7 SILENT KILLERS OF MARRIAGE
Bisi Adewale
Two love birds frolicking around best explains two young unmarried people in love. Despite tight schedules, they always make out time to be together. Once married, in most cases, the musical tune changes. Time becomes so costly, as the quality time spent together evolves into a lonely affair. What kept love before marriage will keep it once married, anything to the contrary will destroy the marriage. We need to look closely at the time factors that can destroy marriage and family life.
- Busyness. Everyone will always have one thing or the other to do. However, when it appears to the detriment of your marriage, then watch out. Jobs, career and ministry are things that easily keep men away, while children and household chores keep the women away. Many married people can hardly recognize each other again as they are reduced to two busy people heading in different directions until intimacy withers.
Solution: No matter how busy you are, deliberately create time to connect with your spouse. Marriage can never blossom when you are not always together. Proverbs 27:23
- Lack of Attention. For those whose schedules are not so filled, the time spent at home is still suffocated by other activities. Most men will go home with their laptop, I-pad, newspaper, Blackberry, etc that become their companions. A lot of women are also caught up in endless hours in the kitchen and some with movies or their children.
Solution: Discuss how to connect at home. Agree about when and for how long chatting, browsing, etc will take place when you are home together. Monitor how much time you spend with these gadgets and learn to talk, play and relax with your spouse. Proverbs 19:8
- Television.Television is another major enemy of modern marriage. As good as it is, if it is not handled with wisdom, it may corrode intimacy in marriage. Most couples who spend time together watching television will just discover they are not spending time together.
Solution: As a rule, take the television out of your bedroom. Your bedroom should be reserved as a place of rest, sleep, romance and sex. It should not be another theatre or cinema hall. Don’t get addicted to television. Don’t allow it to always take over your evenings. Know the best time to switch it off or on. Be in charge of the television; don’t allow it to take charge of your home. Proverbs 25:28
- Ambition.An ambition that is not well directed can destroy any family. Political and career ambitions readily come to mind as many people who want to climb to the top of their careers in the office or politically, invest so much time into it such that they destroy their families in the process.
Solution. Be wise enough to put your family ahead of your ambition. If you succeed in your career but your family is destroyed, you will have yourself to blame for it. Proverbs 15:27
- Constant Travelling.Many businessmen and women, pastors, policemen, career people are fond of this habit. They travel so often that their spouses are left lonely and desolate at home. Those who travel, and often sleep in different hotels, open themselves up to sexual immorality and temptations. Proverbs 13:15-17
Solution: Spend more time with your spouse and children. Minimize travelling; it negatively impacts the family.
- Type of Job.Jobs that involve constant transfer, jobs that involve shift, jobs that take your weekends and public holidays without any compensation for them, jobs that give no room for rest, jobs that take you away from God, jobs that cannot pay your bills, jobs that separate you from your spouse for more than 75 days a year, a job that takes you away at dawn only for you to return late at night. Please get a copy of that book to know more about these jobs.
Solution: You and your spouse should sit down to talk about your jobs and how to adjust and spend time together. Make the most of your marriage despite your jobs. Talk in love about it and see how you can balance your career and family life. Don’t ever permit your job to destroy your marriage.
- Distance.Individually living in different cities or countries as a couple is not the will of God for any marriage. It negates God’s plan for marriage (Genesis 2:18), which is why it adversely affects marriage wherever it happens. It leads to suspicions, infidelity, temptation, strife, loneliness, etc.
Solution: As much as possible, stay together as husband and wife. You are not married to live as singles. That is not marriage. Reject the so-called “better job” that will take you away from your family. It is not better in any way. That green pasture is not green as it exposes you, your spouse and children to a lot of vices and endangers your marriage
© Bisi Adewale 2020
