Bonding, earliest challenge of couples

Many couples have had one form of disagreement or another in their early days of marriage. This is more about spouses having difficulty coping with their own emotions. According to a research, when people have hard time regulating their feelings and thoughts, actions may surface. A newly married woman, Stephaney Ibe, said, “Whenever I look […]

Many couples have had one form of disagreement or another in their early days of marriage. This is more about spouses having difficulty coping with their own emotions.

According to a research, when people have hard time regulating their feelings and thoughts, actions may surface.

A newly married woman, Stephaney Ibe, said, “Whenever I look at my wedding video, there is a spot where my husband whispered something to me and I was laughing uncontrollably. I cannot now remember what he said, but the question I keep asking myself is, ‘why was I so happy that day and now feeling it wasn’t the right choice?’

“I sometimes think if I took the right decision to marry my husband because we are always having one form of disagreement or the other and at the end we end up exchanging words that are hurtful.”

She said one of the things that always caused the arguments was that whenever she wanted to discuss with her husband he would be busy with his phone and that when she decided to do things her way he would complain.

“He will not accept my decision and this makes me to flair up and then arguments will ensue. It got to an extent I had to involve family members. I told them I was going to quit the marriage when we were barely three months into the marriage,” she said.

She added that after the intervention of the family members, she later realised that bonding in marriage at the early stage was the most difficult period and might break a home no matter how well you thought you knew your partner.

Mrs. Ibe is not the only one with such experience. Daily Trust also spoke to some couples who shared their experiences.

Mrs. Onyekwere, a business woman, said, “At the early stage, I remember whenever we had disagreement over something, I would always show annoyance by crying. I would sometimes go into the room and cry my heart out; though sometimes he came in to pacify me.”

She said on one occasion her husband told her that she acted like a kid and that it made him wonder if he had married an underage girl. “That statement infuriated me and I left for my parents’ house and told them I was no longer interested in the marriage and that he should go and marry a matured lady.

“He came to the house and we were settled. We were advised and told that disagreement was expected in any marriage because two different people from different backgrounds were trying to bond.”

She explained that trivial issues that caused the quarrel later became something to play about after they understood each other.

“Even though arguments continue, but not in a bad way, we are now counting five years in the marriage with three kids and all that we use to argue about are no longer relevant. In fact, we now joke over trivial issues,” she said.

A housewife who preferred to be addressed as Jane, said despite dating her husband for four years, their early days in marriage were really tough.

“We were always disagreeing over everything, with me seeing him as being too authoritative and him seeing me as stubborn, but we came to understand each other and are managing our arguments now,” she said.

A marriage counsellor and Coordinator, Marriage is Beautiful, a platform on Facebook, John Shuaibu, said understanding was the bedrock of any venture; including marriage, adding that couples must know the purpose of marriage before they could appreciate their unions better.

Shuaibu said, “We need to understand what marriage is to be able to talk about how to make it work or how the parties involved can strive to make it worthwhile from the beginning because marriage is a mystery that beats natural imagination.” 

He said bonding became difficult at the early stage of marriage because two people from different backgrounds with different characters or thinking were now brought to live together, and that the place of the Chancellor and only Lecturer in the school of marriage, God, must be sacrosanct to make it work.

Shuaibu added that couples must understand that God said in the Bible, “That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife and they become one flesh.”

“Married couples must understand that no party in the union should destroy the other unless he or she wants to destroy himself or herself. That is why there must be proper appraisal of the relationship with perception of ‘this is my last bus stop’ mentality before consummating the platonic to the married life,” he said.

According to him, it will be easier to ensure bonding endures by giving all and not expecting any based on the rule of love, respect and understanding.  

He added that the parties involved should just play their parts, love and understand each other for their union to move on and that in no time they would become the best of friends.