Before Walking Down The Aisle.
Growing up as a child, I read many romance novels. So, I had high expectations which I wanted to see in my marriage. I would stay on my bed and memorize all the romantic lines from Mills and Boon. Then I got married and realised that most of these expectations were fiction. The mindset I had about marriage was far from what marriage actually is.
I realised that marriage is not a fairytale. It is likened to money that does not grow on trees but requires hard work to get. Successful marriages do not just happen; they require hard work. And this hard work actually starts during courtship.
Courtship is the period of development towards an intimate relationship where in a couple get to know each other and decide if there will be an engagement followed by a marriage. A courtship may be an informal and private matter between two people or may be a public affair, or a formal arrangement with family approval – Wikipedia.
Courtship is a time for serious research work, not a time to eat shawarma and “party after party”. It is a time to study your partner and understand the person you want to spend the rest of your life with.
The list of what to do in courtship is endless, but for today, I will tell you to seek to understand how your partner was raised, seek to understand his/her background.
How we were nurtured (character, moral values, cultural values, attitude, behaviour, beliefs and convictions) affects the life we are living today. An individual has been wired and configured to behave in a certain manner because of the way he/she was raised.
Imagine your partner to be be a brand of car, may be a G wagon. It means you have to study and understand how a G wagon is configured and how it should be operated to be able to drive it. And also you will have to drive the car the way it is configured, not the way you choose to drive it.
If you drive the car the way it is configured, you will definitely have a smooth ride, but if you ignore the configuration and operate it your own way, your guess is as good as mine.
©️Charity Odu Walking Down The Aisle
