Finding Mr Huggie-Wuggie!

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This is a long overdue apology to someone I was at university with:

I think it would probably be most honest of me to admit that a big reason why I am almost insisting to myself that I want to post these thoughts right now is because I am very aware that I have not made any “Huggie-Wuggie” posts for a very long time.
I am very aware of this, as I do not want to be sporadic about posting here.  On the other hand, I feel as if I just have not had the necessary inspiration (OR I have not made the necessary time to think through issues and meditate upon them at length….)
However, I have been thinking about a few things; for instance the difference between love and infatuation, which is a question that has kept me puzzled for over a decade…and a few other thoughts.   However, on this and other issues, I think I will need to take more time to deeply think through them before I can come to any coherent viewpoint.

This post is a quick expression of something that occurred to me, that could also probably benefit from more consideration.  However, here is the basic point:
I have been observing relationships etc as is my habit, and watching a few TV programmes dealing with real-life stories of marital problems.  I think that at last, I have finally accepted that my underlying attitude to marriage has been very wrong in one key way. That is, up until now, I’ve been looking for someone excellent in the hope that his excellence would effectively cancel out the possibility of his making a serious mistake which could ruin the life that I have dreamt of for myself. The vulnerability within marriage is something that has always terrified me, because, in effect, I have always felt that I would be putting everything I am, or everything I long to be, at the mercy of another, very imperfect person.  Why would I do that?!  Why would anyone do that?!

The way I’m looking at it now is that marriage is a commitment between two people to always be there for one another, closely tied together, no matter what.  Because you are so closely tied to this other person, then the bad decisions they make will inevitably touch your life. And yet (I’m thinking) the commitment you are making as you are getting married is that:
“I am going to be committed to you, whoever you turn out to be, whatever you do.” Obviously, it works both ways as he is also making a commitment to whomever I turn out to be, however my actions might reverberate against his life and his dreams.
I know that in practice there are a few situations when you cannot realistically live together with someone else, for instance if they put your life in danger, then I would say “Get out of there!”  However, you can still be exclusively committed to them from a distance, praying for them, believing that God can change them…

Bringing out the best in someone…
This was a thought that occurred to me only within the last 24 hours.  It was born out of  deep frustration!
Do you know anyone close to you who can sometimes cause you frustration?  We all have these people, don’t we?  I’m sure it is safe to say that.  Furthermore, I know that at points in my life I have caused deep frustration and even immense pain to other people – and I might still do this, even now that I’m a little older and wiser.
Up until now, my attitude towards the thought of frustration in marriage was to avoid anyone who would cause me frustration, and I always thought to myself  that I did not want to “spin gold from straw” -  thank you very much!  That is, I wanted someone who was excellent to start off with…
But then, I started thinking of these particular frustrations. And I thought to myself – “Remember, no-one is perfect!”  Yes, this person ALWAYS does this – someone else might not do this particular thing, but they might display another trait which I might find ten times worse.  Also, I know that in marital discussions you are supposed to avoid using generalisations like “always” – but please believe me that in this situation it is perfectly apt – always always always!

And then I thought to myself – “I am always going to find myself surrounded by imperfect people – not least myself.  How could I make the best of this situation? How could I bring the best out of this person?”
For the first time ever, I prayed about this particular thing, even though it has been annoying me for so long.   (I like to think of myself as being a prayerful person, but too often, prayer will be the last option to cross my mind to deal with particular issues).
I made up my mind that I was going to address the issue with grace and gentleness.  This, if anything should demonstrate to someone out there that God must be very powerful indeed – I usually get very angry, very quickly, even if I don’t outwardly express that anger. In fact, it occurred to me that bringing the best out of people and situations will generally mean refusing to get angry (as that would take me out of the place of grace and kindness).

I thought to myself  – how could I manage this issue?  Should I just “grin and bear it”?  Which aspects of this could I compromise upon?  Pragmatically speaking, are there actions I could take to minimise my exposure to the most frustrating aspects of this thing?  This will reduce the likelihood of my getting angry, and therefore make it easier for me to maintain a gracious attitude…

There will probably be a few people reading this who will think that all of this is SO OBVIOUS!  It might well be obvious to most people. However, it has not been obvious to me.  This is part of the reason why for so long I knew that I lacked the necessary maturity to get married.  However, (this is a bold claim!) I honestly think that I now have the necessary emotional  maturity to get married.  This is not a wild boast – after all I am already a few years older than the average age of marriage for either women  or men.  This is one area of my life in which I have clearly trailed behind other people…

Now the situation I am talking about is a real situation, caused by a real person.  However, this person is not at all a possible marriage candidate.  However I like to draw lessons from my general interaction with people to feed my understanding of how to get on with my husband.  I try to evaluate my potential success with Mr HW by the success of my interaction with others. So to apply the first lesson, about being committed no matter what, I thought – “OK, I’m not going to leave!  I’m not going to walk away. I’m going to stick this out, and make it beautiful.”

I still think that you have to invest all possible care and prayer and watchfulness regarding your choice of spouse, but once you’re in that marriage, then leaving is no longer an option.  Also, I guess it may be possible to leave emotionally without leaving physically – to withdraw emotionally for the sake of peace on a number of issues until you are not investing at all into the marriage,  or actively engaging within it….  So it’s not only that “I am not going to leave”, but “I am also going to actively engage and invest in this thing – and I am going to keep engaging and investing in it”  Even if the time comes that your spouse refuses to talk with you, then for the Christian, prayer is always an option  – as long as you remember to consider it! 

Well anyone who has been following this blog at all will know that I have not posted here for a while. The main reason for this is because I’m trying to pull all my thoughts and ideas into a cohesive, useable format, and I’m also preoccupied with a few other issues at the moment, and I have not had the necessary time to meditate or reflect on “Huggie-Wuggie” thoughts which usually precedes one of my blog posts here.

However, as this IS Valentine’s Day I could not help thinking a bit about the whole thing, and so I thought I might share a little post about my dream Valentine’s Day.

Because I myself am not in a relationship, I usually blindside the whole thing.  It’s not that I deliberately ignore it, or I run away, it’s just that it genuinely does not touch me.

I guess I’ve always assumed that even if I was married, I would not buy into this day beyond the most simple exchange of simple (ideally hand-made) cards, but then I was thinking today that it does not necessarily need to be like that….

Ordinarily speaking, I HATE the idea of the commercial exploitation of human relationships. I DETEST to an unspeakable degree the idea of “showing someone how much you love them”  by spending money, and needing to spend at least a certain amount to “pass”.  I’ve always hated it at Christmas, I hate how this is now  also gradually growing at Easter – and I am totally unimpressed with this at Valentine’s Day.  I’d always want a man to know that what I want in our marriage is him, not his money, or any gifts. However because I am not actually married, I’ve never really felt that Valentine’s Day had to touch me, and I’ve always been able to shrug it off. Also, so many Valentine’s Day gifts are just plain tacky and represent no imagination, or wit, or understanding of who the recipient of the gift is to be.

However, as it happened, today I spontaneously thought: “I am going to buy myself some Valentine’s Day chocolates!”  Handily there is a small supermarket downstairs, and I had seen some fairtrade chocolates that looked quite nice.  On getting downstairs, I was astounded to see that the price of said chocolates had been increased to more than 4 times their usual price.  This might be quite usual for Valentine’s Day, but because I’ve never previously bought anything for Valentine’s Day, I’d never noticed!

So then after that, I was thinking that perhaps there could be ways to celebrate love, and join in the spirit of the day, without selling out to the crass commercialisation of the day.

First idea – spend no money – at all!  Find ways of spending time together with your spouse that are absolutely free, like going for a walk somewhere peaceful (I am of course thinking of a different climate to that of Edinburgh – although we do have a beach – and it wasn’t *too* cold today!) – or watching a movie (one you already own – or borrowing one from friends) – not necessarily a “romantic” one, but one that celebrates life and family and joy.  Exchange cards that are hand-made from materials you already have at home, or that you can very easily make

Second idea – spend a little money! – This is probably going to be a little more realistic!  If you spend a *tiny* amount of money, then you could cook a nice simple meal together, perhaps make some of your own chocolates by melting down cooking chocolate/eating chocolate and thinking of creative ideas, wrapping with pretty ribbons – the key is that it is all to be handmade.  It might be quite fun to see what you could get out of a tiny budget, like say a fiver between you both (in Edinburgh, that would probably get you enough for just a roll of pretty ribbon, without the actual chocolate to get creative with, or any food to prepare as a meal – so the two of you would have to go hungry!)

ALSO another thought that just occurred to me is that you and your spouse could deliberately use Valentine’s Day as a day of service, or prayer for others…  I think that sometimes there can be a real danger of running too hard after Christian service, at the expense of investing time and cuddles into your own marriage.  However, you do have 364 other days in the year to get lovey-dovey.  Perhaps you could subvert the profiteering and artificial intensity of this particular day by using it as a day to serve other people, do babysitting for other people’s kids etc, or just not focus on your own marriage…

In any of these ways you could have lots of fun without letting the commercial pressure of the day take over.
For me, the point of anything romantic would ALWAYS be the chance to spend time together, to talk, to laugh…
I know that I would also resent the idea that my marriage could be defined by this man-made social construct that is Valentine’s Day, and then the “Keeping up with the Joneses” that occurs after it, (especially amongst women?) – “We stayed at the Balmoral Hotel….He took me to Morocco….He sent a taxi crammed full of red roses.”   If then, you wanted to have a proper day to actually celebrate love for its own sake (other than your anniversary), then you could always celebrate a month later, say,  (when things are back to their normal non-Valentine’s Day prices!) and then it could just be the two of you, and it need not be defined by what anyone else thinks or assumes, or what anyone else suggests to you that your marriage should look like, or how much money the adverts subtly suggest you “should” be spending.

Just a few of my thoughts! 

The idea for this article post occurred to me last week even as I was writing out my previous post, and it is a continuation of  the thoughts on marriage that I expressed in the last couple of posts.

A quick summary:  to be able to move forward in your marriage, you are sometimes going to just have to accept certain facts – and move on.  There are certain things about which you will have to say “This is the case (about my marriage).  There is nothing I will ever be able to do to change this particular thing.  So there!”

Why this blog post: Have you ever heard anyone talk about the wrong decisions taken by their spouse, possibly decades ago?
“Sixteen years ago my husband turned down that great job offer that I urged him and urged him to accept, and I knew it was going to be a bad idea, and the family has struggled financially ever since….” or “When we first moved to this town in the early 90′s my wife refused to follow me to that church, where I could have been an associate pastor by now – the church she insisted on has gone through a bitter split and is now totally lacking in leadership…..”
Now the point of this is that often these examples will be dragged up, time after time, to illustrate how in a marriage, one decision has been  crucial, and was managed badly, which was “the reason we’re in all this mess” OR to demonstrate how one spouse has been a paradigm of common sense and great judgement, while the other has often demonstrated weak judgement.  Naturally the talker often attributes the good judgement to him or herself, while the spouse is blamed for the bad decisions that have plagued the family.  When seeking to demonstrate that your spouse’s decisions have been lacking, usually a whole load of examples will be reeled off:  “And there was that time when….and then was that time when….and don’t forget about…..”

Now the thing about this is that often the speaker will be right, objectively speaking.  That is,  they did demonstrate great foresight at the time of the crucial decision, they were right in making their objections known to their spouse, and they did try to make these objections in the most diplomatic and gentle ways they could, and their spouse did indeed demonstrate poor judgement and or poor character in making their decisions; perhaps the spouse was at the time led astray by pride or arrogance or any other of a huge range of human failings. So you know what, the fact might be that yes, your husband should have taken that job, he should have listened to your advice rather than his ego which told him he could get an even better job, and compete in terms of salary with his old uni colleagues.  Yes, your wife should indeed have followed you to that clearly superior church – even at the time you knew that she was only insisting on this church because she wanted to be a leader of fashion (believe it or not readers, this is a HUGE factor in church life!)

So objectively speaking, you were “right” in the situations concerned and any rational person would analyse the situation and instantly see that you were right, and your spouse was clearly in error.
However, when we marry someone, we agree to accept them for life not only with their strengths, but also with their weaknesses; the times when their pride will prevail over their common sense – and we choose to remain committed to them “No matter what”.  Being tied to another person in the intimacy of marriage means that many times  their decisions will impact our lives; many times positively, but sometimes also negatively. I think we can almost guarantee that as human beings we will all sometimes take wrong decisions, even drastically wrong decisions.  So sometimes our spouses will make wrong decisions, and refuse to listen to our wise and gentle advice, and then this will have a detrimental effect on the family, perhaps on an ongoing basis.  I believe that maturity then says (to itself – perhaps grumbles to itself) :”This has happened, but to be blunt there is nothing we can do about it – so there! This is just the case, period – so there!”  And then the thing to do is to forget about who might be right or who might be wrong in the particular situation, and throw yourselves in as a united entity to make the most of the situation, or “make lemonade from your lemons”. And it genuinely is to forget about assigning blame, to put it firmly out of your mind, so that it does not remain as something that you can whip up 20 years later to show that your spouse has been the one dragging the family down all along. I am sure that if you actively nurture even a single reminder in your mind of your spouse’s bad judgement, many other instances will quickly and effortlessly join it, and before you know it you have a whole mental dossier of your spouse’s failings.

When you say “….So there!” to any situation that may have happened in the past, it’s like you are drawing a big line under the subject, and freeing yourself to think positively of ways to improve your family situation.

I think that in addition to actual events that may have occurred, you might also have to “Write So There cheques (checks)” for certain characteristics of your spouse.  Perhaps it has always irritated you or frustrated you that your spouse is…..wrong hair colour….wrong physique….wrong age….wrong political affiliation. I think that to move forward, there will come a time when you simply have to “get over it”, whatever “it” might be, and accept it, and move on, and refuse to let the issue play endlessly in your mind.

If you are married, and you recognise yourself in this situation, can I encourage you to try this out?  I am not a qualified marital counsellor, and I am not trying to put myself in the place of a qualified marital counsellor, or suggesting that my advice should replace official counselling.  Perhaps this is an idea to try in addition to official help:  Make a list of all the situations that have been annoying you, caused squarely by your spouse or their stubborness etc.  Perhaps also make a separate list of the characteristics that they have which have frustrated you.  And then go through each item on both lists, and write a big “SO THERE!” next to each of these events that happened, or frustrating characteristics.  And mean it as you write it, and say it aloud – “Yes my husband turned down that job and we have been struggling financially ever since, but it happened, SO THERE! “  “Yes my wife dragged me to that directionless church and we have had to go through a bitter split, but it happened, SO THERE!”

And then you have to sincerely let these matters go, and refuse to dwell on them or remember them, or find them again whenever you need to prop yourself up in an argument. They happened, but they are in the past.  I think that every single marriage or any long term interaction between 2 or more human beings will have these mismanaged decisions.
Some of these things will be truly huge, seemingly unforgivable, but all the same you have to let them go, if you want your marriage to survive.  “My spouse cheated on me with my best friend and conceived a child in that situation” “My spouse had a homosexual affair” (I’m not saying that homosexual adultery is worse than heterosexual adultery, but I’m sure that for many people it might be psychologically harder to deal with – as I repeat, I am not putting myself in the position of a qualified marriage counsellor…) “My spouse spent our entire life savings on a secret drug addiction…”
The difference between marriages or partnerships that are great and those that are not is not necessarily that  the people in the great partnerships are better at making decisions than the people in the mediocre partnerships. I  believe that people in great marriages are more accepting of their spouse’s human weaknesses, and refuse to turn situations into “You versus Me”, and they choose to remain united, no matter what.

This is a big lesson for me with my insistence on the essential criteria for my husband, but I also think that the less demanding you are before marriage, the more you will have to say “So There!” within it….   That is, with some of these issues, if you knew about them, or if you could have reasonably foreseen them before marriage, then they might have been significant enough to cause you not to marry that particular spouse.  However, once you’re married, then you have to put up with these issues – this is why it is so important to be watchful and careful in the choice of spouse. 

After the seriousness of the last few blog posts, one is  quite light-hearted.  However, I think that this is one that I would secretly love all my male friends to read….  It was inspired by seeing a handsome face on Facebook! It is also quite personal to me…

So I was just reading through status updates as I do on Facebook, and I was practically stopped in my tracks by a cheerfully smiling young male face in a photo album posted by a facebook friend.  I initially thought the face belonged to her husband, and I thought “Ooh, lucky girl!”… but then on further inspection, I realised that no, it wasn’t her husband….

Now the reason for elaborately going so far as to write a blog post is because I would normally have no problem whatsoever with complimenting handsome faces.  I would normally just have made a comment on the photo saying “Yo’ bro is cute!” And that would have been the end of it.
This following is the part I’d love my male friends to read! –   I tell male friends or people all the time that they are looking handsome or I like their tie, or I like their shirt. I have often told women on Facebook that their husbands are handsome.  As a single woman I even pay these compliments to  single men, without “batting an eyelid”. SO, if you are male and I say I like your-shirt or tie, or that you are looking great, please do not start feeling awkward or reading meanings into it.  However, there are times when these compliments get withheld.  If I feel that someone “likes” me, then I tend to be more careful, as I don’t want to give them reason for false hope.

However, the reason I hesitated about commenting on this particular picture is because, oh my goodness, he was too cute! It was like that smile actually touched me and it would have been as if I was revealing a little too much of myself or making myself vulnerable to comment on it, and I would not even have been able to fake any flippancy…do you know what I mean?!  I’m sure you must all know what I mean!  So now, does this just indicate to me that I need to get married – and be quick about it?!

To summarise, I think that this demonstrates once again that smiling is to me just about the most attractive thing that anyone can do, period – ok short of throwing your head back and laughing out loud! And, although I am the least broody woman on earth, I guess it did not hurt that he was carrying a super-cute baby in his arms who looked content and secure… I admit it, OK?!  I looked, OK?! No wedding ring! (Although I am assuming nothing!) However, another reason to feel slightly awkward about it is because he looked way too young to even be noticed by someone of my age and supposed maturity…

(Now all that would be needed to make my mortification complete would be for her to guess that I am talking about her/her brother…!)

OK, this is an addition that I’ve been meaning to post since I wrote the last post – overview of marriage.  And it is specifically about communication.  That is, many Christian and non-faith based books and resources on relationships emphasise the importance of communication within marriage.  Something that occurred to me very strongly was that communication is not just one thing.  Perhaps one reason why marital communication is tricky is because there are so many different things to communicate about, and they might all need their own different kinds of communication. Key areas of difficulty include: money, sex, children, inlaws, money…money…money! Apparently money issues are the number one cause of marital friction and breakdown in the modern Western world, coming above infidelity. Apparently money issues cause just as much friction within marriages of rich or affluent couples as within other marriages. This was the case a few years ago, and I guess the recession cannot have helped matters much. I’m thinking that money touches our lives day in, day out, so over time differences in viewpoints have the ability to get emphasised “day in day out” until they become a very sore point within the marriage, and then a very small trigger could make the whole thing explode. And of course it is not just a matter of “differences in viewpoints”, but the actual, practical consequences of people’s actions resulting in insufficient money to pay the bills, or whatever, that has the potential to generate big arguments or festering ill-will.

Going back to communication, it is a difficult thing to negotiate.  Talking honestly with your spouse requires vulnerability and patience and care, and knowledge both of yourself and of your spouse. You also have to be careful to not trip over one another’s ego and insecurities. And then of course, different subject areas might be delicate in different ways.  It requires so much trust and willingness to sort matters through from both sides. Surely, you’d hope that if you were married to someone then you would be able to trust them with all that you are. And yet, I’m sure we all know that this is not always true.  One of the most consistent challenges of marriage is negotiating the balance between what things should be, and then the cold reality of what they actually are. Something that I know would really frustrate me would be if I thought something was really important, and my husband could not care less about it. I’d want him to take it seriously because it was so important to me…

SO if you are in a marriage or relationship, and you are struggling with communication issues, perhaps it would be worthwhile to think through particular areas that you are struggling to communicate in, and think of things that could help you to communicate better in each area.  In the previous post, I referred to the fact that I usually find it easier to express myself in writing.  Perhaps one of you is a writer and the other is a talker – so one of you could be leaving voice mails, and the other could be leaving notes… It is about what works for you as a couple.

ALSO, something else that I was thinking about after writing the  previous post is something that I hope could help to clarify it. I did touch on this in “The Overview“, but it afterwards impressed upon my mind so strongly that I really wanted to draw it out in detail.  That is, that when faced with a “failing” marriage, it can probably be so easy for the whole thing to quickly resemble one big messy gloop of frustration, resentment, bitterness….and money troubles.  I imagine that it must be so easy for difficulties and arguments in one area to spread to other areas until the whole thing just feels like one big mess.  You don’t know where to start. You just feel fed up. Every aspect of your marriage appears broken.  You see no positive attributes in your spouse – all you can see are the towering negatives.  There is no romance, no communication, no intimacy; just simmering anger, or empty politeness, and you are ready to apply for a divorce, or just waste away, holding on for holding on’s sake…..This is also a very ripe situation for you to notice an attractive person seemingly blessed with all the positive characteristics lacked by your spouse, and you might be tempted to think to yourself: “Well, this marriage is clearly dead, after all….”

So whenever people advise in books on marriage “Submit!” or  “Be Nice!”, to me it always sounds so stupid.  Admittedly, with a book, the writer is never going to be able to offer advice that is precisely tailored to your particular situation.

And yet, I think “Hold on!” If you were to think of your marriage in terms of the “body parts” analogy, then perhaps, much to your surprise, it may become clear that all is not quite as bad as it seems. Perhaps you might be able to identify one particular part of your marriage that is the root cause of all the frustration that has spread to other areas.  Perhaps, if you were really honest with yourself, you might even be able to track just how the resentment and bitterness grew from this one part to infect the rest of your marriage until the whole thing started to resemble a lost cause. This could have happened over a number of years.  Perhaps, you were initially frustrated because you felt he was not listening to your lifelong dreams. This then made you extra sensitive to his bad habits of messiness which you complained about incessantly. Issues have now escalated into every other part of your marriage until you are now barely talking. If you were to isolate and somehow cut out this one initial issue, then could the other aspects of your marriage possibly have a chance?    If you are already married, then it is worth a shot to find out, isn’t it?  For me, I think it would make sense to identify and isolate the aspect of the marriage that is responsible for the difficulty, so that I could make sure it did not spread into other areas, or if it has already spread, to build other areas back up until they are as strong as can be, so that the marriage as a whole is still functional, even if there is one part that requires a lot of work.

If this is you, and you have identified the area of your marriage or your connection which is causing the issue, and you are willing to work at it, then I think a big priority is to get your spouse “back on board”.  That is, if a state of coldness has existed between the two of you for a while, then he/she may just not care about rescuing the marriage; they might have given up; they might be indifferent to your efforts. So your task is to do whatever it takes to win them back to take an interest in your marriage, until they too are at a point where they are ready to work out the issues to get your marriage back to a point of health.

So knowing your spouse, what would it take to win them back, to get them reinterested in “the two of us”?  I think you have to give your spouse what they want, lavish them with care and love and attention.  (Perhaps this is what the books have been saying all along; perhaps I’ve just never “got it” because I’m not married!).  If you have barely said a kind word to your wife in years, then you were to  suddenly start wooing her with flowers and heartfelt messages and tender poems (ooh, I wish I had a husband!) then I think she would notice.  At first she might refuse to be moved, but let’s remember that she did marry you in the first place, so at least at some point she looked with optimism and joy upon the thought of a lifetime with you. I think that many people would be very happy to discover that there could still be so much joy and laughter that could come out of this marriage that they had all but given up on. So persevere, give it time, let her remember the reasons why she fell in love with you in the first place. Now this in itself does not actually resolve the problematic issues, it is just about getting your spouse to a point where they too feel interested in doing whatever it takes to save the marriage.

It works the same way if you are the wife trying to win back your husband.  Most books I have read seem to suggest that wives in this position should do all that they can do to look as attractive as they can for their spouse – fact, more than attractive – sexxee!  I can imagine that this would involve a little vulnerability, if you started putting yourself on show for someone who is acting coldly towards you.  However, once again I’m sure that he would notice, or at least he would surely notice that you are trying to attract his attention.  And then, once again, you’ve got to do whatever it takes to get him to a point of being interested in the marriage, remind him why he found you the most fascinating woman on earth…

OK, let me admit at this point that this post might seem full of generalisations, as it assumes that wives are only interested in flowers, poems etc and husbands’ heads are always turned by…something else.  However these are guidelines, you have to work with your knowledge of what your spouse is like and what will move them or catch their interest.  And then I would say isolate the problem to its specific area, and strengthen your strengths. If your problem is, say money, then work on your cosmic connection and everything else, so that even while you are working out your money issues, your joint perspective on the marriage can change from “This whole thing is rubbish” to “We have our issues – who doesn’t?”! – But we’re working on them!

Well this week, I had planned to write a blog post that was titled “Just because he loves you does not mean you should marry him” – last week I wrote a post where the gist was that just because a man marries you does not mean that he loves you in the way that you should be entitled to expect – and then today’s post was going to say that even if someone did love you this way, that in itself does not mean you should marry them. So I guess in a way, it’s like you just can’t win.  I am not after all going to write that post today, but just to avoid any confusion my point was going to be that as well as love, you also have to demand a certain level of responsibility and maturity from your husband or spouse etc  – otherwise their “love” might simply prove too costly in your life.

However, over the course of the week, some thoughts occurred to me which are thankfully a little more positive about marriage in general and which I am so happy to be able to share with you all.

In short, I started thinking about a kind of overview or “schema” in thinking about marriage – which might hopefully make it easier to plan towards it, as well as look for the correct characteristics, and use this blog!

As the writer of this blog, sometimes I am just expressing my thoughts, sometimes there are some things that I am very confident about, other things I feel totally clueless about. Either way, I have often been conscious that the format of information or thoughts in this blog has not really been structured into a format that others might find easy to use – but I’m hoping that that will change!  I still don’t know everything of course, I hope it is not true to say that I don’t know anything, although that is sometimes my fear…

So my thoughts were to think of the basic parts of marriage that fit together, and how  they  fit together, and to think of what would constitute excellence in each of the individual parts, and also in how they fit together, to see how the whole marriage could be improved.  I hope then that this would also be of use to married couples  – unless you probably all know this already!  That is, you don’t necessarily have to agree with any of my own top criteria or necessary characteristics for each area, or even what the different aspects of marriage are, but perhaps it might be useful to think in terms of a general overview, and consider how you might work on each thing…

What I was thinking over the week is that a marriage is like a human body in that it has lots of interconnected parts and processes which all mysteriously work together to produce this whole thing, a body. Thinking of an actual human body you have the internal organs such as the heart, the brain, the lungs, the kidneys.  Then you also have the limbs such as the hands and the legs and the feet which accomplish action.   Then you also have the sense organs  – eyes, ears etc – and obviously so many other things in an actual human body. There is a complex interplay between each of these aspects which all work in sync to make the whole thing beautiful. Each of these parts can be more or less healthy, which could affect the working of the whole body.  These processes all work together, but they also all impact on one another.  That means, for instance, if there is a limited amount of nutrients available for your body, and you invest 50% of your calcium into your hair, then that means that there is going to be less calcium available for your bones to help you move around properly, or for your teeth to help you eat and speak.

Sometimes, there will be a fatal malfunction in one of these parts which will stop the action not only of the specific body part concerned, but could even cause the whole body to stop working, resulting in death.

I think that there are many parallels between this and marriage.  I can never get my head around the complexity of the human body (or any animal body, admittedly – however the human body is the one that literally surrounds me 24-7, so that is the one that I see to  marvel at most!) – and the Bible calls marriage a mystery.

So now the challenge for me, and for anyone reading this, who can agree with this analogy or this metaphor, or even just the thought of the parts generally, is to try to work out what the main parts of marriage are and how to best promote health in each individual part, and in the whole unit of marriage.

As someone looking into marriage from the outside, whenever people talk about “working on their marriage”, that has always seemed so mysterious to me – I’ve always wondered just how they were going to do this – were they going to make an effort to be nicer to one another?  This has always seemed to be what it “boiled down to”.  And Christian women  (in failing marriages) always seem to be encouraged to submit more to the leadership of their husbands, to lavish them with respect and to do everything necessary to make them happy.  However, that has never rung true with me.  I do think that all this is necessary in marriage, and I hope that my “whoever-he-will-be” husband knows that despite all my questions about marital submission I definitely plan to do this – that is why I am so careful about finding someone I can submit to!  However, I have never really understood how this could save a failing marriage, or how it could rectify any serious structural weakness.  Applying it to myself and the thought of a future marriage, I have always wondered how I would work on my marriage, if the need arose -would I be more open about my thoughts etc?   However, I hope that the thoughts expressed in this blog can act as a little blueprint for me and possibly for others in having a practical way to think about the different parts of marriage and practical actions to take to improve each of the different parts and the whole thing.

I also think that it is so powerful to develop an understanding of the different parts of marriage and what action you could take to improve each part equating to a stronger whole BEFORE you get married, as that could help inform your choice of a suitable partner.  For instance, for me, after thinking about these things, one really really obvious characteristic for my husband that I know I cannot afford to compromise on is that he has to be absolutely committed to doing everything it takes to make his marriage work.  Otherwise, if it so happens that we do hit difficulties x years into our marital enterprise, I would hate to be investing everything I could do to salvage the relationship, while he just shrugs indifferently. Marriage takes two. Three, including God.  What I would love is if I had a man who was as committed and as concerned as I am, to identify whatever the problem could be, to get counselling, to talk it over at whatever length could be necessary, to read books, to take possibly difficult action to remedy the situation.  To pray and pray and pray and pray.  A man who would not just sit back and wait for me to do everything, but who would proactively exercise his leadership in making sure our marriage works. Can I get an Amen?!

I often think that in marriage it must happen that a couple develop a growing awareness from a few weeks after the wedding, that actually, they are perhaps not the best fit for one another after all. However, part of being committed means saying: “Because I have taken that step of commitment, even if I know from the outset that this was possibly not the best choice I could have made, I am going to invest absolutely everything I can into THIS marriage (not the marriage I should have made) to make it the most excellent marriage it could be.”  I am emphatically not going to sit around and dream about how things could have been if I had made the “right” choice. Once I am married, that is the right choice, period!  I also absolutely  insist on a man like this, who is not just going to mentally give up on the whole thing just because it was the “wrong choice”, but is going to invest his 1000% effort and determination all the same, even if he has realised that it was the worst choice he could possibly have made. I am obviously not planning to make the wrong choice. However, by the grace of God, I am planning to invest absolutely everything into it so that whether it is the best possible choice I could have made, or merely an OK one, no-one would be able to tell the difference – not even I myself.

OK, I have actually made it thus far without actually telling you what the different parts are, or could be.  With this you could go on forever, dividing and subdividing to identify different parts of the marriage, but I believe that what is useful is to have an overview that you can work with.  If you agree that every single Christian marriage will have some parts that are common to it, no matter what, and you have an understanding of what these different parts might be, then you could keep a mental account of each part, to see how you are doing in that area, and what you could work on.  If you cultivate honest and open communication with your spouse, then they could tell you what they think of each area, and how they think the marriage is doing on the whole, then together you could work on different parts, identify priorities, etc.  ALSO if a crisis arises then you could try to diagnose which part of your marriage it has arisen from and invest extra effort in that.

I don’t want to bounce too hard on this “body” analogy but it also occurs to me that there are some aspects of your body which are common to different parts.  Like for instance your hands and feet do different things, but they are both made of muscle and bone, as are other parts of your body.  Similarly, blood flows to every single living cell of your body.  I think that in a marriage “communication” acts like the blood of your body – or could communication be like your muscles? I think this because it is not a limb that you could lose like a foot and still carry on living, if a little “impeded”.  If your blood stops circulating then your body will fail very quickly. So it is with communication in marriage, (although it might take longer than 3 minutes for your marriage to fail and die!) So my point is that there will be some distinct parts of your marriage, which might be like limbs, or organs, and then there are some parts or systems which undergird them all, which in a way are more crucial.  As in a human body all the living cells need blood, so then, in a marriage you might need to deliberately plan  (and practise?) communication about all the important parts, if you want them to stay alive.  Another important point about this is that something like “muscle tissue” might be crucial to all your organs, but might play different parts in all your organs. For instance, your heart is essentially 100% muscle, with valves etc, but your hands are muscle and bone. So for your relationship you could say that “Communication is essential to every part of our marriage, but some parts consist entirely of communication, but other parts need communication and time – or whatever!  (I know I said communication was like blood, but perhaps it could also be considered like muscle!)

The reason I don’t want to overstretch this analogy is because I don’t want to make it seem as if each part of your communication has to correspond to a specific characteristic of your blood flow, for instance, or that you have to painstakingly find a part of your relationship to correspond to every part you can identify in a human body. It is an analogy; I believe a useful analogy, but all the same  an analogy.

So anyway, finally, a few of the different “body parts of marriage” then!  This list is sure to grow, and definitely deserves a blog post all of its own.  However, I definitely wanted to at least refer to some of these in this post.

1. Cosmic Connection:  this consists of the sparks, or that emotional intimacy that makes me feel as if I am on the same wavelength as someone, or as if he is my soulmate. For me this has always been the part that I think of most when I think of marriage.  This also corresponds to romantic feelings for me
ii Friendship -  Working to build a great friendship even into our great romance.  Thinking of what would make an excellent friendship: being there for one another, making time for one another, letting the other person be, accepting them no matter what…
iii.Agape – the Christian New Testament word for unconditional sacrificial love, wanting the best for the other person (which is for them to be like Christ) and working in every way to cultivate that…

2. The Practicalities of Living together, or making one life from two: there are two further distinct parts that I can think of within this:
i. Trying to merge and synchronise your life goals together, your careers, different dreams etc
ii. Practical logistics of living together – managing time, space and other co-shared resources.  For instance, I am VERY  messy.  (Very clean in terms of soap and cleaning kitchens and plates etc – but untidy in terms of things being everywhere!) I’m trying to shout out as loudly as I can about this, so that no-one will be surprised.  However, I know that this is one of the things that can quickly irritate someone else, especially if he is very tidy

3.Big Events: Managing emergencies or crises that could arise that you might have to face together.  It is often here that characters and strengths are revealed.

4. Money – interestingly, I don’t think that this is like a “limb”, but rather like another “lifeblood”, because at least in the Western world it is seemingly necessary for every part of life, and therefore an important consideration for every part of your married life

5. Sex – I can’t imagine how embarrassing it might be to try to discuss this with your fiancé before you get married, for instance what you think your needs might be within marriage. Blush blush! 

6.  Children – this one is very interesting, as children are  not in any way really essential for marriage, although different cultures might dispute that. However, once you do have them, then it’s like they become a whole other ecosystem within the existing ecosystem of your marriage, or another body within the body of your marriage, and sadly very capable of breaking your marriage

7. Time – once again, another lifeblood

8. Communication – as already discussed at length!

9. Prayer – if communication with your husband is the lifeblood of your marriage, then what could prayer to God be?  An even more essential lifeblood, needed for every part of your marriage, both as an individual, and as a couple together

10. Inlaws/family interaction – beyond your immediate family

11. Wider community involvement

12. Wider social involvement.

This list is quite long, but there are probably a number of other very important aspects that I cannot think of right now. If it seems too daunting, why not try to think of the 5 or 10 most important aspects to you to focus on, and then actively work on those? If you are married then it would be great to have the agreement of your spouse on this. Any marriage is a continued work in progress so I think you are allowed to keep changing the aspects of your marriage that you focus on.  Some aspects though like communication and prayer are going to remain essential.

Here once again I believe that it is clear that the most important time to build towards your marriage and establish what you want is BEFORE YOU GET MARRIED! If like me you are not married, then please do not squander this time!  Running around trying to get married to “just any spouse”, is definitely a sad waste of this opportunity. Rather, use it carefully to establish the foundations of the marriage that you would like. The fact that we have the chance to sit down and think through all these things is perhaps something that would be lacking in the marriages of people who got married while they were still young and generally  inexperienced about life. Who knows, perhaps many married people would be looking on in envy wishing that they had had the chance to carefully plan and choose towards different aspects of marriage.  Perhaps they might think that this would have influenced their marital choice.  So for those of us who do have this opportunity, let us appreciate it for how powerful it is, and let us use it wisely!

How to think through this before marriage:  If you have identified the parts of marriage that are most important to you, then something very important is to find a spouse whose views are compatible.  For instance, if you are a woman who dreams of achieving your own career success in life then it would be important to find a husband who is prepared to make the effort to synchronise life goals, and who might even be willing to make a few compromises in his own career for the sake of this (for instance working in his second-choice locality if there are no jobs for you in his first choice locality.)  I know that many men are not at all geared towards this, and I don’t think that there is anything wrong with that.  In the same way, I know that there are many women who dream of not having to work outside at all but of having a man who would shoulder all the financial responsibility while they the women build comfortable and appealing homes and devote lots of time and care to bringing up children.  Equally, I don’t think that there is anything wrong with that, either. I think that the most important thing for you and your spouse is that you are in agreement.

Then you could also work out what it would mean to you for your marriage to be excellently healthy in each area.  This is where self-awareness comes in.  Sometimes we might think that something is what would be important to us, or what might make us feel cosmically connected, for instance, whereas the reality might be totally different. However, there are some characteristics that are definitely going to be important.  Like patience, as inevitably one or both spouses might change their minds a number of times about what they want, or what they need in a particular situation, or someone might think that they have communicated something clearly, and might start to feel upset, when the truth is that they did not actually communicate it at all, but were only thinking it.  And then patience also with a clear inadequacy or weakness on the part of your spouse, like messiness, for instance!  And then maybe you could think of ways you could work around different issues.  Like for instance, I’ve always thought that it would probably save so much stress if I just had my own room, even after getting married!

And then you have to talk and talk and talk and talk!  In marriage you have to be constantly reassessing each area, and your interaction, and the quality of that. And communication is the means where you can get feedback from the other person, so it is not just your own opinion. And it also gives you a basis to move forward together for united action.

Look at how long this blog post is!  And look at how many posts I have already written for this blog!  I hope it is clear that I am someone who is committed to marital communication.  However, it is not a mistake that these are written.  I suspect that I might be a little shy to talk about some of these issues face-to-face, so I suspect that I might have to actually write letters to a fiancé or husband, if only to “set the scene” before struggling through very embarrassing face-to-face conversations. ( Look, I am subtly issuing a warning here for the benefit of my future husband, and the relevant “someone” out there might think I’m joking…This is another reason why it is important that he’s a reader.  Imagine receiving a letter like this once a month – or even once a week!  Further patience. I’m starting to think that I might need a man with the patience of a saint – which is handy because I’m coincidentally planning to marry a saint anyway! But not one of the….dead ones…)  And I hope that that is ok – to identify what works for you, and to work with that.  So even though I have a (surprising?) history of shyness, I am using this blog to get a “head-start” on communication within my marriage! 

This topic has so many parts, and I hope to be able to speak about them at greater length, but I will finally end it here for now! 

OK last week, we looked at the Proverb of the Milk and the Cow. By the way, this blog is not about encouraging guilt or shame. I think that these emotions are completely useless because they just cause you to feel bad about yourself. If you have done anything that you have cause to regret, then ask God for forgiveness, do whatever needs to be done to put things right, forgive yourself, then move on. If you are still doing whatever it is, then stop doing it – then proceed as above.

The post this week is considering another subject: Just because a man would marry you does not mean he loves you. Apologies, even as I write this, I accept it might sound so negative. Last week I made the point that if a man tried to pressurise you as a woman to sleep with him, then this is someone that should be ditched altogether, rather than persuaded/encouraged into marriage.

Last week we also considered the possibility that a man might pretend to maintain high standards of sexual purity for the sake of deceiving you into marriage, after which he might feel free to reveal his true nature.

However, let’s say that someone comes who truly does seem to exemplify standards of sexual purity to the utmost; who has been demonstrably scrupulous and conscientious in any previous relationships or romantic interactions, who would offer you marriage. On the outside, everything looks fantastic. They are well-dressed, well-spoken, good mannered etc, hold down responsible jobs, and they want to marry you! They are not asking you to accept anything less.  What could possibly go wrong?
Simply this: just because such a person would marry you, does not mean that they love you. While all these factors are excellent, they do not necessarily represent or guarantee love. I have often wondered how people end up in “loveless marriages” and I think that there are many relationships even between “strong” Christians which are not based on love. This is why many Christian marriages can be cold. Someone might not ask you for sex before marriage; they might GENUINELY run away from sexual impurity, such a person might outwardly appear to be upstanding. But deep down in their hearts, they might still believe that your place as the woman is to be controlled, or exploited. I believe that if someone is not motivated by love and an utter commitment to living the Bible, then no matter how excellent they might appear, or how much Bible they can quote, there will be pain or friction or disharmony in any marriage they might be involved in.

So ladies, I believe that we should hold out for men who truly love us. Yes, they do need to be excellent in their pursuit of purity and excellent in every other way too. However, I think that the best standard is to look out for someone who utterly loves God and makes God central. I believe that sometimes, even where emotions have run out or faded, someone will still continue to invest their love into your life because of their commitment to God

Today I am going to write a blog post that I have been meaning and wanting to write for a LONG time.  It concerns this saying – I don’t know how many of you will be familiar with it: “Why should a man (or “he”) buy the cow, if he can get the milk for free?!!”  This is a saying that is popular in some churches as a kind of slangy way to encourage ladies to not sleep with guys before marriage (or “give them their milk”) as this then removes the incentive to get married (“buy the cow”).  This is the kind of phrase or saying that pops up for instance in Christian online forums among young cool Christians, a kind of colloquial way to express a common-sense message, without resorting to the “thees and thous” of quoting from the King James Version of the Bible, for instance.

Now let me make it clear, yet again, that I am TOTALLY committed to sexual purity before and during marriage. I certainly hope that there won’t be any substantial period of my life after marriage, but if so, then after marriage too. If there is any boundary of what is considered “acceptable”, then I aggressively monitor my behaviour to make sure it remains 10 degrees higher, so that it never even strays near the boundary.  Two weeks ago I confessed how I once crossed my own boundaries of conduct with a very provocative dance – but thankfully this did not stray into any genuinely dangerous territory. The dance in question remained very fully clothed and in a very public place with very very many people there. It was unspeakably embarrassing to apologise to the guy afterwards. I still wince whenever I think of it. But regarding girls and guys, there are many far worse things that can happen than embarrassment.
So yes, I am fully committed to sexual purity.

And yet, I absolutely DETEST this proverb of the cow and milk.  Why?  For a number of reasons.  Some of them will probably be quite simple for anyone who really knows me to work out.  However, the reason that I hate it most, is because it does not NEARLY go near enough.

The first few reasons I hate it: reasons of sexism.
Hello, let me get this straight – I am not a dumb animal waiting for a man, any man to “purchase” me. When you are trying to sell something, do you care who will buy it? All you want is that the person should put down their money.  And yet in marriage, I definitely do care about whom I will marry.  A  few men might walk forward, clutching their wallets, and I will say “Put away your money! You are not a suitable candidate!” I am not a dumb animal.  I am a fully functioning human being, with human initiative.  I can make my own decisions, and draw my own conclusions. I am also not passive.  I am not just sitting here waiting for someone (anyone) to decide my life for me, or come to claim me.  I exercise judgement in making my own decisions, and the right guy must be walking along the path that I too have chosen in life.
Also,  it’s not the case that he is going to be the only one doing the buying, or making the commitment. I too am making a commitment to him, after all. I am also making a commitment not just to him, out of all the guys in the world, but also to remain married – even if there were no other guys in the whole world. So I am also “putting my money down”.  If anything, a better analogy would be an exchange of cattle – “Why would you expect him to give you his bull, if you will let him have your cow’s milk for free” – or something better – except of course that I am not going to take any bull from anyone!

Secondly, more importantly…
OK, I appreciate that some people might be thinking “OK girl, it’s an analogy!”  Ladies, this one is directed at you particularly.  If someone, a Christian man, would take your milk (or sex) from you, for free – then he is not the husband you want.  (I appreciate that this next bit is quite radical!) The analogy seems to suggest that you should not be giving him sex but trying to get him to marry you.  Let’s think about that for a minute.  If he accepts sex from you or if he WOULD accept sex from you (for free, when he knows he shouldn’t), then do you think the act of marriage would suddenly wave a magic wand over him (or a magic Bible, rather!) and make him into a pillar of sexual propriety?  If he would accept sexual offers before marriage, why would you imagine that he would suddenly stop accepting these, just because he is now married?  It is a sad fact that many people do not pursue any standards whatsoever in their relationships. Some women, even some supposedly “Christian” women, have not the slightest problems about chasing after married men. Some other women might feel guilty to some extent – but would still go ahead and do it anyway. (Ditto guys and married women).  I think that we should just accept that other people are going to make up their minds to seduce our spouses – or us – and just accept that as a fact of life.  This is all the more true as illicit sex is one of the weapons that the devil seems to use very successfully against Christians, and he hates Christian marriages as he knows the power that two people can have when they stand together in unity. And yet I dare to dream of a marriage that is full yes, of sexual passion, but also, by God’s grace, unassailable sexual purity and fidelity on both sides – mine and my husband’s.

So what difference then do you think that marriage is going to make to who your husband is?  Let me tell you – absolutely nothing.  The only difference it is going to make is to you – because you are now going to be stuck  -  or tied or sewn, or bound, or glued or “yoked” – for the rest of your life,  to him and his philandering ways (unless you divorce, which can never really be a life aim).  Imagine this – if your husband were to come to you crying about the latest “mistake” he’s made.  And who is going to have to put up with it?  You, that’s who.  Or you might even be blessed if he considered it a cryable offence.  Imagine if you were to catch them in the act (perhaps on your very own marital bed…) and he were to just shrug and say “You knew who I was before you married me.” And this, then is the man that you are currently desperately trying to force into a lifelong bind with you?  And this of course is assuming not even that he is asking you for it, but would “only”  happily take it from you if the situation arose, and is not taking sufficient pains to make sure the situation does not arise.  Imagine now if a man is actually pressurising you for sex – so you’re going to say “No, no, you must marry me” – is that your plan? If he is pressurising you now, do you think he would throw off a lady who later flings herself on him?  No, ladies – do you need me to shout at you?!  NO NO NO!  When a lady manages to get a guy like this to marry her, I always suspect that she must feel so clever.  “He was trying to pressurise me into sleeping with him, but I prevailed in the end, and I insisted that he should marry me!” or “I managed to tame the player!” You know how that sounds to me?  Like this: “Look at this huge idiot that I managed to unescapably tie my life to forever!  Am I not clever?!” or “I went out and looked for the biggest idiot that I could find – and I made him marry me! What a cunning genius I am!!!”

So then, frankly ladies, if someone is pressurising you sexually, or not taking every step to promote absolute sexual purity in your relationship, please ladies, listen to me, listen to your future, DUMP HIM!  DITCH HIM! DON’T EVEN LOOK BACK! Unless you are happy with the thought of your husband possibly fathering a number of children outside your marriage, or the thought of his reckless adultery (and his possibly exposing you to the risk of sexually transmitted diseases….) RUN AWAY AS FAST AS YOU POSSIBLY CAN!!!
But Tosin, you don’t understand… I love him…we’re in love…. OK, so how desperately in love do you think you would feel if you knew you had been not only one hundred percent, but even one thousand percent faithful, and yet you still tested positive for something nasty and itchy – or even deadly? If because of his deep love – not only for you – but for women in general – you found you would not easily be able to have children, as can be the consequence with some “silent” STDs (Because you as an individual live in purity, and you trust your husband, you don’t even think of getting checked until it is too late…or the issue only shows up when it has already progressed enough to cause you to have trouble conceiving)? Think how overflowing your feelings for him would be if you caught his amorous text messages to another woman – perhaps even criticising you – or promising to leave you.  These are not exaggerations. These are things that every day, real women have to face around the world. Love can come at a very high price. The fact that someone is – or claims  to be – a Christian does not necessarily have the slightest influence on his behaviour.  So if you want someone who behaves like a Christian, then er, you have to look for someone who behaves like a Christian!

This then is the man that you are looking for – certainly the man that I am looking for:  A man who is even stricter concerning sexual purity than you are.  A man who is running away from even the slightest mention of “milk”, let alone appearance of it, let alone stooping to drink it.  A man who is possibly over fussy regarding this issue so that even you roll your eyes. (I would be very impressed to meet a man who caused me to roll my eyes at his over-fussiness regarding sexual purity) – What would you prefer once you are married – a man who is over-fussy with other women regarding his sexual purity and commitment to his wife, or a man who is under-fussy?  Now the thing is, you also have to be quite careful and prayerful, because some men are capable of pretending to be like this, for the sake of deceiving you into marriage – after which you might discover that they are actually just as bad, if not worse than others in this respect – so you have to look for a man who is doing all these things SINCERELY.  (That is, a man might know that you are committed to purity, and might want a wife like you, so he might pretend to be like you, to tick all your boxes, or satisfy all your requirements.  As he genuinely wants to marry you, he might not act this way around you like he might act around other women…until you are finally fully deceived, and you take the oath, and he can reveal his truly colours, knowing that your commitment to Christ would make you unwilling to divorce him…) Also, a man who is not trusting in his own strength for all of this, but is trusting in God.  A man whose focus is utterly on God.  Here I am going to demonstrate that I am a hypocrite, but frankly I would prefer a man who had not participated in – or even stayed to watch – any weird kind of dance. A man who has made up his mind, that by the grace of God, he must NEVER even look towards the boundary of sexual propriety – but is running as hard as he possibly can in the opposite direction. A man who has thrown himself upon God’s mercy to empower him for this determination.  A man whose determination is reflected in his actions. And not because he does not want “it” at all (this too would be quite bad – not nearly as bad, of course (I can after all always do my dance on him…) – but still quite bad!), but rather because he only wants it in God’s way – that is, bound by the confines of a holy, legal, faithful marriage between two responsible adults committed to one another in a lifelong covenant that is “rock-solid” because it is built on the Rock, that is, Jesus Christ, His love, His word, His teachings, pursuit of Him.

When I say “whose determination is reflected in his actions”, this is what I mean. What is the point of doing all this then filling your ears with sexually suggestive music, or your eyes with sexually suggestive films?  I love cinema and I have twice now subscribed to a cinema card for unlimited cinema movies for a low monthly fee. But I have both times cancelled the contracts because what would happen is that I would sit and fill my head with all these romantic comedies – some of which show very explicit sex scenes – and I know that this is not good for me. Or how about the hundreds of very erotic and very, very sexually  explicit novels books that I used to devour up until just a few years ago? Ladies, I think you know the ones I mean! These are not actions that correspond to a determination for sexual purity.  After reading an article celebrating Beyoncé’s 30th birthday, I put up a link on my Facebook wall acknowledging that this woman is definitely a champion in life, by virtue of her work ethic, and a resolutely positive attitude. And yet, I have never deliberately listened to a single Beyoncé song in my life, and I don’t plan that that should change any time soon.  Her music is so sexually charged that sometimes I have had to physically run away whenever it  is played.  I think we can all learn from her general attitude but I would  NEVER encourage anyone to listen to her music. In fact, that link on Facebook was the first time I ever recognised that there was anything good to be learned from her.

So these are all things to bear in mind then when assessing the character of a potential spouse. Also, you don’t want someone naïve who believes that everyone is nice, and does not understand his own capacity for sin or know that some women might deliberately want to break up his marriage and ruin his life…  And when you have found someone like this, suitable in this and every other way, then you have to just start praying and never stop; not only for him but also for yourself, and not only for yourself but also for him.  Pray, and pray and pray and pray…..
None of these things guarantee (of course) that you or your husband will not commit adultery, even holy and wise people fall – look at King David in the Bible.  However, the probability of a serious mistake is obviously going to be much much lower than if you have not made this determination

In which Tosin…

I am really conscious of the fact that I might give the impression that I am perfect, or that I think I’m perfect regarding guys and relationships. This post is to correct that impression on 2 counts. Firstly, I am not perfect (although yes, I do strive for excellence) and secondly I don’t think I’m perfect, although I do know I strive for excellence. I am a little wary of giving Too Much Information but as a quick summary firstly, absolutely nothing happened, nothing almost happened, but if I was ever in danger of thinking I was “perfect” before, or rather that I was not susceptible to the usual dangers associated with cute guys – I certainly don’t think that now! That’s part of the reason why I am now so careful with everyone! So I am not sitting here writing all this because I am somehow beyond all this. I write this blog as someone who is very, very human to other people who I know are also human. If ever I say “Take to your heels and run!”, it’s not because I don’t understand the way these feelings things work. Please trust me, I do, as much as anyone else who has ever had a crazy crush. And I also think, that sometimes reading my blog you would be forgiven for thinking that I don’t really like guys – but please believe me that honestly, seriously, that is not true!

These situations where nothing happened involved 2 very different guys, years apart, and ahem, neither of them Christians. At which point someone might be shooting me evil thoughts from the other side of the city, or of the country, or of the continent. OK, I know that one was not a Christian at all, the other one may have claimed Christian faith, but at least he would not have been the kind of Christian that my husband needs to be. Oh dear, this “Christian” thing is awkward now, and it was just as awkward then! To be blunt, I was INSANELY attracted to both of these guys. And even when I say “but nothing whatsoever happened”, I am just so grateful to God – it’s only by the grace of God that I can say that, because seriously – wow!

In fact, I still owe one of these guys an unbelievably big apology – because my behaviour was seriously, seriously atrocious and abominable, and utterly rude… If you were to read this blog, or my other blog, Tosin’s Bible Blog, then whenever I talk about myself, I talk about how I strive for Christlikeness and purity, and I pray, and I have made it my business to strive after Christ and God in every way. And that is totally true and sincere. And it was even true back then, at uni. But to this guy, I did not display excellent conduct at all. I opened my sanctified, holy, mouth, and I totally lied. My goodness, I even inadvertently played the race card. I NEVER play the race card. It’s just not my style – it never has been, it never will be.

I sometimes think, “Tosin, get over yourself, neither of these guys are reading your blog.” They probably barely remember who you are…. (after all, you know what guys are like….) OK yes, but even so, I am posting this apology here just in case there is the teeniest, weensiest chance that he may see this – that is Guy No 1. Guy No 2, I think we both know that I do not need to apologise to you (any further…)! (Well how do I know which one I was, 1 or 2 – well were you at uni with me? No? Then it’s unlikely that you’ll be 1, isn’t it! Tosin rolls her eyes….) So anyway, back to Guy No 1 – genuinely I am SO sorry. All I can say is that I am SO sorry.

OK, if nothing happened, this is what actually did happen:
Guy 1: I was SO RUDE to him, while he was unfailingly gracious to me. Once again, I don’t want to give out too much information about this (Tosin winces into her hands). In the ultra-committed Christian family that I had been brought up in, it had been drummed into our ears non-stop that God was absolutely everything, and we did not have to be told that we were not even to look at guys who did not share our faith. And then naturally, I had to go and develop this insane crush on this guy who was so emphatically not a Christian. And something you need to appreciate about my uni – it was filled to the brim, literally, with passionate and active Christians, most of them male. I spent my uni years literally running around from church meeting, to house fellowship, to Christian Union. And I met literally hundreds of Christian guys – no exaggeration. So you’d think, that if I was to choose anyone to lose my head over, I would at least have had the sense to choose a Christian! But no, right from one end of uni right through to the other end….

Why him? I have so often asked myself – “Why him?” What exactly was it about him… I know it was not a looks thing – not because there was anything at all wrong with how he looked, but frankly, the most handsome, best looking guys at the uni were actually Christians. I’m thinking of two in particular. One of these was so physically attractive, and a semi-professional athlete (I hope I have not revealed too much there!) Naturally, I did not even look at him for a second – so clearly I am not all that superficial! The other one was tall, dark, and into prayer. Did I spare even a glance in his direction? OK, actually, one or two glances, but nothing compared to the millions I lavished upon our non-Christian friend. And it was not because I was in any way a tepid or lukewarm Christian at the time, either. I have made a few extra determinations concerning my Christian walk since then, but generally, as I am committed now, so I was then. If it had been anyone else who admitted that they fancied a non-Christian, believe me that I would have been the one, not merely shouting, but even screaming the loudest. “What do you mean you like him? BUT HE’S NOT A CHRISTIAN! What part of this do you not get?! HE IS NOT A CHRISTIAN! END OF STORY!”

So what exactly about him was it? Honestly, to this day, I could not categorically say. Where did these all-consuming feelings come from?!! I was literally, sitting down, casually minding my own business, the LAST person in the universe who would have gone to uni with the slightest hope or expectation of getting a husband – in fact when I went to uni, I was still secretly hoping that I could be a child for ever, and never have to grow up – when suddenly I was assailed by these relentless feelings which totally refused to go away. And yet absolutely nothing happened. Seriously there were no talks, no discussion, NOTHING.

My one saving grace at uni, despite the magnitude of these feelings, was that I was unbelievably shy, but only with guys and only regarding these issues. Please understand that I would rather have boarded a space shuttle and flown to the other side of the universe than admit to anyone, absolutely anyone that I fancied him, let alone someone who was not a Christian. Frankly, I was so shy that even if it had been a different guy, a Christian, someone whom I could feasibly have married, who had admitted first that he liked me, even if my feelings had been exactly the same, I would still have run away. People always find it hard to believe that I ever had issues with shyness. For instance today I write different blogs, I ran a comedy channel with my sister, I put myself “out there”, I challenge different doctrines and even world-renowned pastors, “without blinking an eyelid.” However as a child, I used to be shy almost to the point of being pathologically shy – but I totally grew out of that in secondary school. The only thing that remained and refused to go, no matter how logically I lectured myself etc, was this irrational fear of guys EVEN IF THE GUY LIKED ME AS WELL! How strange was that?!

So with him, nothing happened. Nothing upon nothing upon nothing happened. (Beyond a thousand million looks, of course! So while I never admitted it, he obviously could work it out for himself…- and when I recently wrote about “staring deep into one another’s eyes” and why I would avoid that before marriage, please believe me that I was speaking from experience…) Seriously, I can say that this is someone that I never even accidentally brushed against in any way, because I was so aware of him that if we came even as close as a metre to one another, I would have started shaking uncontrollably. What I am ashamed of regarding him is that I was so rude. I would blank him completely. I barely exchanged any words with him. I physically ran past him at least twice, when we were clearly going to the same place, where the normal and friendly thing to do would have been to talk with him as we walked down. The one time I spoke to him, I attempted to justify my behaviour, and then I opened my mouth and lied, which only made things a hundred times worse. While he was unfailingly gracious(at least at first – until he started catching my behaviour! And then I thought – “Oh great!  Now I’ve even managed to corrupt him!”). Oh the shame!

So you know for ages I have known that I owe this guy a serious apology – but how to do it? These feelings were so intense – I cannot play with them, I cannot casually allude to them, I cannot even laugh it off that this was a long time ago. This was someone I just cannot be friends with for the rest of my life. I cannot add him as a friend on Facebook. I just have to keep a nice wide berth. If I could I would say “Please don’t hate me! Please don’t feel awkward around Black women because of me….! I know you might think that I hate you, but that was part of the lie! OK, admittedly there was that too, but I am totally over that by now!”
And then there is the even bigger question of faith. This guy was not a Christian. I ask myself – “Tosin, how could your actions possibly have been calculated to bring him closer to Christ?” As he watched me being totally rude, and lying, surely this could only have been the biggest turn-off…. So when I’m writing out these words, I always think that there is at least one person who is entitled to laugh very sarcastically when I talk about my ideals and my striving for high standards.
So yes, that was Guy No 1!

But you know what, it is because of him that I have made up my mind that I HAVE to be crazy, like totally crazy, about my husband. People might look at this account of this non-relationship, and think “Infatuation!” Well you know what, if that was infatuation, then there is going to have to be a great deal of this same infatuation in my eventual marriage, and I am not going anywhere without it! (Tosin crosses her arms and glowers angrily like a naughty child…) It is also because of all of this that I know I am not immune to adultery, let’s be blunt, and I can never deceive myself that I am in any way immune. But it was also after all this that I made up my mind, that by the grace of God, I must NEVER, NEVER make a guy-shaped mistake. That includes pre-marital sex, and it also includes adultery after marriage. But you know what, it also includes marrying the wrong guy. All of these are just too costly. That is why I am SO CAREFUL with guys. And yet, and yet… Tosin sighs – let’s go on to Guy No 2!

So you’d think that I’d have thoroughly learnt my lesson about guys who were not Christians, right?! But you’d be wrong! Unfortunately, there was an added complication with Guy No 2 that he came from one of these countries where people automatically think of themselves and refer to themselves as being Christians – a country steeped in thousands of years of Christian heritage, and where people always go to Church and light candles and chant prayers at Christmas and Easter, but where practically speaking, the idea of having a personal relationship with Jesus Christ and God might seem a bit alien, or even wacky, and where faith does not really touch people’s lives, beyond aiming to be “a good person”. So if I were to look at someone, I would say “this person is not a Christian, because he does not have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ”. Whereas this person might say “Of course I’m a Christian….” And then of course there’s the fact that my own African background is so comparatively new to the faith. How dare someone from Africa challenge him like that! We did not actually have this discussion. I’m just trying to imagine what he might have made of all this.

I went from one extreme in shyness with 1 to another extreme with 2 – in that, oh my goodness, I chased him. Like seriously, I did not mince my words at all. But you know what, that is not what I am ashamed of. Part of the chasing thing was part of the circumstances of the thing – I accidentally revealed that I liked him, and then I just kept going on about it. What he did not know was that in going on and on about it I was trying to defeat my own guy-shyness demons. I would never have voluntarily admitted that I liked him to him either, but since he definitely knew, and this genie was never going back into the bottle, I just kept going on about it. If he’d witnessed my behaviour a few years earlier, he might have understood.
Actually, I lied to him too – but this time it was without opening my mouth – all the same, he never trusted me – and who could blame him? But even that is not what I am ashamed of. What I am ashamed with regarding him is that (it’s so hard to say these words!) I once danced very, very provocatively for his viewing benefit, and I gave him this very hot look – I flirted outrageously. Thankfully this guy did not flirt back. Now all of this took place in a very public venue with lots of people, and thankfully something eventually stirred in me, and I thought “What am I doing here?!” And I took to my feet and I ran away as fast as I could. So thankfully, once again God preserved me. But that is definitely the closest I ever want to come to doing anything so stupid.

Part of me would love to downplay this dance and this look and pretend for you all that they were not that bad but believe me, they were bad. It was like pure seduction. The poor guy did not know where to look. Now unfortunately this came after the whole “I know you’re a Christian but you’re not quite the right kind of Christian for me”… thing. (Not because he asked me out, but because I was pre-empting him.) And I thought – “Great, now he’s going to think I am trying to seduce him into some weird kind of cult… ” So then I had to apologise, but because I was too shy to apologise in person I had to apologise via….. In fact, I was too shy to conduct any of these communications face to face….

And I needed to convince him that I was a real Christian, and that I subscribed to the standard Bible, and that I believed and professed the standard word of God….and that is how Tosin’s Bible Blog was born! I had been planning and thinking of writing a Christian themed blog for some time – I had been working on the comedy channel with my sister, and while I loved that, and still do, I always felt as if my first priority was to focus on something to glorify God specifically. So I finally jumped into it. It’s funny, as he is now long gone, but the blog remains. In fact, he is now married. I had already “let it go” by the time he got married, but still, I was a little disappointed…
Naturally, this is also someone with whom I have had to break off all interactions.

What I got from No 2 is that while “guy rules” are good, and absolutely necessary, I have to be aggressive about uprooting these feelings from my heart. Actually, I should also have learnt that from Guy 1…( “Guy rules” are these basic and common sense principles I put into place after Guy 1 to prevent myself from getting too close to guys, or getting into silly situations, especially late at night, when everyone is tired, and judgement is impaired…However, I always knew that they failed to address the issue of my own thoughts, and the whole Guy 2 thing emphatically demonstrated this!)
With Guy 2, I kept thinking “Well God, this is after all the second time this has happened to me! If I were to walk away from this guy, would I ever find someone else I could feel crazy about like this guy?” Guy 1 had been years ago. “God, am I to wait another x years before I find someone I could be crazy about like this again?” So I really did not want to uproot these feelings from my heart. However, I hope I’m a bit wiser now.

After the whole chasing thing with Guy 2, I have also stopped being shy. I don’t know how it happened, but I can suddenly now speak to guys. I think that with any guy who expresses an interest in me, (or vice versa! – but I’m definitely not going to chase a guy again) it is still going to be incredibly awkward – but nowhere near to the same level as before, where I used to be paralysed, and I physically could not admit these things. I honestly don’t know where or how that shyness went, but it has finally gone, and it has gone for good!

So sometimes, when I’m writing away on my Huggie-Wuggie blog, I think “Hmm, perhaps I’m only writing this, itemising criteria in such precise detail, because I am not REALLY crazy about someone. How many of these criteria would stand when I actually meet someone who manages to stir up these feelings to the extent that these two guys managed it?!”