Do you know that the young people running out of marriages now are the ones who really had no business being married in the first place?

They run out due to ‘trivial’ things which they could have otherwise avoided. Explaining what trivial means in this context – they are things which they found trivial during courtship/dating but use it as the unmovable mountain in the marriages to ‘break’ free. Marriage is one of the biggest decisions to take in life, so think if you want to tie the knot or not. Money causes friction in many marriages but it’s not the only suspect…

Some parents either interfere or intervene when their children bring their choice of partners home. They interfere (become a stumbling block) on the basis of faith, class, culture (tribe) and other unimportant issues. Others intervene (to avoid future problems) because they don’t want their children to end up with ‘suffering and heartache’ in the form of a human.

Sometimes, we shouldn’t ignore the intervention of parents when they’re lovingly preventing us from danger because what they are seeing ahead is not what we are seeing now. If your partner’s parents are adamant (the interfering type), where do you stand? The first impression they give you is what determines your acceptance level.

If you want to have children, knowing your genotype is very important. Two people carrying AS and SS genotype is a recipe for disaster for an unborn child. If a couple affected by two adverse genotypes both agree NOT to have biological children, then it’s not a problem if they get married. However, if they both plan to have children of their own, then it is not advisable for them to take that risk of gambling with their child’s health or quality of life.

I have seen sickle cell carriers in crisis; it is heart wrenching and frustrating. Don’t torture a child because you’re so in love; the same child will cause the marriage break-down because stress quickly kills love (in a matter of seconds). Why will you do it now knowing the full implications? That for me is a heinous crime against humanity. When a child is teething, it’s a nightmare so imagine a child with a lifetime sickness! If you want to test your faith in God or check the ‘powers’ of a pastor, don’t use an innocent kid. Another question this triggers is; do single people really give this a thought these days, before deep emotion sets in?

Respectful people do respect everyone irrespective. They don’t pick and choose who ‘deserves’ to be respected. When you’re in a relationship with a foul-mouthed person, it’s up to you to either turn a blind eye to it because it’s trivial or something you cannot associate yourself with. Don’t put it in your head that ‘you’re the special one’ and ‘these kind of people reserve their respect’ for their spouses and later use the same excuse to leave a marriage because you cannot ‘stand’ a spouse’s disrespectful attitude. You saw how he/she treated others, why can’t/won’t they do same to you?

What if the person has kid/s? It’s something one should really think about because you cannot take one and leave the other. What I have noticed with majority of women who marry men with kids is that, they’re ‘cool’ with the kid/s before the marriage and they become a thorn in the flesh after marriage (fake it to look real kind of) but when it comes to men who are involved with a lady with kid/s; they don’t accept the kid/s because they want you to marry them but they thought about the issue thoroughly before taking that step into marriage (at least that is what I’ve seen). As a man/woman with a kid, do you also want the other person to be involved with your children?

What is the motive behind a person also getting married? If a man is marrying because he is bowing to pressure or wakes up one day and thinks he’s not getting any younger so he has to join the ‘league of extraordinary responsible looking’ married men—then this must be considered. Are you going in because everyone is doing it? If you’re marrying for ‘me too’ purposes, free the man/woman to go. If you marry for ‘me too’, you’ll soon join ‘I’ve been there some’ club.

If you have peace of mind – you have everything. Being happy is not gallivanting around and keeping a smile on your face to show people you’re happy. I smile at people if I’m not happy with them. Happiness is the true state of your heart and the calmness of your mind. Sometimes you need to take extreme measures to make your marriage work and these include blocking all escape routes and facing head-on challenges that must inevitably come. The marital journey and how it ends are more important than how it started. Imbibe the right values and get your priorities right.

To the married ones, I tell them, stay and make it work (apart from abusive ones though) – every marriage goes through its own challenges – you don’t walk out of a marriage because of turbulent times. That is why you look before you leap; don’t use “you thought you had the magic wand to change” as an excuse to run out; in such situations, the marriage didn’t fail, you did. You decided to tie the knot, so keep it knotted!