Dear Agatha,
I wish to know more about a quote you used; ‘A woman who doesn’t know what is expected of her as a woman or wife.” Exactly what is expected of a woman in a marriage-bound relationship?
What are the dos and don’ts of a relationship? Please I really need help.
Lynda
Dear Lynda,
Relationship is a chain of exquisite threads; with each strand, embedded with its peculiar complications that must however be harmonized, if the chain is to stay appealing and firm.
For it to be in perfect shape, every member of must first grow the determination to remain within the family fold.
As with every organization; one party has to learn to work extra hard for its unity and sustainability. Usually, it is this selfless member of the group that holds the chain together. Without a hook, no matter how beautiful a chain is, it remains un-wearable.
This is the role of a woman in a relationship; whether dating or married. She is the one who has been equipped by Mother Nature to play the role of the cement in a relationship. Apart from being the woman, wife and mother of the relationship; she is the public relations officer, the politician, the front desk person, the ambassador, minister of home affairs, the teacher, the moral barometer of her family, the trouble shooter between all parties that make up her family, the prayer warrior and intercessor between God and her family. She is also the shocker absorber, the think tank of the family. So the role of the woman goes beyond cooking and house keeping.
Therefore, if a woman isn’t proactive, her family suffers because she has to think for everybody to make the wheels of the home rotate very well. So as a girlfriend, you have to go beyond frivolities to reality. While every woman would be a girlfriend to a man at one time or the other in her life; not every woman will be a wife or remain married because of the qualities required to keep a home.
A woman in a relationship, no matter her marital status, must be patient, selfless, tolerant, understanding, supportive even when she doesn’t completely agree with her mate, be funny to encourage every member of the family to relax and build wonderful memories they will take away into their own homes. She also has to be firm when the need arises and still have time to be a woman by being romantic to remain relevant in the life of her man.
She must know without sentiments, who comes first in her scale of preference always. Most women, once married often make the costly mistake of neglecting their husbands once they begin to have children by transferring all their affection, attention and care to the children, leaving their husbands in the cold. This is why most men find solace in the comfort of another woman’s bosom. Unfortunately, once a woman makes the mistake of sweeping her husband into the waiting arms of another woman more desperate to have him than his wife, it becomes difficult to wean the man of the warmth of this other woman because she is giving him the attention and services the woman at home is neglecting to do.
Every wise woman must know that without the husband, there will be no children or home for that matter. Therefore, she must keep the husband as her focal point of attention because if the man decides to stray; the entire family goes into crisis. Besides, the children will one day leave the home to begin families of their own. If she failed to carry her husband along when she was nursing the children, she will have problems integrating with him after the children go away.
This is why so many women, advanced in age are unhappy and grouchy at that important time in their lives when they should be enjoying the company and companionship of their husbands. Too late, most women who forgot to prioritize their affection while growing their children wake up one morning to find out, they have lost their husbands to other things like women, drinks, friends and social outings.
A wise woman must never forget the reason she left her family to become a member of another family: her man on whose authority and influence, she became a wife and mother. No matter how busy she gets, she must make out time to be wife and friend to her husband. She must learn to prepare her home for the second honeymoon-when all the children would have left her nest to begin lives of their own.
No matter how busy she gets with the children and task of sustaining her family, she must always celebrate her man with everything that makes her first a woman and then a wife. She must constantly upgrade her looks to remind the man of the woman she was when they met thereby keeping alive the flame of their passion as well as give him her unconditional respect as his wife. A woman who makes the habit of disrespecting her man or has mastered the habit of nagging him at the slightest opportunity leaves the man with no choice but to find other sources of happiness.
A woman must make her home, a wonderful oasis for her man to come to anytime. Her role as wife doesn’t begin and end in the kitchen or bedroom. It is all encompassing. When she is not around for a day; the whole family must miss something tangible about the woman of the house. When a mother leaves home and nobody misses her absence, she has completely lost it.
Many career women have developed the habit of using money to buy the affection of their children and husbands. Money is good in a marriage but, isn’t the essential ingredient that oils its wheel of progress. As the homemaker, cradle builder and bridge between father and children, a woman must give all of herself to her family without reserve. She must be the one both the children and husband come to when they have issues. Wisdom demands she must put herself in the position to be a problem solver to all of them, else friends of her family members, will take over her position and destroy her home through wrong advices and influences.
Taking into cognizance that nobody is perfect; that we are all flawed from the manufacturer’s table, a woman who wants to remain a wife must never do or say anything that will make anybody disrespect her husband. Even when she has reasons to be extremely upset with him, she should refrain from engaging her man in a war of words when there is an audience; the children inclusive. Every matter between the two of them should be argued and resolved in the bedroom; where she has the right to say whatever she likes to him without reservations.
A good woman and wife is also the one who knows how to project positively the image of her husband among his friends and family. She is also the kind of woman who knows how to wiggle her way out of issues involving her in-laws. The truth is, every wife will become a mother-in-law and sister-in-law one day. what she wouldn’t want the wife of her son or brother do to her, she shouldn’t dish it to her own in-laws either. As long as humans exist, there will always be issues. Once the daughter-in-law recognizes the fact that she too, isn’t perfect, the easier it becomes to gloss over the many faults of her in-laws.
If a woman can accommodate the imperfection of her own mother and other females in her own family; there is no reason why she should not understand the defects in other people. This is because without the efforts of the mother-in-law on the man she came to marry, she won’t have a home and the children she loves so much. Difficult as it is to love certain people, every woman must make the effort to love her in-laws for both the peace of her mind and the well being of her husband as well as the children whose family the in-laws she is fighting are.
A wise wife and mother must make whatever sacrifice is required to insure the future of her own immediate family through prayers. Sometimes, it isn’t always convenient to wake up at certain hours of the night to pray, but most marital battles are fought and won on bent knees and not through fighting or nagging.
Therefore, to make a marriage work, takes the quintessence of the woman; it is either that or nothing. The magic of marriage; is for a woman to stay in relationship with her man at all times, no matter the temperature of the day.
Good luck.
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