Few Points to Help Those Who are Married-Benjamin Zulu
Songs and ululations are fading in the background and you’re now officially husband and wife. The crowds have dispersed and the hype has died. Everything is shifting in your life, and rapidly. It feels like trying to find balance in a slopy ground, but you must keep moving.
A few pointers to help you along.
1. See each other as companions in a journey across a perilous jungle, like co-scouts. You’re two friends escorting each other home. You’ll be stumbling and staggering together across all manner of terrains, but the most important thing is to stay together.
When on an easy plain you can be easy and playful, but when climbing a rocky hill you’re slow and careful as you find your footing in the rocks. There’s no competition or anything to prove between you. All you want is to get ahead together, and to dock at home safely. You want to hold each other’s hand at the end of the voyage and, with teary eyes say ‘We made it.’
Sometimes you rest under some shadow to brave the scorching sun and when one lies down to catch a nap, the other one stays upright on the lookout lest a baboon steals your lunch pack.
When it gets dark you bundle together with one holding the torch and the other one the staff. You cross streams and scale cliffs together.
This means you must put the wellbeing of each other ahead of everything else. Not money or business deal is worth pursuing when your partner is down or in need of your help.
2. Getting married is not the destination, but rather the launching of a journey.
The language of hunting and finding has been used to replace dating and looking for a match. So it makes it look like after you find the hunting or the chase is over. This narrative was common in the middle ages where marriage was an economic vehicle for the woman and a means of expansion for the man. All the man needed to do was to get a woman, deposit her at home and then go out there alone to hunt. He would appear from time to time to replenish supplies of the family but the woman was the one raising children. The two led parallel lives in different worlds. This is why the children were often estranged from their father because he was hardly present, and upon retirement the man deteriorated quickly to death because he was a stranger in his own home.
But in the beginning that was not the plan. This arrangement was introduced by male chauvinists in an attempt to subdue the woman and escape accountability. It gave him the room to roam as he wished out there while confining her in a small space at home. It was a result of greed and dishonesty. And it always backfired on him in the end when he found himself alone and desperate in his old age, and his clandestines having left for other targets.
At creation the woman was meant as a companion, not a subordinate. She was to help the man in virtually everything he did. She was to be by his side both in the garden, in the fields, and at home.
They were both ‘one flesh.’ Just like you never leave any part of your body behind, so you’re never to leave your partner behind. This becomes very easy when you’re sincere with each other and you have no shady dealings. And suddenly you realise that when you look out for each other both at home and in the battlefields of life – the marketplace and the social groupings- you win better. Ten times better.
3. Develop a mastermind.
If you jointly think about the same thing, the outcome is never just double the efficiency or potency; it’s usually three times or more. This phenomenon was first observed in mining where, if one horse could pull 900 pounds alone, when two were joined they didn’t pull 1800, but 2700 or more! It wasn’t until Napoleon Hill and other social scientists gave a name to the phenomenon: the synergy of perfect unity.
This expanded mind or multiplied morale was named the mastermind. It’s the greatest advantage of being harmonious married.
How to turn it on? Always debrief about your day with your partner, not your friends. Bring your feelings to your lover, both excitements and disappointments. Do not just get home and switch off or tune out into social media. Emotional absence kills connection.
Remember the three building blocks of all unions: closeness and care; power and control; respect and recognition. (Esther Perel) Organise your union around these three areas and you’ll be surprised at the joy you’ll unleash from your union.
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