The synonyms for relationship include ‘association, affiliation, bond, link, liaison, rapport, connection, etc.’ When you extend these synonyms a little further, you will see other words like friendship, union, alliance, attachment, contact, cooperation, involvement, understanding, affinity, empathy, etc.
The images that come into my mind as I contemplate these words include social, business, filial and marriage relationships.
These foundational principles will serve all of these types of relationships very well. It would, however, serve the marriage and its associated preliminary relationships – dating and courtship – the best.
This treatise will be devoted to marriage and its preliminary relationships of dating and courtship. People are at the centre of relationships. Whenever there is any form of meeting or association in which two people come together, there is a relationship either impending or already existing. These principles will not just hold a relationship; they would grow the relationship to higher heights. They would produce unprecedented enjoyment and profit for both parties in the relationship.
You are invited to study and practice these principles in all forms of relationships that you enter into. They would raise the bar of your worth as an individual. These foundational elements would increase the value of your relationships. They would grow the very nature of godliness in you.
Continuing dating and courtship is recommended to those who are already married. These principles will serve mostly those preparing to enter, or already engaged in, a dating and courtship relationship most. It would be tremendous help to those who are already in marriage relationships. For married couples, it would be the duty of each partner to begin to practice them so that your spouse “*see your good works and ……..”
To build bonds, alliances, affiliations or any form of relationship for that matter, requires mutual respect, honour, integrity, trust, faith in God, virtue, communication, clarity of purpose, forgiveness, independence, honour, love, etc.
What is common today is that someone sees a pretty looking woman or wealthy looking man and the only thought in that someone’s head is the frivolity associated with sexual intimacy and fancy clothing and jewelries. This is the absurdity of our time. The truth seems to be quite a lonely man. In spite of that, it must be told if we would not collectively lose our sanity in the melee called fashion and vogue and modernity.
I am constantly told that what I propose is old fashioned and therefore out of date or fashion. Methinks, however, that what is out of fashion is the deviation from the divinely established order of matrimony and chastity. Immorality which drives the changes made in the way we handle relationships today is what is out of fashion.
Any relationship founded on physical beauty and wealth is not just valueless, it is as dangerous as the regularly collapsing buildings in Lagos.
Mutual respect is one element that can help those in a dating relationship to avoid sexual intercourse which they are not at that time entitled to. The foundational elements of a joyful relationship cannot be developed if there is premarital sex involved. When premarital sex is involved, the eyes of the individuals concerned are usually closed. Avoidable pitfalls would not be seen, and nothing about the partner could be learned.
The saying that ‘love is blind’ could not be further from the truth. What is blind is lust. If we lust after a woman or man, we have no opportunity to consider the flip side of the person’s life and how their character traits would impact on our future and peace and happiness. No wonder there is now an antithesis that says ‘….and marriage is the eye-opener’. This is like putting the cart before the horse. I would, without fear of contradiction, posit that “marriage should be blind but love should be wide awake”.
Relationship pages in the national dailies are replete with (especially) women crying about disappointment in and, confusion about dating relationships that have lasted between one to ten years. As you read further, you see that they have been engaged or are engaging in premarital sex. When the events start turning sour, the sound of their cries and the experience they share show that they never in the several years of the relationship learnt a thing about the character and disposition of their partner. Yet the purpose of dating and courtship is to study the character of each other to see if they are compatible for a lifetime together. Can you imagine such a waste of valuable time in an enterprise of ruin while hoping to build a relationship?
Bob Hope, one of America’s foremost comedians lived for several years with his wife Delores as a live-in girl-friend. Both of them were famous in their acts in America’s movie colony, Hollywood. But Delores wanted more than Hollywood approved live-in woman for a man. She picked up her suitcase one day and left for her home in New York. When Bob Hope returned home and learnt that Delores have left to the East, he took the next train available, cancelling lots of scheduled appearances. On coming down from the taxi in front of Delores home and being received at the door by her, he proposed marriage to her there an then and they left the same evening to get married at Justice of the Peace office and returned back to Hollywood to live as husband and wife for the rest of their lives.
What lessons do we learn from Delores and Bob Hope? When ladies offer some booty even with the intention of using it to nudge the man of their dreams, the men never place real worth to what they are getting. Why should anybody invest more in something they can get for free? When they cannot get it for free, they would do their duty to the source, they would work hard to qualify to obtain it.
I would like to assert that *“we would have many marriages happening; we would have more women attaining their desires with men if they would stop giving out samples.”* Love is one product, they say, you cannot sell by giving out samples. Ladies, if you see a man you truly admire and would like to marry, refuse him sex sampler and he would propose marriage to you within months of the dating and courtship relationship. You can learn fast about each other if there is no sexual relationship involved before marriage. It is actually premarital sex that prolongs dating and courtship.
Men don’t have the strength to hold back what a woman they truly adore wants. In case the ladies have forgotten what they want, let me remind them again. What women (girls) want is love or someone to care for them who could be their own.
One premarital sex produces woes for more than one woman. Even when the man finally marries whoever he does, that woman would be constantly compared with the previous one(s). Then you have some women who have lost her virtue and her desire and another whose marriage is a nightmare.
To your joyful relationships,
Francis,
PS: To obtain your copy of the book “Foundation For Joyful Relationships”, email me at nmeribefrancis@gmail.com
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