Marriage: in tough times remember why you fell in love with him BUT what if you weren't in love with him when you got married, what do you do then?????

Was recently speaking to a friend who's having problems in her marriage, and we got talking about true love and knowing the ONE and all that. They always say, when you are having problems, remember the reasons why you fell in love with him and married him. That's fine but what if you were not in love with him when you married him.

I wasn't in love with my husband when we married and I know he wasn't in love with me either. There was no love at first sight or butterflies in the stomach or fireworks going off at our first kiss. In fact if I'm honest I couldn't stand him because I thought he was too tall, loud and came from another planet whose inhabitants had now become extinct because he was do different to me in his mindset. So why did we get married? I hear you ask. Simple, we were in love with the idea of marriage. I guess we were also fond of each other to a certain extent but still it was a disaster waiting to happen.

To him marriage was a display of maturity and meant he could have sex whenever he wanted to. Mine was a little more complicated. My mother had already chosen someone else, that I didn't like, for me to marry and was against me marrying my husband. So for me getting married to Seyi was a kind of a rebellion to show everyone that I had grown up 
and could make my own choices, I didn't really think too much about the person I was marrying, he was just the person I was dating at the time. He represented liberation from my mum and cutting of apron strings, and I could have sex "legally", in the spiritual sense.

The first few years of marriage, when I say first few I mean 7 years was a freaking nightmare. You name it, we went through it but thank God we came out on the other side crazy in love with each other and happier than we ever imagined possible. He is the love of my life and I can't imagine sharing my life with anyone else. Well enough gushing and back to the discussion.

My friend, like me wasn't in love with her husband when they married but she hoped the love would grow and develop but no such luck and she is now feeling so discouraged. I guess its a gamble to go into marriage without loving the person. She believes that perhaps things would be different now if she 

had waited to have fallen in love with him before marriage.

I often wonder if Seyi and I would have such a happy marriage now if we were head over heels in love when we got married because I believe the challenges we have faced in our marriage helped our feelings for each other develop and could have only grown through those issues.

Whilst I wouldn't change anything about my experiences and marriage, I often wonder how things would have turned out if I had had the fairytale beginning with Seyi.

My conclusion is marriage is challenging however you start and it changes you.On the wedding day the bride is happy and can't stop smiling and even for a year maybe 18months tops is on the cloud 9 and then she gets what I call THE LOOK. That look that says why didn't anyone tell me this is how marriage is? Observe it for yourself. It's not a sad or surprised look, it's more a stern serious look. At this point I usually say, " You are very welcome to the club".

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FIFTY SHADES OF DILEMMA FOR AN AFRICAN WIFE

DO YOU SEE WHAT I SEE ......

Fifty shades of grey, to see or not to see, to read or not to read. Most Christian women will say not. Everyone is cursing it out, my pastor calls it fifty shades of nonsense yet it’s one of the most successful films ever released, on track to make $90 million. Why is that?? Because sex, like food is a huge part of everyone's lives one way or the other whether you are engaging in it or abstaining from it.
 I believe that being a God-fearing, spirit-filled, tongue-speaking Christian and having a passionate fulfilling sexual marriage do not have to be two concepts that are mutually exclusive. Why it is that hot, passionate, exciting and steamy are not words that are used to describe sex in marriage, especially Christian marriages? Why do we, women, view sex as one of our chores and something to be endured to keep our husbands from straying? Is there an unspoken rule that women are not allowed to enjoy sex or even if they do to keep it hidden?

For many years I struggled with my own sexuality because, like many women, I was made to believe that the purpose of sex was to make babies and it’s something you were obligated to give your husband

  When I got married I didn’t know the true purpose of sex or that it was quite alright for me to enjoy it and show him that I did. I still saw it as something purely for my husband’s enjoyment. I also used to think, after each time my husband and I made love, “that should keep him off my back for a few days”. I treated it like chore and did it out of obligation. I didn’t enjoy it and would spend most of the session thinking “are you done yet?”

After a very rough patch in our marriage I decided that I was going to enjoy every single part of my life with no apologies or regrets. So instead of looking at my husband and thinking there was something wrong with him, because, in my mind I thought it was abnormal for someone to want so much sex?, I adopted the attitude of if you can’t beat them, join them. So instead of suppressing my sexual side that always wanted to tell my husband where and how I wanted, needed to be touched in bed, that part of me that wanted to go and whisper in his ear when he’s with his friends that I desired him and couldn’t wait for us to be alone, I would just embrace her. I decided that I was going to match his enthusiasm where sex is concerned.

This decision changed everything. I became a very different person and my marriage became unrecognisable. I had a total makeover both physically and psychologically and I became more confident and very aware of the power of my sexuality. I felt great on the inside and that translated to the outside.

However although I wanted to match my husband’s sexual enthusiasm, I didn’t know how to. I had repressed my sexuality for so long that I didn’t know how to embrace it.  So after a marriage seminar where a preacher suggested that perhaps we married Christian women have something to learn from the adulteress. She suggested that we discover why she is able to lure men and keep them coming back for more? Why is it that when she enters a room all the men (even spirit-filled and tongue speaking men) turn, look at her and admire her and the women, even though they hide it well, are filled with envy because they secretly want to be able to command that kind of attention every time they enter a room especially from her husband. It certainly is not because of her excellent cooking skills, impeccable etiquette or brains. It is because she is confident and comfortable with who she is, she knows the power of her sexuality and makes no apologies for using it. She works at keeping herself attractive and desirable. She knows how to please her men so they keep coming back.

So I took my newly liberated sexuality to the church bookstore for tips on how to keep my sex life exciting, or more specifically the secrets of the adulteress. There were lots of books about being a virtuous woman and what a woman’s role is in marriage. They all advised to keep your sex life exciting and having regular date nights but they do not really talk about the sex part in great detail.  So I had to look elsewhere outside the church, mostly online. This got me thinking about how many other women in the church were in the same boat as I was, married and looking to improve their sex life but have to look in Non-Christian shops for tools to help them.

 I can't help wondering, the 'world' as Christians like to call them have all these tools to help them make their sex lives more interesting and add spice to their relationship but such tools are not readily available to the average Christian especially those in Africa.

The answer is not always more sex but better quality and exciting sex.

 Now been married 10years and I tell you the books I got off amazon revolutionised our sex life. It had such a huge impact on our marriage that I wondered why that area had not been addressed in our places of worship. I am not a huge fan of fifty shades of grey, I think it’s a joke of a book and film, but I can understand its attractiveness and I have to confess we (my hubby and I) saw the movie and to be honest we did picked up a few very interesting tips. that we are looking forward to trying out. 

 © June's Secrets 2015

What has your experience been????

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