Answers to Relationships and Marriage - Vol.1

Love is the most beautiful, yet most complex thing one can ever find. "There are so many fish in the ocean", so they say, yet it is almost impossible to find that one true love that makes you content for the rest of your life. Once you find it, keeping it proves to be just as challenging.

This is an extract from a book that I am writing, which answers questions asked to me by real people on different platforms. This is Chapter 1, which deals with the issue of Finding Love.

Question 1 - What are some of the tips for getting any girl I want?

Answer 1 - You can never get “any girl” because you are not the dream boy for every girl. Ladies are not like fruits on a tree just waiting to be picked. They have their own dreams, aspirations as well as very specific physical, mental and spiritual dimensions of the man they want to be with. There is a set of ladies that will be attracted to you physically while another will be attracted to your intelligence. The majority may not even notice you because their idea of a man is very different from who you are and you cannot do nothing to change yourself to fit into their specifications.

How you see yourself is not necessarily how other people see you.

Question 2 - I have been in a relationship for years. I am 32 and he has never proposed. Since we live together, I told him I wanted kids and marriage but he said not anytime soon. I met another man recently and he is asking for my hand in marriage. What can I do?

Answer 2 - By agreeing to move in with him, you gave him everything that he wanted from you so he has no need to get married anymore.

If you are serious about getting married you need to have a candid discussion with him so that both of you make the tough choice to get married or part ways. If he was serious about getting married, he would have initiated the discussion.

About the new man, you need to be careful not to create emotional attachments which are likely to cloud your judgement. First deal with your current partner before you start a new relationship, otherwise you will be labeled as the one that broke your relationship because of infidelity.

Question 3 - How do you know if a man is forcing himself to love you simply because he does not want to hurt your feelings by walking away?

Answer 3 - Love by its very nature cannot be forced. There are however things that we do for each other to express love and we assume, many times mistakenly, that anybody who does them is in love. It is possible that in the development of a relationship, one person moves faster than the other and they become totally engulfed in love while the other is still figuring out if this is the relationship they really want. At that stage, the one party may have and express too many expectations, putting pressure on the other one to come to the same level. If they feel there is light at the end of the tunnel, they might play along and do enough to show you that they are not OUT but without doing everything it takes to be IN.

If a man does not love you, he has no reason to pretend unless he needs you for some selfish gain. If you really want to know where he stands, the best way is to talk to him and ask questions that force him to show his true feelings.

Question 4 - I’m 17 and I don’t know if I’ll find a new boyfriend months after I broke up with my ex this year. It feels lonely for me. What can I do while I wait for a while?

Answer 4 - You are at a stage in life where you need to define the person you will be as an adult. There is pressure from peers that may make you feel as if having a boyfriend proves your worth. What it does instead is to erode your sense of self worth and you start defining yourself according to whether men accept you or not.

As long as you are not a woman of substance with a definite career or business, you will always depend on men to provide you with the comfort you need. At 17, this is the time to build a life for yourself and become successful with no reference to any man. When you become somebody on your own, you will need a man only for companionship and not survival.

For now, forget about getting a boyfriend and start working on improving your status as a person. When you improve your academic and economic status, you will also move into circles where you meet men of similar achievements.

Question 5 - What should I do to my boyfriend to stop putting pressure on me to meet his family and live with him? I said I need time, but he indirectly tells me his dissatisfaction several times a day.

Answer 5 - You do not need to do anything to him. The person you need to pay attention to is yourself. You are responsible for your own happiness and welfare in general.

Build a brick wall around you and let him know that your position is absolute and won’t change because of the pressure he puts on you. If you give in to pressure, what you enter is a prison because he has already demonstrated that he uses force to get what he wants and that force can easily turn physical.

This is a big red flag which you can’t ignore. Usually, people who put such pressure on others are the ones that end up walking away after you have given in, moved in with them and compromised your own dreams and values.

Question 6 - Why do men always choose a beautiful woman for a spouse?

Answer 6 - It is true, every man picks a beautiful woman for a spouse but what is beautiful to them is not necessarily equally beautiful to other people. You might be over the moon thinking you got the top of the cream while the next person is wondering what on earth you saw in the person.

While it is true that each person defines what is beauty to them, there is also a theory that says people are attracted to spouses that look familiar, in other words men look for women with traits they see in the women in their own family and vice versa.

It is only because of considerations such as comfort and money in particular, that people cross boundaries and get married to a person they would not even look at twice had they been poor.

If you search various platforms, you will also find people debating “Why beautiful women find it difficult to get a spouse” which would not be the case if men really chose only beautiful women to marry.

Question 7 - How do I choose a life partner with thousands of equally attractive people around?

Answer 7 - You talk of selecting a life partner as if you were talking of picking a fruit from a tree where you can take whichever you want.

A person only becomes a life partner if they are as interested in you as you are in them. We spend most of the time drawing specifications of the shape, size and color of the person we want but never take time to look in the mirror and ask ourselves if we are the type of person that would be attractive to the person we are day dreaming about.

If you spend more time making yourself a better person, you will naturally gravitate towards a potential partner with complimentary qualities. If however, you want to use your logic and formulae to select a life partner, you will soon discover that your mind and heart at times behave like they do not belong to the same person.

You must know which class you belong to, not only economically but socially and in faith/ religion. Ask yourself if you wish to stay within your class or are willing to cross boundaries. Your potential partner must also be willing to cross their own boundaries or to accept you if you cross over to their side.

Each person has their own taste. Some like tall, healthy while others do not mind the height or weight of a person. You need to know your parameters and what is a deal breaker.

The context you meet your partner matters most. You can’t expect to meet a worship leader in a pub or a fitness enthusiast in feasting places. You must frequent church or fitness centers if that is where the person you desire also frequents. If you want to meet a partner from the up market suburbs, you must start frequenting restaurants and shops in that area. Exposure is the best way to see and to be seen. Random meetings sometimes yield great relationships but most good relationships start between people that are already familiar with each other in a particular context and they start admiring each other from a distance.

Social media has become a common meeting place for professionals who do not have time to meet and mingle often or who find it difficult to find a person of their taste in their immediate community. It can yield great results if used with great caution as there are serious predators in cyber space.

Question 8 - I recently discovered my partner was not the right match for me. What must I do?

Answer 8 - When you look at two people, they are either a match or not. You can't say I am the right partner but she is wrong for me. The person can't suddenly be wrong when you used to lick ice cream from each other’s faces. Unless you are forced to be in a relationship at gun point, every one chooses the person they consider to be the right partner. You probably fought off other men or women to be with this person that you now say is not the right match for you.

When you fail to handle each other in a relationship, it does not make the other person the wrong partner. It simply means you failed to manage the partnership and let things like selfishness, pride and stubbornness get in the way.

End of Chapter 1....