Plain Truth: Dealing with the storms in your marriage

Date: 07 September 2012   Read: 543

It has been a wonderful year of engagement regarding issues of human sexuality within the context of marriage.

It was one sensitive issue, but at the same time exciting to know that human sexuality is in the vocabulary of God and the God of salvation is also the God of creation who, for the benefit of humanity, also created sex. I would like to move on and look closely at the issue of ‘dealing with storms in your marriage’ as we draw closer to the end of the year.

I believe that there is a lot that we can explore regarding this issue, and as a result would also like you to engage me through comments and questions. I will ensure that I attend from time to time to your questions and comments.

The rationale behind engaging in this theme of ‘dealing with the storms in your marriage’ is that the majority of marriages that I know are experiencing storms of their own. I can conclude in this regard, without fear of contradiction, that even the very best of marriages have had to deal with conflicts of their own as couples grow in their love for one another.

The most challenging thing, though, is the lack of ability to handle or deal with such storms. As a result, many marriages (Christian marriages included) are falling apart, some ending up in divorce, and some ending up in a setup of ‘marriage of convenience’ or ‘separated whilst staying together’. When talking of a marriage of convenience, we are talking about marriages where couples continue to be married in name only, for the sake of their children or the wealth that they have generated together.

The foregoing is an unfortunate sorry state of many marriages, and as a result we need to look closely at this problem and the best ways to deal with it. Such efforts are designed to bring hope and remedy or cure. This is to say that all is not doom and gloom. Some have weathered similar storms and emerged intact – they emerged stronger and smarter from the lessons drawn from their experiences, and therefore we can draw inspiration from those as we undertake the journey to remedy ours. The most critical question that we need to answer, though, is the ‘how’. How do we deal with storms in our marriages?

Answering this question will firstly require more time and the matter will be dealt with in the weeks to come. Secndly, it requires that we start off by pointing out some of the storms that couples encounter in their marriages, namely: (1) a power struggle; (2) interference from the side of the parents; (3) money issues; (4) communication; (5) abuse; (6) infidelity; and (7) children. These are just a few examples that we will be dealing with as we continue.- Prof Derrick Mashau ([email protected])

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