CHRONICLES OF A MARRIED MAN – 61

There is a young lady I was talking with some time last year. She was doing her national service then .I met her while I was trying to renew my passport. She is a young and pretty lady in her prime.

She said she didn't have time for men now, that she just wanted to build her career and get something doing. She said she didnt want to live her life depending on any man.....

I told her that having a healthy relationship wouldn’t stop her from doing that...

 “I don’t know about that, all I know is that I don’t want to be distracted by any man and I definitely don’t want any relationship wahala at this moment”. She countered.

Oftentimes, this comment has been a sort of national anthem to young ladies these days. This is more common among the ones who probably had gotten their heart broken from previous relationships or feels that they really don’t need a man in their lives. For some others, it just gives them some form of power and a feeling of being independent and woke.

I get it that being in a relationship requires some form of commitment and could be distracting if not properly handled. Some people even got into depression and some form of other issues like getting pregnant as a result of such relationships. So, I get their point.


I, however do think that lots of them are missing the point about relationships. They feel a relationship is an event that just happens whenever you want. Or that they have to be mentally and emotionally ready for a relationship to happen and be successful. The truth is that you will never be ready.


This leads to unnecessary pressures on them by the time they start getting older and feel that they are ready to have a relationship or even want to get married. This leads to some form of desperation and inevitably leads to making mistakes.

People need to realize that being in a relationship is part of life when you get to certain age. It shouldn’t stop you from doing any other things, rather it is part of what makes life wholesome. You have to have meaning relationships to have a balanced life overall.

Good relationships, like every other time in life, takes time and effort to build. And most times, it takes going through a series of bad partners to know or even get a good one. You will not even know what a good partner should be like if you haven’t tasted a bad one.

We can all attest to this from our first love experiences. Most people thought their first love was the best thing to ever happen to them. We were obviously inexperience and thought that we would die if we break up with them. We did stupid stuffs just to keep such relationships going. Oh! How I used to have issues with mum because of my secondary school sweetheart. The crazy things I did.


Some ladies have this opinion about the time that they will be “ready” to have or be in a relationship. Some even wait the time they get married before learning basic relationship skills and how to deal with a man. By this time the stakes all already too high and marriage is not a place to start doing experiments.

So, my question is, if you don’t date, how will you learn, how will you grow or even understand certain things about relationship, talk less of marriage?

Some years ago, a family friend of ours got married and left with her husband to the UK. She got married as a virgin and that was her first relationship before marriage. She didn’t know what heartbreak felt like, she has never been cheated on before and she was basically clueless about a lots of stuffs.

When the husband cheated on her the first time, she literally went mad that she almost committed suicide. It took the intervention of the whole family to get her back to normal. They had to call the husband and begged him to take it easy on her and consider her emotional fragility. It took years of constant mentoring from her mum to make the marriage work. Sometimes, her mum had to visit her in the UK to ensure that she was doing ok.

Young ladies need to be deliberate about relationships. There are lots of hardworking and smart young ladies these day who a seemingly lonely. I know this because I have seen and even dated some before. They need to consciously seek out meaningful relationships and see it as part of living,

The bitter truth is that heartbreaks and other negative aspects of relationships abound; and nothing is going to change that, whether they decide to date or not. But the more open and strategic they approach it, they better they will become at it and the better their chances of getting a better partner.

Also, whether you admit it or not, women do have a biological clock. And it keeps ticking. Young ladies need to realize that time is never going to wait for them to achieve all their goals. 

Age is always going to play a major role when a man is trying to choose a life partner.

We can all claim that age is just a number and it doesn’t matter. But the reality is staring at us all in the face. We all know the truth. Let’s try to lead a balanced and robust life.

You don’t have to block a particular aspect of your life because you want to build the other. Everything has to go together. That’s what make the perfect person.

Lastly, stop this whole nonsense of “I don’t need a man”. You damn well know you need one in your life. Just own up to the truth and be a happier person. The fact that you are even gay or a lesbian is a reflection that you need someone in your life, own it.

Ciao!

 

*SMH