Plain Truth: Draw closer by caring

Date: 25 October 2013   Read: 365

When Ringo sang Sondela, the lyrics were meant to bring two lovers together. Many couples are drawn apart and away from each, including divorce, because they do not understand that one of the dynamics of love is caring.

When you say to somebody, '‘I love you'’, in essence you are also saying "I care about you". This is one ingredient of love through which you promise to keep the other one happy at all times. When you married, you promised to do things that would enhance the quality and enjoyment of each other’s lives, just as you were so passionate about it during the courting stage.

When you care about someone, you will make efforts to ensure that he or she is taken good care of emotionally, psychologically and physically. There are many people who claim to love and care about their partners whilst in essence they live to their promise. Think of those who verbally (and by implication also emotionally and psychologically) abuse their partners. There are those who justify swearing at their partners, calling them names and so on, by claiming that they are doing it out of love. If you care about the other, you cannot anger them or get angry with them because love does everything possible to be patient and not to get easily angered. It goes to a point of not even trying to keep record of the other person’s wrongdoings.

Being kind to the other demonstrates your love for the other and it always brings the best out of the other. Caring love is patient with someone in ways that make them feel loved. In this way, their emotional and psychological well-being is taken good care of, thereby ensuring that the married couple draw closer to each other day by day. When care is not there, you risk drifting apart day by day. Everyone has a craving to be taken good care of and when this aspect is not met, we normally tend to attach ourselves to other things (cars, for instance) and other people (other men and women who become our spare wheels or handbags) in an effort to satisfy that need. When this emotional need is not catered for in your marriage, you become angry, unhappy and frustrated, to a point of cheating and sometimes running away from your marriage.

The unfortunate part is when the caring element affects your sex life. There are those people who starve their partners sexually, either as a way of punishing them for the wrong they have done or either as a way of demonstrating that change is needed in the bedroom, to a point of starting to explore new ways to keep each other sexually happy and fulfilled.

If you care for each other, you will always make it a point that you meet each other’s needs sexually, because when you said "I love you", you were also saying "I care enough about you that I will always satisfy your physical needs". This also speaks to my fellow compatriots, South African men, who have the tendency of rushing things – including sexual encounters with their spouses. You need to slow down, enjoy the foreplay, and also enjoy taking your wife to the level of reaching orgasm. Tell your spouses that you love and care about them every day.