Marriage: How Ready Are You?

Came across this piece my cousin wrote, very interesting writeup. Feel free to share your thoughts by commenting. XoXo

           I don’t know if it’s just me or have you noticed that a lot of people are getting engaged daily?

And with the new marriage craze, everyone wants to get married and have a magnificent wedding with plenty guests, a celebrity to perform, a magnificent cake, a make up artist, a dream honeymoon and glamorous pictures so they can tag bella naija on instagram but what I haven’t heard most people talk about is the marriage itself.

A lot of people go into marriage with the notion that things will remain the same forever and that, in my opinion is why lots of marriages crash these days.
People work on weddings and not the actual marriage.

I am no expert. I’m very young in fact but I would like to think that I am a bit wise for my age.
I have seen girls come out of school straight into their husband’s houses….and after some time, they start to complain about different things and regretting their decisions.

In my opinion, there are a lot of things to consider before getting married. I am a girl so, I’ll be talking about the females here.

1. Maturity : most of the people who jump into marriage these days are not mature enough for this life time commitment. Maturity here has nothing to do with age. There will be a lot of trials and the way you, as a woman handles them determines your level of maturity.
For example, cheating on the part of the husband after marriage. We all know that it takes a mature mind to forgive….can you forgive?
Also, how do you handle conflicts in the family?
How do you handle hostility from the in laws?
How would you handle the situation if your husband loses his job and you become the bread winner( I have seen this kill a lot of marriages)
There are a lot of things that I can’t even think of at this point but you get the picture right?

2. Contribution: some people jump into marriage these days like I said straight from school. Some of these young girls who are not even up to 23 years old sometimes do not have jobs.
I feel that you should go into a marriage with the aim to contribute something. I know that in Nigeria today, getting a job after school is hard but don’t just go and sit down and look at your husband because he has a job. Always have it at the back of your mind that no situation is permanent and your husband’s job can go at any time too. I have a problem with lazy women who have nothing to contribute to a relationship or a marriage but sex.
If you guys have agreed for you to be a house wife, then it’s different.
I know couples who are in this situation and I am always surprised that the love that they showed each other at the beginning of the marriage was no where to be found after a while.

3. Your relationship with God: your relationship with God is very important in marriage because there are times when that is all you have. Are you close to God?

4. Submission:  This is a sensitive topic for some women because they say they can’t become slaves for any man. Nobody is asking you to be a slave. As a woman, your husband is your head. The head of the family and the bible says that as a woman, you are supposed to submit to your husband. Lol I will admit that I am a stubborn person and it is hard to submit sometimes but it has to be done for a marriage to work.
Feminists, before you chew my head off, look at any marriage that has stood the test of time and watch the couple. Trust me, you will notice that there is submission. My parents have been married for over 30 years and I know for a fact that my mother puts my father first.
Even during the times he lost his job and she was the bread winner, she never held it over his head because she was feeding him. She never complained because she was responsible for paying the children’s school fees, feeding and clothing. Like I said, no situation is permanent.

I learnt a lot during that period and I respect my mother so much for it. Some women can’t handle that.

The question young ladies is, based on the few points raised, are you ready for marriage???
Please, if there are other points I haven’t raised, feel free to bring them up in the comments section.