THINGS THAT KILL RELATIONSHIPS OR MARRIAGES (PART 1)

Message by Pastor Kunle Osunkunle

(President, The Singles and Married Fellowship, The Fountain of Life Church, Lagos)

Can two ride together except they agree?

The rules of relationships that are true in courtship are also true when you get married. And when you are able to stay away from things that kill your relationships, it will help you build a bigger, better, robust and a deeper relationship.

Proverbs 24:3-4 “Through wisdom a house is built and by understanding it is established by knowledge the rooms are filled with all precious and pleasant riches.” For you to have something established in life, be it a home or a life; for whatever you are involved in to be established, for it to move so that it is well rooted and well grounded, not shaking by any storm so that any little shaking it falls, for you to have something that is deep, you’ll require wisdom.

Wisdom is the application of knowledge and understanding is the crossover between wisdom and knowledge. Therefore, when you have knowledge, you need to have wisdom and understanding is in the middle. For you to say something has become wisdom you have understood the knowledge and you have applied it. And that’s what we teach here, to get you wisdom for your life and wisdom for your relationships. You therefore want to be established in life and whatever ventures you go into, you need wisdom.

You see the wisdom that you need is the wisdom that is from above. The Bible says that the spirit of man is the candle of the Lord. The Bible also says that it is only God that can unravel mysteries. That sometimes things are concealed but it is only God that can unravel it and therefore when you launch into the wisdom of God it begins to show you some things that are hidden, that the ordinary eye cannot see because they are mysteries. Mysteries are not meant to be hidden from us, but they are. Therefore, if hidden, wisdom therefore becomes a treasure that we should look for, that we need to use our lives to seek and if we do not seek wisdom, what happens is that we cross over to foolishness. We are prone to making mistakes. It is not about making the mistakes; it is about the gravity of the mistakes you make sometimes.

Consider these killers:

1.    IGNORANCE:          Ignorance is now not an excuse because there is a place you go for wisdom. Some mistakes are easily rectifiable, while some other ones are not. In fact, till you die and leave the surface of the earth, it is possible that those uncorrectable mistakes will continue to stare at you and perhaps, haunt you. God would have forgiven you, but they have left scars in your life. And that’s why we need to make sure that we get proper wisdom to act rather than to rush at things or say “I cannot hold my body” and the likes. One careless thing that you go into, one minute of a mistake that you would make could affect your life throughout. At the same time, you could take a decision, I mean a very good decision and at the end of the day you are happy for it. Why? Because you consulted the right place, you got the right knowledge, you understood it and therefore it establishes you. The Bible says “… by knowledge the rooms are filled with all precious and pleasant riches.” You want precious and pleasant riches. Not only physical cash, not only houses, not only gold and silver. Do you know that as you grow up, you get married, have children, your children are doing very well, and they are not giving you problems; it’s pleasant and precious riches? Do you know that for you to eat the right things because you have knowledge that some things would affect your body - that is knowledge. That your body doesn’t slow down, some things don’t give you heart attack, it is pleasant and precious riches! Which means the knowledge you get is very critical and therefore the wisdom we are sharing here today are the things that when you do, when you follow step by step, it has the capacity to ensure that your marriage, your relationships are filled with pleasant and precious riches.

Most of the things that can ruin our relationships are completely preventable and avoidable if only we take some few steps, are a bit more patient and seek for knowledge. Without knowledge, we can be assured that some people will perish at the end of the day. So for you to have a good marriage or relationship, you must give it adequate time and you must invest time in getting adequate knowledge and wisdom. When you do not invest time, you are looking for trouble. You must be able to trust your partner and trust is earned, not given.

2.    SELFISHNESS:      You must have regard for your partner’s feelings. It is not all about you, but about what you are going to give in that relationship. You must have regard about how he or she feels. For some people, if they do something and it hurts the world but makes them feel good it is alright! But No! Sometimes when you do some things it doesn’t make other people feel good.

3.    ARGUMENT:           In your relationship, you can disagree but don’t argue. Arguing rather than disagreeing can spoil your marriage. Argument often results to conflict and compromise can never be reached. Anytime you have two people in a relationship, no matter where they are, for any period of time, you can be sure that a little conflict is going to occur. There are some things that you like, there are some nuance that you have that the other party doesn’t have and so might step on you if you are not careful (at times even if you are most careful). Boundaries would help you put people in the right position to help them know what they should expect from you and what you expect from them, so that you wouldn’t get into a lot of conflicts at all times. It’s not that every conflict is bad, most just show what you like and what you dislike. Nobody goes out deliberately to offend, except you are an evil.

Therefore, there is something he or she probably did not know or overlooked, he or she took a decision and you did not like it. That is why you must understand how people think, don’t just assume things and take offence. Conflict is a natural phenomenon, so when you are in a relationship, remember that we are all products of influences. There are different ways we see things, and therefore when you don’t see things in the same direction, what happens is that there is a conflict.

It is healthy to have conflicts. But you should discuss out your conflicts rather than argue them out, so as to reach a mutual compromise. By this, you will get the air cleared and it is enlightening. So, you are able to know what makes your partner unhappy, and when you know it, you can address it, or fix it. That is why, when you are in a relationship and you are offended, bare your mind out don’t just keep quiet. Because, even if your partner has the gift of discerning spirit, he or she would not know the nitty-gritty of the cause.

4.    ANGER:        Anger takes a lot of energy, I’m sure when they measure your blood pressure anytime you are angry, it rises. If it is a relationship, you need to relate together. You need to know what makes you partner unhappy, then when you are looking at one thing in different directions you need to know that, and not argue. Argument is “YOU ARE WRONG and I AM RIGHT!” You always want to win an argument, that’s what makes it an argument.

In an argument what you have is that somebody wins. It’s like a debate! So you bring all sorts of things to bare in that argument. At times, you will have to as to ensure that you win the argument. Let me ask you this; after you have won the argument, do you feel good? And when you feel good what happens? You have not solved anything. Women do this a lot. If you are in a relationship and your partner tells you, “Roseline, I would like that you don’t do that again.” The next thing you would hear is, “You too, last week you did this…you did that...” Forget last week, currently, this thing you are doing is not good. Don’t be defensive when you are corrected. Don’t bring out all your guard. Your partner is there to improve you and vice versa. You are there to improve each other, and therefore if there are things he or she does not like, you need to know why exactly he or she does not like them, or why he or she does what he or she does.

Each time you argue, you bring in a lot of pressure into your relationship and at the end of the day, anyone you argue with consistently, it is difficult for you to love them and earn their trust. It is difficult for a positive energy to come out of an argument. But you can disagree to agree. There could be something both of you do not like or something someone likes and the other doesn’t. Ask yourself, if I give in, what’s going to happen?

But when you sit down with the quarrel or when you meditate on offences, you take deeper horrible things and decisions. You are meditating on negative energy. If you are not careful, the argument would become a war. That’s why you have people in the same house, for three months, they don’t greet themselves, because, argument often results into strive, malice, hatred and poor (lack of) communication; this eventually may lead to break-up or divorce  marriage. When communication stops, relationship stops, love stops.

There was this fellow who had a problem with his wife, so they were not talking. The only way they communicated was by writing notes e.g. “good morning…where is my food…on the table…” One evening, the husband wrote, “Wake me up by 5am, I have an interview,” The wife replied “…ok…” and they went to sleep. At 9 o’clock, the man suddenly woke up and cried, “It is 9 o’clock, you didn’t wake me up!” The woman made him look at the paper by his side that said “Wake up!”

Now nobody wins at the end of the day when you fight. When there are issues, don’t let them break you two apart. It is excessive conflicts that have ruined a lot of relationships. When you are annoyed and there is a conflict, be careful what you say. It is said that, “words are like eggs, once you drop them, you can’t put them together.” When you are annoyed that is when to keep your mouth shut in a relationship, because what you say would go a long way than you can ever imagine. There are some things you cannot say sorry for, even when you say sorry, you’ll continue to think of it years to come. People fight and you hear in a marriage someone saying, “I regret the day I married you.” Never let that come out of your mouth. Yes, you may be annoyed, the situation may warrant something at that time that you want people to see what your partner has done to hurt you, but never ever say you regret the day you married your partner. Please, those are deep words that even when you say “I’m sorry I said that…”, two years down the line it would still come up in your mind. You can say something so hurtful and it could be a crack that you have put in that relationship which you may not be able to be mended again in life.

5.    DEFILEMENT:         When you argue, especially when you get married, please let me share this wisdom with you. The Bible says that, “…marriage is honourable the bed undefiled...” Most people think the bed undefiled here means not sleeping together. It means so only before you get married. But, it also means when you get married, don’t defile your bed with offence, wrought, malice, etc. And when you do that, the bible says, “…when the edge is broken, the serpent will strike.” Some people are killed because their husbands covering left them. Some people are destroyed because they were not in agreement with their spouses at a point in time. I can assure you it is true.

I have a personal testimony. (The first and the last time that I ever did it.) I remember there was a particular evening, I was so livid because of what my wife did and it has never happened to me before, so I just turned and slept off. The next morning, I was still boiling. I didn’t know it could happen and I just got dressed up for church as It was a Sunday morning and left the room for the sitting room. About five minutes later, my wife was screaming my name, I was like, so why is she calling me screaming my name? I refused to answer. But you see, I just said I should check on what was up, my wife was pregnant at that time and you know some what, she almost had a miscarriage that morning! I said silly me what have you done? I said you know something, “I am sorry, this is what I am feeling...” We discussed it over, we prayed together and she had that baby later. Not that same day, but it stopped.

I have a friend who is a Christ-believer. I was sharing this with him, he said, he had the same experience, that he had a problem with his wife and his wife said, “I am going out…“ and he said, go wherever you want you want to go.” Two minutes later he got a call from his wife saying she was involved in an accident. He said when he saw the crash, he was like, “what have I done?” The enemy is always looking for loop holes to attack and therefore you need to be careful, discuss things over, that’s why be quiet don’t shout or scream. It seems as if it is an African thing to shout. People can know that you are annoyed without shouting. If you are annoyed or there is an issue, walk away, think about it, present your case and talk about it. The Bible says “…a gentle tongue can break a bone…” It can turn away wrath. The Bible says, the mouth of the righteous is a fountain of life. It also says we should minister grace. When you are talking to people, discuss with respect. When a lady is discussing an issue, she wants to talk it over! But men like to sweep things under the carpet. Women are detailed. If as a man you don’t have anything to say, just listen. Don’t just blow away the discussion. When you do, she will think that you don’t just want to discuss it or you don’t care.

NB: Read the  conclusion (Part 2) in the next post...

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