Marriage Issues

Singles

Being single means, you are not committed to anyone on issues of marriage. All of us started as single individuals. However, as time goes on, he or she grows in life. Being a grown up comes with responsibilities.

Advantages of being single

  1. You are free to serve the Lord the way you want. Those who are married are no longer free like the single ones. This is because you must discuss issues with your spouse if you are married.
  2. You are free to make your own decisions. Someone who is married must discuss with spouse and consider children. This is because decisions taken by a married person affect his or her family members.

Disadvantages of being single

  1. Two are better than one. There is synergy in a couple. They have collective wisdom in whatever they decide.
  2. Committing mistakes is easy.
  3. Limited resources. Married individuals can do much more after creating their pool of resources.

At the right time, single individuals can grow and get married. That is another stage of life. But it should not be rushed. King Solomon said everything has got its own time under the sun. You need to enjoy being single as it lasts.

There are different stages in relationship coaching:

1. Readiness

In order for a single person to have a lasting loving relationship, there must be preparation. The question is, how does one prepare for a love life that lasts? As a young person ensure that the following are in place before you commit yourself to a lifelong relationship:

Have a vision

This refers to a dream about your future love life. Have a picture on where you want to be. Have a dream or vision of how you want your life together to be. Lovers become unhappy if they are too far off track from that dream. If you don’t believe your dream is possible you feel hopeless, stuck, and eventually leave the marriage, mentally, emotionally, and physically.

Purpose

Having a purpose for your love life is important. Know why the love life exists. This will help you know that you have something to fulfil in life through your love relationship. Answer the question of why you in the love relationship are. Purpose gives you guidance or path to follow.

Requirements

Before you can enter into a relationship have your own requirements in place. Requirements have to do with values i.e. things that cannot change. They represent your values or things that are important to you. These are the things you expect from a potential life partner. Your values with your life partner should be compatible. True values are not subject to circumstances or things outside one’s control. One has influence over them. For example, honesty or smoking. These are within one’s control. One can change them even though they take time to form.

Needs and wants

You must know your own needs and wants in life. This will enable you to know what is it that you expect in life.

2. Attraction

This answers the question of how to find the love of your life.  This focuses on effective dating skills and activities. It has to do with how you go about to find your life partner. Places matter. A single person has to be in the right places because going to wrong places can result in finding a wrong partner. So, this can be sorted by going to places of your interest. This is because there you will find someone who is interested on what you are interested in. You will have similar things that join you.

This shows the importance of being your true self. Never force yourself on things you do not like. You will attract the right life partner if you are always your true self. The principle is “like attracts like”. So your requirements and needs for a life partner will help you sort, screen, and test if you have attracted the right love life partner for yourself.

3. Pre-commitment/Premarital

Is this the right relationship for me? This helps new couples be conscious and objective about the future of their relationship. Coaching activities may include becoming clear about whether this relationship is right for you, getting a reality check, being accountable to what you want, developing strategies for testing and decision-making, and addressing emotional and compatibility issues.

This stage begins when a single becomes an exclusive couple. The coach helps the couple determine if this relationship is a good long term choice. However, Coaches do not give advice or opinions, they ask powerful questions and guide the process of exploration and decision making.

4. Coupling

Coupling answers how you solve the inevitable problems that come up? It helps a committed couple to co-create a functional life partnership. Coaching activities may include getting a committed relationship off to a good start.

5. Bliss

The question answered here is, “What happens after happily ever after?” It helps a committed couple with a functional relationship to deepen. This further helps their emotional intimacy, trust, love, and connection.

Coaching activities may include:

– Increasing authentic expression of thoughts, feelings, wants, needs

– Ownership of emotional reactivity.

– Increasing mutual support, trust, safety around emotional vulnerabilities and intimacy.

– Developing skills, rituals, and practices for deepening emotional, physical, and spiritual connection and fulfilment.

– Deepen intimacy, love, trust, connection, spirituality, sex, and more.

A “good” relationship has to evolve otherwise, it will be boring. If you are not going forward, you’re going backwards. Your vision or dream is what you currently conceive, but you can go far beyond that. When you achieve your dream you can see more, want more, and do more. There is room to explore possibilities in your relationship.

Married Couples

Marriage is great. Why? God intended it to be so when He officiated the first marriage on earth. He then blessed it. This is how it happened:

Gen 2:21 And Jehovah God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof:

Gen 2:22 and the rib, which Jehovah God had taken from the man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man.

Gen 2:23 And the man said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.

Gen 2:24 Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.

God saw that man was lonely and He said that was not good. He then made man a helpmeet i.e., someone suitable for him. God brought the woman to the man (Adam). What we see here is that man got excited when meeting the woman. He just knew that she was meant for him. That is how the first marriage was started.

Spouses therefore need to build their marriages. They must commit to it so it can be a beautiful one and enjoyable. Marriage should not be endured but it must be enjoyed. We therefore realize that God was the foundation of marriage. If we want to enjoy it today, let us make God be the foundation even today.