The endangered marriage 2

Last week we started considering what can endanger a marriage.

One of those things is taking your spouse for granted. A lot of us have set the stage for failure in our marriage by taking our spouses for granted. You trivialize certain things in their lives, which have impacted the success of the marriage. Thus, we put the marriage in jeopardy. The following things are some of the areas that we take our spouses for granted:

The gentle nature: Some spouses are gentle in nature. They are peace loving and do not like trouble at all. Since opposite attracts, in general, such people will end up with not too gentle spouses. When this happens, some of them are taken for granted by their spouses. They lord things over them in virtually all areas of life. When this persists over a period of time, it may eventually endanger the marriage. For example, there was this husband who was taking his gentle wife for granted. He would beat her and beg her after, times without number. Eventually, the woman got tired and walked out of the marriage, when the physical abuse got to the peak. The husband thought it was like before, but it became a reality eventually. Today, they have gone their separate ways. Don’t always assume that the gentle wife or husband will not rock the boat in your marriage. Like Thomas Hardy wrote in his book, Tess of the Durberville, “Continual dropping will wear even a stone. “
Generous nature: Married couples should not take one another for granted also in their generous nature, otherwise it will be shocking when the disadvantaged decides he or she has had enough of the persistence abuse of his or her benevolence. That your spouse is footing all the bills does not mean you should be extravagant. A time will come when that husband or wife will begin to turn down some of the bills you are throwing on him or her. I knew a couple who are now separated, and one of the reasons was the overbearing financial demands of the husband. He was virtually living fat on the income of the wife. Couples should avoid taking one another for granted in this wise.
Religious commitment: I have witnessed series of marital issues bothering on the religious commitment of spouses. When a religious affiliation forbids divorce, and encourages peaceful cohabitation of married couples, even in the worst scenario, couples do take undue advantage of such. The thinking or the assumption is that you cannot come out of the relationship come what may. We have witnessed situations like that where couples were forced to remain in abusive marriages because their religion forbids divorce, despite the fact that the marriages were subject to the laws of the land. However, experience has it today that a lot of faith people are embracing the legal option in settling marital issues, because their spouses are taking things for granted on the basis of their faith.
Financial inadequacy: This is mostly relevant to husbands, but I have witnessed situations of wives whose husbands lord things over them because they were financially dependent on the husbands. The husbands were just lord and master in all things. I remember one case in which the wife gave up her matrimonial bed for her husband’s side chick. Eventually, when the tides turned, the wife decided to pay him back in his own coin. Of course, the marriage couldn’t survive in such a situation. Wives who also disrespected their husbands due financial inadequacy, have had to face the music when fortune smiled on such husbands.
Infertility: Spouses should avoid taking the situation of infertility for granted. I mean, that children have not been born into a marriage doesn’t call for a spouse to now make a victim out of his or her partner. I have witnessed situations where the husband was always blaming the wife for the infertility, especially since he already had a child out of wedlock. The wife eventually fell into sexual temptation, resulting into pregnancy. Of course, she pinned it on her husband. It was the genesis of turbulence in the marriage.

The point I am making here is that taking one’s spouse for granted in so many ways, is a basis for marital disharmony. Couples must therefore avoid it like a plague.

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