Vincent Boateng's Blog, page 2

Troubleshooting Your Marriage – Marriage is Not for Wimps

Marriage is not as easy as many singles envision it. A successful marriage doesn’t just happen. It requires sacrifice, determination and great fortitude. Getting it right can be draining, but it can also be fulfilling. I have enjoyed my marital journey so far – both the ups and the downs, and I wouldn’t trade the experience for anything. Our modern society has made marriage even more difficult by systematically eroding support for the permanence of marriage. Society today has created many escape hatches for couples and made marriage seem like a social experiment. Divorce has become so fashionable that many of our youth enter into marriage with their eyes already on the exit door.  They seek divorce at the slightest agitation. Yet good marriages, even great marriages go through turbulence sometimes. The key is that they have a sense of purpose and direction, a sense of commitment, a sense of unity as well as the courage and ability to get back on track whenever there’s a deviation. Their hope is not in never encountering challenges along the way but in their determination and ability to face those challenges together and overcome them together.

Understanding marriage as a permanent vocation will help ensure that you look for solutions that safeguard your marriage, rather than turn to divorce as the solution to every marital distress. Never give up or stop trying to make your marriage better. If you want a successful marriage, you need to pay the price for it, and yes, sometimes it can be expensive, but I can assure you that it’s worth every penny.

Troubleshooting Your Marriage – Say Hello to My Perfect Spouse!

All marriages struggle with similar challenges. Some are able to deal with challenges in a way that makes them stronger. Others succumb to challenges. It’s common to hear some couples lamenting, “Why did I even get married?” “I don’t think I want to stay in this marriage anymore.” Yet if you asked why they married their spouse in the first place, most of these couples would tell you they married their spouse because they loved him/her. They may also add, rightly, that they married them because they needed a lifetime companion to love and cherish. Where many of these couples err is the attitude and unrealistic expectations they bring into the marriage. It’s almost as if they forget that their spouses aren’t perfect and never will be. No one is perfect! You married your spouse not because you thought s/he was perfect but because you felt s/he was the one whose imperfections you could live with for the rest of your life. You married them because you were absolutely convinced you had found the right partner, the one you could love and cherish regardless of their shortcomings. I’m sure if you were looking for a perfect partner, you’d still be searching, and I can guarantee you would’ve searched indefinitely. So what’s my point?

If you married the right partner for the right reason and understand that you didn’t marry a perfect person, then you should be able to make accommodations for his/her imperfections and make your marriage work. You should be able to accept your spouse wholly, love your spouse unconditionally and live peaceably with each other. You need to remember that you gave all your conditions up when you vowed at the altar to love your spouse for better or worse? Embracing and living out those vows to the last letter is the first step toward marital bliss. Most of us know what we need to do to make our marriages better. We know we need to love unconditionally and love more, care more, listen more, understand more, support more, forgive more, honor more, give more and sacrifice more, but are we willing to do that? I hope you are.

A Beautiful Day

A Beautiful Day

 

Walking from the Metro on my now routine

job hunt, I feel only as relevant as a forgotten dream.

I turn at a corner

and my shadow overtakes me.

My phone drops on the pavement, shatters

into many dysfunctional pieces like my life.

I pass in front of a parked van and a homeless man

almost bumps into me from my blind side. A flock

of birds giggle from the top of a tree.

They sound like firecrackers on the 4th of July.

At the next turn a dog and a woman. One is walking

the other. I say hello and the woman smiles, squints

at the glistering sun, says it’s a beautiful day.

It isn’t.

The sun too shall depart when the night comes.

Teach Me How to Love

Teach Me How to Love