What's love got to do with it?-Marilyn Monroe (music artist)
What's love got to with marriage?
Everything!
But what's love? I mean what is love?
We've been thought by biologists and physiologists that love is a chemistry of chemicals in the human body. Psychologists opine that love is a thing of the human mind. Pastors teach that love is spiritual.
But remember, we said this is a street joint discussion on marriage via SM.
So we want something more practical and appreciable.
Love then is an action.
Love is not an emotion.
I understand there are hormones and other chemicals in our body which trigger friendship stimuli.
Love is more than just friendship.
Love is an action word!
Love is practiced and not just declared.
It is good to tell the people that you love them but it is better you simply act your love out for them.
Love is service given to other people with the only reward being their satisfaction.
Love is to expect little or nothing and yet ever ready and willing to give everything.
In short, love is total commitment to another person.
And it finds the best expression in a marriage relationship.
That is to say, we marry so as to fully express our love, our commitment to the other person.
There is more to being in love than just liking a person physical features, behavioural patterns and intellectual status.
Love is bounding oneself to the service of another person without the hope of reciprocity.
Love has to begin with yourself.
Love thy neighbor as thyself.
Your spouse is your neighbor
Yourself is you!
Love yourself!
People with low self esteem may never enjoy their marriage even if they marry the perfect darling.
Before and after marriage, continue to find ways to make yourself better!
Start developing yourself.
Develop your spirit.
Educate it! Find a reason to live and something you can die for! Get yourself a big dream and start working to make it come true.
Develop your mind!
Study every book you can get on life, leadership, relationship especially biographies! I especially love biographies!
Study books on emotions and emotional management. Those books will explain why you act the way you do sometimes. In fact there's a book with the topic, 'Why You Act The Way You Do' by Tim Lahaye
If you have not read that book, you've missed a critical 40% of information you need to succeed in your marital relationship.
Develop your body!
Eat well! Sleep well! Dress well! And live well!
You are what you eat!
You are what you wear!
Your sleeping patterns can either reduce or elongate your time in earth!
Find time everyday to take a very good care of yourself!
Love yourself! Serve yourself!
See yourself as a King. That's who you are!
See yourself as a Queen. That's who you are!
Let your walk, and talk and stride depict that of royalty.
You've got royalty inside of you!
Talk to yourself in the mirror every morning and tell that person in there, "I love you!"
You are only as valuable as you think you are.
Difficult people are emotionally insecure people.
They fear being open with another person, so they close up and wind up and then shut up and then later shut down themselves and then much later shut down themselves and everyone around them.
They trade emotional freedom for emotional security.
They prefer to be emotionally secure than to be emotionally free.
They're never honest with themselves and anyone trying to be honest with them about them gets shot!
You've met such people! They're rare but I've met them before!
Stay clear of them when it comes to highly sensitive human relationships like marriage.
Get rid of emotional roadblocks to progress and success in marriage (what is even success in marriage? We'll discuss this sometime).
Emotional roadblocks to success in marriage include but are not limited to
Fear
Several kinds of fear exist but the most terrible in the 70% of marriages in the human race is the Fear of Rejection!
This same fear is the key reason for failure in businesses and finances.
We always want to be accepted by everyone.
We crave attention and we dread rejection.
This fear makes us misread everyone not giving us immediate attention as rejecting us.
It must be flushed out by constant communication with ourselves and the people we love most
Anger
Many have killed people they never really meant to kill.
But they were _overwhelmed_ by their anger.
Nothing even emotions like anger should control any human being.
God designed us to be in control not to be controlled!
Anger can and should be controlled!
Learn to bring down your ego and listen to other people's points of view first before you fly into an endless and meaningless rage.
Get books on anger management or visit a good therapist or psychologist if you have a peculiar case.
Pride
Never take people's love for you for granted.
Appreciate your husband/wife and his/her work in your life and in the house.
Appreciate the kids for being a blessing to you and your family and the house.
Love and respect everyone in your life.
It's the only way to stay humble and get a grip on our pride.
I close with this:
Life is beautiful is a phrase that is a reality to those who are beautiful and are being beautiful!
We cannot see love and appreciate life and people if we've been blinded by our emotions of Fear, Bitterness, Anxiety, Anger and Pride.
Get those dark glasses off your eyes and see life for what it really is: Beautiful!
Then the sun of love will shine into our spirits and a new day begins!
Let's hear from you!
