Nugget 4: Prompt Forgiveness of Your Spouse’s Offences

 Marriage is a life relationship between a man and a woman with the purpose of building a stable and peaceful family. If the marriage is to be peaceful and successful, relationship between husband and wife must be cordial and loving. Satan is aware of the potentials of the love driven marriage, hence, he works in a subtle way to destabilise cordial relationship between the husband and wife.  

The greatest weapon that Satan uses in this regard is unforgiving spirit.  This spirit is a silent destroyer of marriage love. Unforgiving spirit once allows in the mind against one’s spouse gives birth to bitterness, wrath, anger, evil speaking and malice.  This in turn destroys intimacy between husband and wife. 

In most of couples seminar or counselling session that I have conducted, the common question is: ‘How do you want me to forgive a man/woman who has done such and such to me?’  Some will be shedding tears when narrating the harrowing experience they have with their spouses. My answer is always frank and practical: ‘Forgive your spouse no matter the offence’. My counsel is based on certain premises.

First, as long as we are still living in this body we are not angels.  The fact is that love does not cure our weaknesses. Hence, we are bound to offend ourselves. Besides, one’s good intention is at times being misinterpreted by one’s spouse. Through forgiveness such an issue is clarified and resolved.

Second, the people who can offend themselves most are husbands and wives because they are always together and they interact together on daily basis and in every aspect of life.  This makes them to see each other’s mistakes or faults more often than in any other relationship which is casual.

Third, marriage is a mystery of two people becoming one. There is no room for separation.  If in the cause of eating, your teeth bite your tongue will you go and take pliers and remove the teeth?  Or if your food is put on the table and by accident one of your legs mistakenly hits the table and the food spills on the floor, will you go and take cutlass and cut the leg away because you are terribly hungry? All the above point to the fact that no matter what our spouses might have done to us, we must forgive them. The worst scenario is the case of extra-marital affairs. But then we must forgive our spouses.

Fourth, we often offend God and He forgives us. If God forgives us all our sins, we must forgive our spouses all his or her sins no matter the offences and their frequency.            

This is the Key that you need: Stop keeping the record of offences of your spouse. This is against the principles of forgiveness.  If you have such records, you need to burn them because anytime you read them you are renewing your wounds and you are making your heart to be more hostile and bitter towards your spouse.

A lady came to me and narrated how her husband left her in a critical state in the hospital after losing the baby she had just delivered and ran away. She vowed that she would never forgive him and that she did not even want to see him. I counselled her to forgive the husband. In tears she assured me that she had forgiven him. I then prayed that God should touch the man wherever he might be and bring him back home. Within two weeks the man came back and apologised. He promised to become a responsible husband. The lady then came to my office with joy and shared her testimony with me. Your case too can be like that if you can forgive your run-away or wayward spouse.

Are you saying, ‘Is it possible for man to forgive and forget?’  My answer is, YES. If you really forgive your spouse, remembering his/her offence will not disturb your love to him/her.  It will not affect your relationship with him/her and you won’t refer to it when he/she offends you.

My final counsel to you is that before you do anything, call your spouse and settle the matters that have been affecting your relationship for quite a long time.  Then promise that henceforth you will be forgiving each other as the offence arises.  

You can contact me for further counsel through WhatsApp No: 08033070986 

Nugget 3: Power of Collective Responsibility in Marriage

From the moment a man and a woman come together in marriage, they become one. This is mathematics of marriage: 1 + 1 = 1. When my son heard this, he retorted: Daddy you’re wrong. Of course, mathematically it is wrong. But in the institution of marriage, it is correct. Jesus Christ, the Author of marriage says in Matt. 19:5-6, “For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’. So then, they are no longer two but one flesh”. A marriage can only grow to a blissful and prosperous level if the husband and wife see themselves as one.

The husband and wife that see themselves as one will plan and work together for the success of their marriage. There will be no division or monopoly in their interactions. If there is a mistake on the part of either the husband or wife, the two of them will accept collective responsibility for it. This will prompt them to work together and fix the problem that was caused by the mistake.

Have you been shifting blame on your spouse for something that went wrong in your marriage? Did you nag your spouse when the effect of the error was biting hard on you? Did you even withdraw to yourself and tell your spouse to face the consequences of his or her actions alone? Are you thinking of abandoning your spouse in the marriage because of the effect of his or her action? All these actions cannot help the situation but rather compound it.

Since the error was committed in the course of building your marriage, you should see it as a collective error and thus face the problems together. Collectively sit down and examine the error with the mind of fixing it. Two heads are better than one. Problem shared is problem solved. Remember it could be your turn to commit an error tomorrow. Don’t allow your marriage to remain in the wilderness for long by shifting blame on your spouse. You are a partner together in the project of establishing a successful marriage. Working together guarantees your success.

Marriage is like an aeroplane in a very high altitude with the husband, wife and their children as the only passengers. The husband and wife are co-pilots in the cockpit. If the husband makes any error and the plane is drifting, the wife will quickly take control to save their marriage plane from crashing. If it crashes, their entire family will be wiped off. Should you then fold your hand and see your marriage drifting because of the error of your spouse?

Always remember you are both responsible for the success or failure of your marriage. As you share the joy of good actions of your spouse, share the consequence of his or her mistakes and fixed the problem fast. People say, ‘United will stand, divided will fall’. Work together with your spouse and your marriage will stand. Enjoy your marriage.