John N. N. Ng'ang'a

Overcoming Challenges in your Marriage

2 Corinthians 7:5 says: “For when we came into Macedonia, we had no rest, but we were harassed at every turn – conflicts on the outside, fears within.”

I was very impressed by an account which a pastor who was involved in premarital counselling shared. When the young couple got to his office for the first session, he asked them if they had ever quarrelled. They looked at each other and then at the pastor and asked, “We are in love pastor! How could we ever quarrel?”

The pastor said, “Okay, session over. You are not yet ready for marriage. You may leave, and when you have had the freedom to disagree on anything, then we can have our first counselling session.”

“Are you joking?” the couple wondered.

The pastor started closing his books to leave his office. They also had no option but to get on their feet and head for the door, albeit confused. Just before walking out of the door, the young man turned around and said, “Pastor would you like us to be honest?” 

“That is what I want. Go ahead.” 

“The truth is that we even had an argument today. We had agreed on a time and place to meet so that we could be here on time. The reason we were late for this session is because she showed up late. We have really quarrelled about this.” 

“Come back and take your seats. You are now ready for a premarital counselling session.” 

The couple had believed in the deception that if they are really in love, they should not quarrel nor should they have any conflict. It was therefore hard for them to admit before the pastor that they had quarrelled in the fear that they might not be allowed to wed. However, according to the pastor, any love relationship where you have had no disagreements, chances are that at least one of you is a pretender. Moreover, absence of quarrels does not equate to a good marriage. 

I do not mean that disagreements must be there all the time. However, when you do not have conflict of whichever nature, there are possibilities that both of you are living a lie. The danger of a couple that never quarrels is that either party bottles up their pains and frustrations which becomes a ticking time bomb. When it erupts, it ends in total destruction of the marriage. In most cases, volatile marriages where couples hurt each other brutally are likely to have begun in this way.

When you love someone, you do not want to hurt him or her. That is one of the marks of love. During the early stages of the relationship, even if you are unhappy with her, you dare not tell her. At the point you are brave enough to risk a quarrel, it means that the relationship has developed to a level where she loves you enough to accommodate a disagreement. To have the freedom to quarrel means the relationship is strong. You do not quarrel in a weak relationship. If your husband always agrees, it might indicate that he does not trust that the relationship is strong enough to withstand a possible quarrel. It means that first, he loves you, but secondly, he might be very afraid of losing you. So even if you are ‘sitting on him,’ he is willing to ‘carry you’ because he dares not react.

Although sometimes conflict may point to a weak relationship, in many cases, however, it shows that you have a strong and loving relationship. As long as conflict is well managed, it shows that your spouse loves you and trusts that you also love him. It also shows that the couple trust the strength of the relationship and are ready to be themselves, rather than pretend. Therefore, you need to be aware that whenever your spouse shares their displeasure, spelling it out clearly, it means that they love you and are interested in building up the marriage. It also means that they are clear that a disagreement will not break the relationship. One should therefore be suspicious of a relationship where the partner seems to never get hurt even when you know you have done something wrong.

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