9 Painful Truths About Marriage And Relationship

These are things that I have come to discover over time that at times we don’t want to be told, yet they are truths and we have to be able to accommodate them. We often hide our heads in the sand and we assume that our marriages or relationships are working in a particular way, whereas I have found out that when I mention these aspects to couples during counselling, that this is not the way things are done or this isn’t the end, some get a bit destabilised saying they never knew.

Below Are 9 Painful Truths About Relationship!

1. You Are Not The Medicine to Your Partner’s Issues: That is a truth and a bitter truth at that, because many at times we assume that we are the remedy to the problems that our spouses or partners have. People get into relationships assuming that their partners are projects; That I’m going to fix my partner, I’m going to work on my partner, or if they have not been able to succeed in 10 relationships, that they’ll succeed with me. They have gone through 5 divorces, and I’m the lucky charm. There is nothing like a lucky charm.

There is nothing about you being the medicine to your partner’s issues. If you find a person with issues, they have issues, and there are people beyond you who can help them solve their issues with one of them being not you. If you are marrying an alcoholic, they will remain to be an alcoholic unless they seek professional help. They will not stop being alcoholics because they got married to you. You are not medicine.

 

2. Your Family Is Not from Heaven, and Your Partner’s Family from Hell: This is one of the saddest truths a marriage should understand. Some will be vocal about coming from a stable family, from a family that worked, from a family that is this way and that way perfectly different from the Partner’s.

But you need to remember something, that if you really came from a very perfect family, then you would have married another person who comes from a very perfect family. By virtue that you married someone who came from a dysfunctional family, tells you that your family had a dysfunction that was hidden. Because your partner’s Father and Mother openly fought, compared to your Father and Mother who silently fought hiding it from you, doesn’t make your family perfect.

So you must understand that your family is not out of heaven. The moment you enter into marriage believing that your family is better or superior than your partner’s in how they do things, you would have set yourself up for marital war. Because one day your partner will snap and say, “Let me go back to my family that is dysfunctional, and you go back to your perfect one.”

3. Silent Treatment is a Sign of Emotional Immaturity: You cannot claim to have matured emotionally yet the only way you can solve conflict is by stonewalling the other person; The only way you can solve a conflict is by hiding and keeping quiet and blocking the other person. Someone who has matured emotionally knows how to process emotions even in times of conflict.

They know how to responsibly communicate the issue, to separate issues and find a conclusion. But if you find that you cannot separate issues, but you got mad because someone came home late, or you got mad because they forgot your birthday or something, and you keep quiet for 3 weeks, apart from being the most emotional thing, it is the most selfish thing you can ever do.

So it’s not a sign of emotional maturity; you’re not punishing your partner or teaching your partner a lesson by giving them silent treatment. Instead you’re exposing to your partner how much of a child you still are. I said it’s a painful truth about relationships.

View pictures in App save up to 80% data.

4. Marriage Comes Before Children: In other words, children will go. It is important to know this because many people get into marriage believing that the children are more important in the marriage than the marriage itself, which is further from the truth. The moment children leave, the marriage will fail. Marriage is one of the most selfish institutions that God made. Marriage does not work at number 2, marriage only succeeds when it’s number 1. When marriage is number 2 in any situation, that marriage will always fail.

It can’t work second to your religion, to your faith, to your bank account, to your career, to your in-laws, to your friends, to your children, etc. Marriage does not know how to be number 2. The moment you put marriage number 2, then the end is near. At the moment you said “I Do!”, you made the decision at that point to forego all other number 1s for marriage.

View pictures in App save up to 80% data.

5. Time is Not a Healer, But a Bank That Will Give You Interest: The unresolved issues in our relationships are not healed by time. They are healed by addressing them. They are healed by forgiveness. They are healed by deliberate reconciliation. The rise in violence in our homes now, of people taking their own lives and the lives of their families, is because there were many issues that were left unresolved and the one that broke the camel’s back is the one that now leads people to do these things.

We realise that there are things that have been happening in the marriage for 15 years and we have never dealt with them, but console ourselves with that time will heal us. Time is not a healer, time is a bank that will give you interest one day. You must remember that.

View pictures in App save up to 80% data.

6. Prayer Works, But Work Makes a Marriage Work: I say this because there are people who believe that when they’re in marriage, the only thing that can fix their marriage is prayer. So you find that people are spending so much time in prayer and forgetting that the marriage actually needs you to work on it.

Prayer gives you the grace, prayer gives you the strength, prayer gives you the wisdom, but the practicality of making the marriage work requires work. If your partner wants you to hold their hand, they want you to hold their hand. If they want Jesus to hold their hand, they know where Jesus is found. I’m not undermining prayer.

I am a man who believes in prayer, I believe that prayer works, I believe prayer is an important part of making a marriage work because of the grace that is required, and the grace we need to love it each other each and every day. But you have to come out of the war room and be practical. You have to come out of the war room and do things that are real. You can’t be away a whole night praying for your partner who’s in the house. That is not making the marriage work.

View pictures in App save up to 80% data.

7. Some Marriages Just Can’t Be Saved: That is a sad painful truth, but some relationships are just not worth fighting for. There comes a time we look at our relationships and you see a couple wanting to get married and you wonder what are they are fighting for. And I don’t even think that they’ll be given sainthood for what they’re going to go through.

Some relationships are so inhumane, that they just can’t be saved. For those who are in very abusive marriages where inhumane acts are being done to you, to be very honest, there is a level of abuse as a human being you just cannot take. And that is why I’m saying some marriages just can’t be saved. It’s a sad truth. Even though we say till death do us part, when it comes to a place where it is literally your life on the line, I’m saying this without fear of contradiction that it is not practical to stay in that marriage.

View pictures in App save up to 80% data.

8. Your Partner is a Reflection of Your Wisdom in Choosing a Spouse: Translation is, before you point a finger at how bad your spouse is, ask yourself a question: Why did I end up with such a bad person? What does it say about me? Your partner is a reflection of your wisdom in choosing a spouse, and that is the truth, and it’s a bitter truth. So, before we call our partners names, you must realise every name you call your partner, you are attracted to a person of that character. What does that say about us, and that is a truth I like to address.

View pictures in App save up to 80% data.

9. Your Partner Is Different From You: Remember, unfortunately, you married someone who has their own identity, has their own brain, has their own way of doing things. Your partner is different from you. They will never be like you, they shall never be like you, and they don’t desire to be like you. So you must know and respect how they operate and how they work.