that, the woman is left to bear the chores and cares of the home on herself. This may seem exaggerated. Well, if it does not apply to your case or you are not able to even see it, it does not mean that it does not apply to many other persons and in other homes.
Could you as the man make the effort to look around for ways to give a helping hand to the woman and to the children? Let the children learn by example from you, and not only dishing out of instructions. Could you as the man also endeavour to give a helping hand with those physical tasks around the home and not leave it to the woman?
It is said that, in life, if you show that you are strong, you will be left to die in your show of strength. The woman is strong to bear a lot of cares and responsibilities in the home, but do you insensitively also leave her to take on physically strenuous tasks around the house? I once saw a heavily pregnant woman go out of her way to put on a generator, while her husband sat down laughing and gisting away with friends. Yes, she left food cooking in the kitchen. She was cooking for the visitors.
In all these above situations and a lot more, it is you and I who are responsible for what our marriage has become. This is seen in the choices made, attitudes assumed, love not exhibited in practical care and assistance and the general sense of waiting to be served by the other.
This is not meant to be skewed one sided. It just requires that in our marriage relationship, you and I truly, genuinely, humbly and in deep loving service, watch out and reach out to each other. LOVE must become SERVICE between us. It must now really translate to action – daily action and support for each other. If I watch out for you, empathize with you, be sensitive to your needs and wants and know what could affect your health, I would be quick to help you, support you or talk over with you, what we could do about the situation, so we both remain sane and at our best for each other.
Pride and Ego Complicates Love
Yes, it does. You are a man, and you know how to cook. Has it now become below you to do a meal for your loved ones, and yet you love them? You are a man and you do not know how to cook, but you can help in very little ways around the home. Has it now become below your status to take your plate to the kitchen and even wash it, especially when your wife is also just in the same situation with you – she is going to work just like you or she is tired from work just like you?
As a woman, I notice that he is not attending to me as I would like. Rather than express my need to him, I find succor in something or someone else. My pride and ego tells me that I can have a close friend or confidant whom I share stuff with and who is readily there for me. So, in this way, I can do without this spouse of mine, who has only become a spouse by name. Rather than make such choices, the man in my life ought to be my close friend, confidant, ‘gisting’-partner, sex-driver, romance fairy-taler and more. But no, let me show him that I can do without him in my life. With such attitude of pride, lots of complications come into the relationship.
Another common one is, you have paid her bride price. She might have even covered most of the expenses of the wedding, but that is not said aloud. After the wedding events and ceremonies, she has now become yours. You are now the lord of her life. In your mind, you literally own this human ‘thing’, I mean human being. You monitor how she behaves, what she does, what she wears, who she talks to, what she buys, who she knows, who she laughs with, who she calls, who calls here, who she associates with and just anything about her life. A lot of women have lived under such slavery and burden for years in their marriage. If you look around well enough, you will know that this is still true even till today.
In such a situation and with such attitude towards your spouse, it is very easy to have recourse to domestic violence, verbal assault, emotional and psychological abuse of the woman. If she is your property, or if you think you are her lord and you are greater than she is, you will very well easily subject her to any form of violence.
On the side of the woman, it is important for her to know that she has no less than a man. She has equal dignity and rights and should not keep silent while she suffers any form of indignity in her marriage. Yet again, you have your place in the marriage, and it is important to know your place and respect the role you play.
As the woman, keeping to your place means honouring and respecting the man, and doing all that is within your capacity to make the home a place of peace and serenity. He must be respected and treated right. Every human being needs to be respected and treated right.
Doing Your Part
Both the woman and the man are meant to love, care and help each other, and each has his or her own place within the relationship. You can only do what you can and strive to be a better person for your spouse. Where this striving to be one’s best is not mutual, lots of problems arise.
When either of the spouse goes into extra marital affairs, this only complicates the marriage and makes things sour. In all that we do, the only person we truly deceive is ourselves. Even when you think what you are doing is not known, it will very soon come to the open and your hypocrisy will be clearly seen. The bed we prepare for ourselves through the things we do in secret or in the open, will find us lying in it ourselves. It is our attitudes, choices and actions that make our marriages what it becomes.
This essence of this piece is to bring to our awareness that we are individually responsible for the very situations we find in our marriage. Hence, it is also very much within our power, capacity, and capability to make the marriage better for ourselves and for our spouse.
Avoid complaining, grumbling, and blaming. It only complicates everything. Take things as they come. Do what you can. Seek to understand than to be understood. Seek to console than to be consoled. You can only do your part. But in everything, SAFEGUARD YOUR JOY.
Spice up that marriage. Date each other again. Let sex be alive in the relationship. Hang out together at mutually loved spots. Build your relationship on common values. Pray together. Read the living Word of God together. Spend quality time together, just the two of you. Be fully in each other’s lives.
Agree on the way forward together in everything. Build your individual dreams. Give each other the space to pursue each other’s purpose. Support each other’s work and daily endeavours. And above all, let your love be seen in true love, practical care and service to each other.
Together We Can… Make our Marriage Bubble with Undying Love! So what YOU DO or DO NOT DO… Matters!
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