A Girl's Journey Down The Aisle

Two Becomes Three

2011-08-12T00:10:00.000+01:00

Last Sunday, hubby and I went out without the baby for the first time. Of course we've been out with her several times, but this was different. This time, we left her with a childminder and had a proper date where it was just the two of us, and she was not the centre of attention. It felt great, kinda like the old days where we were just a couple and we didn't have to pause mid-conversation to keep checking on a baby. I realised something that I had heard over and over again, but hadn't experienced until now - a couple need to spend time together away from the kids.

As much as I love my daughter and I enjoy playing with her, I now know that it's necessary for me to take a break from being a mother once in a while, and just be friend and lover to hubby. Being a new parent can be overwhelming, and the past six months have felt like a huge learning curve. And I'm still learning. I spent the first two months in a daze of pain (c-section), sleepless nights, milk and endless nappies. Slowly, baby and I settled into a routine and the nights became bearable. Now she's grown a bit and I can start to contemplate my life getting back to normal - but with a new twist. I guess the right word to use here would be - adjusting. My life has changed and while I'm enjoying it, I have to adjust my expectations, and I have to rearrange my priorities. I now have to juggle more roles and more responsibilities. (Now I feel like a proper grown-up, lol). It's not easy, but I know that I have God's grace to help me every day.

And speaking of my relationship with God, I feel like I need Him more than ever. It's amazing the sense of responsibility you get when you're faced with a helpless little baby, and it hits you that a lot of what happens to this child depends on you. So who else can I ask for help? I pray to God everyday to make me the best mother I can be to my daughter. I need to get this right, because from experience, the mother-daughter relationship can be a tricky one and I want to have a wonderful relationship with my daughter everyday. I pray to God to help me because if I succeed in everything but fail at being a parent, then it's not worth it. I pray to God for more and more wisdom. I need God's wisdom every single day.

So anyway, the point I was trying to make was that, while being a mother requires a lot of self-sacrifice, one thing I must try to do is to keep my relationship with hubby going. I now know how easy it can be to let things slide when there's a major shift in the dynamics of our relationship. I can see it's not always going to be easy, but I'm sure the benefits will always be worth the effort. After all, it's for the good of the baby too if her parents can model a loving, healthy marriage for her to see!

As always, stay blessed and favoured,

A New Journey

2011-03-30T16:20:00.000+01:00

I've just come to clear the cobwebs from this blog and apologise for the long hiatus.

But there's a reason! I recently started a new journey in my life - my new journey of motherhood!

Thanks everyone, I promise I'll be back soon!

FG

Lasting Marriage: Forgiveness

2010-11-05T00:36:00.000Z

Hi friends! I'm continuing on the theme from my last post - staying together happily in marriage. This post focuses on the next point - which is forgiveness.

The Bible says: "Make allowance for each other's faults, and forgive anyone who offends you." (Colossians 3:13). This is not a suggestion, but a command, the same way the Bible commands us: "Love each other as I have loved you."(John 13:34). Love and forgiveness go hand-in-hand - because without forgiveness, minor offences become grudges; grudges breed resentment, and resentment breeds hate.

How many of us have ended friendships and relationships because we could not forgive an offence committed by the other party? How many of us know how it feels when we offend someone and in spite of our remorse, they choose not to forgive us but instead end our friendship? I'm sure we have all had similar experiences. But for a married couple to stay together, unforgiveness is not an option. In fact forgiveness should be so much a part of your marriage, that it becomes a habit.

(Before I continue, I must stress here that I'm referring to a marriage where both partners are working towards the good of the relationship, and not engaging in destructive habits like infidelity, pornography or alcohol and substance abuse. In those situations, the course of action to take may be slightly different, as constantly forgiving the other party might not lead them to take positive action to change their behaviour. For a marriage to survive deep-rooted issues such as these, a lot of work has to be done by both parties to repair, rebuild and restore the relationship).

It's been said that no normal, reasonable person goes into marriage with the intention to destroy it and divorce shortly afterwards. The vast majority of us get into marriage with joy and hope and expectations of happiness. Similarly, no reasonable husband or wife wakes up in the morning and decides: I'm going to hurt my spouse today. I don't think anyone deliberately sets out to hurt their friends or spouses. I wrote and earlier post on Mr and Mrs Imperfect, in which I discussed that no matter how kind, loving, caring and generous your partner is, they are still not perfect - none of us are. Each of us still has faults, weaknesses and potentially annoying habits. Sometimes we act selfishly, sometimes we don't pay enough attention to their needs, and we unintentionally hurt our spouse. So when the Bible says "make allowance for each other's faults" it means you should be willing to forgive and overlook offences because you know you are just as fallible, and just as likely to hurt the other person.

"To err is human; to forgive is divine."

So what are the things that stop us from giving forgiveness a chance in our relationships?

Anger - When we've been offended, it's natural to feel negative emotions like anger. But it's how we deal wit the angry feelings that determine if we are right or wrong. The Bible says "“In your anger do not sin; Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry" (Ephesians 4:26). This is because anger gives a foothold to the devil. Anger can cause us to do or say things we would regret later on, things that can completely destroy the love and intimacy in our relationships.

Revenge - The desire to retaliate can also stop us from forgiving. It's easy to go down the slippery slope of "He hurt me, so I must hurt him back" when we've been offended. But seeking revenge is never a way to resolve a hurt, it only makes things worse. It creates a destructive pattern and a vicious cycle of two people constantly scheming to get back at each other, which would ultimately mean the relationship is doomed.

Fear - Sometimes, fear holds us back from forgiving the other person because it feels like we are giving them so much power to hurt us again. Or fear makes us harden our hearts as a defense mechanism so that we will not be vulnerable. But the Bible says that "There is no fear in love, because perfect love casts out all fear." (1 John 4:18). If we are going to take a chance on love, we must be willing to remove the fear of getting hurt, and trust that the other person will not take advantage of the fact that we are willing to forgive them.

Guilt - On the other hand, unforgiveness yields guilt because it is essentially a disobedient act. We know that holding a grudge is not something we should be doing, and in the event that we hurt the other person, we expect them to forgive us too. So when we don't forgive, we carry around not only the hurt and pain, but also a burden of guilt.

So how can we learn to forgive and let go of these negative emotions? Especially in a situation where you feel the other person has offended you, but they might not even know it! How do you forgive when the other person is not repentant? Forgiveness is not easy, and we definitely need God's grace. We need to think of how much God in His infinite mercy has forgiven us our sins, so we too can extend grace and forgiveness to other people. Forgiveness is a choice that we make even when we don't feel like doing it - we should go ahead and do it anyway. We often find that the positive feelings catch up with our actions later.

I think God made forgiveness a command for many reasons. If it was optional,many of us would not do it, and we would hold grudges and keep getting on each other's nerves - leading to a breakdown of trust, intimacy and openness in our relationships. But if we learn and practice forgiveness, it will relieve us of burdens and open the door for healing to begin. Forgiveness helps us to resolves issues and gives us a fresh page to start over - and that is an essential ingredient for a long lasting happy marriage!

I'll discuss Quality Time in my next post. Stay blessed and favoured!

FG

(Image: womenonthefence.com)

Lasting Marriage: Friendship

2010-10-04T03:01:00.001+01:00

I don't know about you, but before I got married I loved observing happy couples. I liked it when I saw a couple who looked very comfortable, smiling, joking and playful with each other, regardless of how long they have been married. I've seen enough miserable-looking married couples and I never wanted my marriage to be like those. So whenever I saw a happy couple, it often felt like a breath of fresh air. I would look at them and wonder what makes them tick. I wanted to know what they are doing right that is sustaining their level of friendship and enthusiasm for enjoying each other's company. And I wanted to emulate that in my own life when I got married. I wanted to retain that freshness and excitement in my marriage whether I was a newly-wed or an old married woman at the age of sixty. So I started to ask questions. I observed even more couples. I read loads of good books on the joys of a happy life-long marriage and how to achieve it. I prayed and asked God to help me to be wise. And I listened to advice from people who had got it right.

In other words, I did something very deliberate.

About a week ago, I was talking to a friend of mine who is getting married soon. He said he was looking forward to marriage, but dreading the inevitable.

I asked what was inevitable?

He said something like: "You know that after the first two years, everything goes downhill. Love and happiness doesn't last for so long once a couple get married."

I was a bit sad to hear that and I told him: "That's not true. I've been married for five years and I'm happier and more in love with my hubby than ever before, and enjoying my marriage more now, than I was in the earlier years. And I'm sure he will say the same too."

The next thing my friend said was: "Well you know you are not normal, you might just be lucky, so I'm not going to raise my expectations based on your own experience."

I was quite shocked. I thought; is that really what most people think about marriage? That after two years, the joy and happiness fades away and you are left with nothing but a miserable existence? That except for the "lucky few" who somehow stumble into lasting happiness, the rest of us are doomed into living in a boring prison for the rest of our lives? So what happens to the fun and excitement after a while? It goes away and can never be recaptured?

I think that's such a sad and pessimistic view of marriage, and it's not helped by the statistics and things we see around us. Many people have this wrong view of marriage because they are not prepared to see things in a long-term view. We have swallowed the hype of "hollywood romance" and "fairy-tale happily ever after" that lets us believe that once we have fallen in love, the euphoria of the early days will continue endlessly and we would never have to make the effort to keep it going. However the reality is, those feelings of euphoria are terribly unreliable and they tend to come and go. So when the euphoria dies down, Hollywood leads us to believe that we are now doomed to be unhappy forever, unless we can recapture those feelings with a new person.

Nowadays, we have this "throw-away" mentality, that is, if something is broken or not working, we would prefer to throw it away and buy a new one rather than trying to fix it. Sometimes we carry over this attitude into marriage and so when things start getting a bit boring, instead of thinking of creative ways to spice things up and rekindle our romance, we can fall into the trap of thinking that there's nothing we can do, apart from quitting or putting up with it. This mentality is what leads to broken marriages and affairs.

I once saw this status on somebody’s profile on Facebook: If we see a smile on a newly-wed man’s face, we all know why. But if we see a smile on a man who has been married for ten years, we all wonder why.

But let's go back to the original design for marriage. Whose idea was it? Marriage was God's idea. And He designed it to be a long-lasting lifelong and secure commitment where two people become one, until death parts them. So if the world’s view is that two years into the marriage, there is no more fun, excitement, love and happiness, does that mean that God’s plan was for us to live miserably for the rest of our married time on earth? I would say a resounding "NO!". Of course not. It is we who need to re-align ourselves with the truth - marriage is meant to be fun and joyful all the days of our lives. And we need to make sure that we constantly put the effort into our relationships to keep them strong, happy and beautiful. But how?

I'll talk about three important things: friendship, quality time and forgiveness.

Friendship: I know that in these days of social networking, the term "friendship" has taken on different meanings. But I want us to think about friendship in a true sense of mutual trust, closeness, openness, kindness, acceptance, caring and love for each other. Friendship is one of the most basic needs that we have as human beings. We were created to need companionship, support and encouragement from other people. And this is one of the reasons why God ordained marriage in the first place - for companionship. We marry so that we can have at least one person in the world that we can call a friend.

Now most of us have many acquaintances but very few true friends. But the few friendships we have, we know that we have to nurture them to keep them going. If you have a friend you don't see, you don't speak to, you don't hang out with or keep in touch with, what's going to happen? Sooner or later, that friendship will wither and suffer and probably die a slow death. And it's the same with marriage.

I know many couples who work long hours outside of the home, have to raise young kids and look after so many other responsibilities that their marriage inevitably suffers for it. By the time they get home at night, they are too tired to do anything apart from having dinner in front of the TV and falling asleep. If all you do with your husband or wife is see them first thing in the morning on your way out and last thing at night before you sleep, what will that do to your friendship? It will be choked to death! The fact that you live in the same house doesn't mean anything - even enemies can live under the same roof. You have to be very deliberate about talking to them (and not just about who paid the last water bill), listening to them and having fun with them without the distractions of everyday living. Basically, you have to rearrange your priorities so that your marriage doesn’t suffer due to neglect.

Friends never run out of things to say to each other, and it should be the same between husband and wife. Some couples talk to their friends and colleagues at work more than they talk to each other! I heard of a woman who said she’s dreading retirement because she doesn’t know how she'll cope with being at home with her husband all the time. Over the years, they didn’t maintain their friendship and now they don’t have anything to say to each other anymore. But it doesn’t have to be that way. I think it’s very important for couples to keep the lines of communication open all the time. Make conversation an essential part of your day. Talk, talk, talk and keep talking. You can talk about any topic – politics, world affairs, your plans for the future, a book one of you is reading, what happened in the office today – anything. Just don’t let a single day pass by without having an interesting conversation with your spouse. It is surprising how much bonding takes place over a stimulating conversation.

But this sounds easy in theory. In practice, sometimes you have to make hard choices: like you may have to choose between attending a friend’s wedding and spending the only free weekend you’ve got at home with your spouse. Sometimes it may mean missing your favourite TV show and going for a walk/drive/quick meal outside with your spouse instead. It may mean banning the laptop/TV/long telephone calls for a while so that you can enjoy some time together without interruptions. But those little acts add up to something far more rewarding. I think it's better to miss a TV show than have a neglected spouse. That closeness and connection with your spouse will more than make up for the effort you put into maintaining your friendship.

For me, recently I was reminded of an episode. It was a Saturday night, the end of a very busy day. Hubby and I had been out all day running errands, shopping, visiting relatives and all that. We didn’t get home until very late, and we were both tired. As soon as we got in, he wanted to unwind and spend some time gisting with me in the living room before we retired to bed. But as soon as I stepped in, all I saw were the pile of chores I hadn’t done, and I immediately went into the kitchen to start washing the dishes. Hubby called me several times to leave the sink to come and relax with him and I kept saying – give me 5 minutes. In the end, I didn’t stop my chores until the kitchen was spick and span but by then I was too tired to spend any time with him and I just went straight to bed.

It wasn’t until a few days later that I realised how selfish my attitude was. The dishes could wait – of course they could. But I had made them a priority, instead of time with my husband. All too easily, I took it for granted that he would still be there no matter what, and that was wrong. If I put myself in his shoes, I would have been quite upset if I wanted to spend time with him but he preferred to devote time to his own chores instead. I have since made a note of this, and resolved that I would re-order my priorities. House chores can wait, hubby comes first.

So to sum up, we have to continually work on keeping the friendship with our spouse alive by making sure we put them first in our minds, with our words and the activities we do together. The rewards are soooo worth it!

That’s all for now, I’ll talk about the other two points in my next post. I’ll leave you with this quote:

“Staying together in marriage is not by accident, and it’s not luck. The harder you work at your marriage, the luckier you get.”

Have a great week!

Being Open and Honest

2010-04-26T19:23:00.000+01:00

There was once a girl who had a secret about her past. It haunted her day and night, sometimes she cried herself to sleep. She had been dating this wonderful guy at the office for nine months, and she was dreading the day he would find out about this secret. It made her ill with worry and she was often sad and depressed. The weight of the guilt was heavy on her, so much so, that she stopped enjoying the present. She began to dwell in the past, reliving her mistakes over and over, worrying and beating herself up over it.

One day, her manager at work found her crying. He called her and asked her what was wrong. Faced with a person who showed concern about her welfare, she finally told him. She had an eight-year old son that nobody knew about. He lived with her mother in a different town and she saw him once a month. The reason she was so upset was that she regretted her mistakes, but she was worried about what her new boyfriend would say or do when he found out.

Her manager, who was a wise man, asked her a few questions:

Do you regret your past?
She said yes.
Do you wish you could go back in time to do things differently?
She nodded.
Can you actually go back and change things?
She paused for a moment. Then she shook her head.
Is there any way that the mistake would go away?
No.
Do you realise that while you are hung up about the past, your present and future happiness is slipping away?
She paused to reflect on this.
If you cannot change the outcome of your past mistakes, don’t you think it’s time to stop beating yourself up over it?
That had not occurred to her.

If you like this guy and you think he likes you too, the best thing you can do is to be honest with him. That way you will be right with yourself. It is a risk, but the result is that no matter what happens, you have let go of the guilt and fear that is holding you back.

She thanked her manager and left his office. Later that evening, she summoned up the courage to tell her boyfriend about her son. To her surprise, he was not upset. In fact, he was delighted to hear that she had a child because he recently found out that he couldn’t have children. The next weekend, they went to visit her mother together. All her worries, fears and anxieties melted away when she saw her boyfriend and her son getting along so well together. By the time they were leaving, her son was sad to see them go, and he asked when her boyfriend could come and visit again. It was a step forward. She didn't need to worry about her secret anymore.

* * * * *

Now this story is fiction, but I wanted to highlight a few lessons that I’ve learnt recently. One is about dwelling in the past. We all have chapters in our lives that we wish we would erase or re-write. It’s part of life, part of growing up, part of learning who we are. I’ve had to learn to let my past go. I cannot change it, I cannot undo it. And the more I dwelt on it, I found out that it was a heavy burden, sapping my energy, draining the joy of my present, and blocking me from moving on with my future. If this applies to you, I would urge you to take another look at the issue. The past is gone; there is nothing you can do to change what happened. What you can change however, is your attitude. You have to forgive yourself of the mistakes and stop beating yourself over it. You have to deal with the guilt by admitting that you did something wrong, but God will forgive you if you ask Him to. And once you have learnt from the mistake, you can move ahead with your life, knowing that you are a better and wiser person for it.

Another lesson I’ve learnt is sharing my burdens. Some of us pretend that we’ve got it all together, and we don’t need help. We give people an illusion that we have no problems, no weaknesses and no struggles. Yet, we are crumbling under the weight of problems on the inside. We need to stop trying to pretend like we know-it-all and be humble enough to ask for help when we are struggling. Nobody is perfect, nobody knows everything. If you ask for help, it doesn’t make you a weak person; it makes you a wise person.

And finally: honesty. I’ve been told that honesty is the best policy, but sometimes I’m still surprised by the truth in it. I find that, when I come clean and admit my mistakes, people don’t judge me half as bad as I judge myself. Sometimes I’ve been struggling with an issue for months, and finally when I discuss it with hubby, the problem seems to shrink in size to almost nothing. I’ve realised that it’s okay to admit to yourself and your husband that you have weaknesses, fears, doubts and struggles. That’s what is meant by “naked and not ashamed”. You should be comfortable enough with each other to share each other’s struggles, and find solutions together. That’s why he or she is there to support you.

Sometimes I feel quite silly for trying to bear my struggles alone. I think that sometimes, the last person we listen to is our spouse. When we have a problem, we assume we can pray about, or share with a friend, or seek help elsewhere. All of which are good, but they can also be tactics to try and cover up who we are with our spouse. It’s a slippery road; once you start hiding things from your spouse or significant other, you start building a wall between you. And the longer it goes on, the higher that wall becomes. When all we need can just simply be: come clean; admit we have a weakness and we can then work together to find a solution as a couple.

If we reflect on these things, we find that it is fear and pride that holds us back. Fear blows our issues out of proportion, such that, in our minds, we feel we are going to get judged by everyone else. Pride prevents us from admitting that we are not perfect, and we need other people to help us. But what sweet relief we get; when we do confront our fears and swallow our pride. We find peace.

Stay blessed and favoured!

End of 2009

2009-12-31T19:10:00.002Z

Wow, 2009 is almost over! Did the year fly by quickly or what? Can anyone believe that all the hype about entering the new millennium was actually TEN years ago? Soon it will be 2010 and another decade will begin. Time flies, they say, and it seems like it is spinning even faster nowadays.

This time last year I was looking forward to the year 2009 with hope and expectations. I had a long list of hopes , dreams and ambitions. I had a list of prayer requests and petitions that I placed before God to help me achieve by the end of the year. Now it's the last day of the year, and I am really grateful to God. Nope, I didn't get everything on my wish-list. But I have gained so many wonderful things in this past year, and I have received so many blessings from God, that I cannot but be grateful.

I'm thankful to God for my blessings. I have been overwhelmed many times when I think about how good God has been to me. I can't list them all but I can mention a few:

I'm thankful for my family: mum, dad, sisters, aunts, uncles, cousins, in-laws, etc. Sure, once in a while somebody gets on my nerves but I know I love them, and I cannot do without them.

I'm thankful for the simple joys of peaceful sleep. I have slept and woken up everyday in the last 365 days.

I'm thankful to God for meeting all my needs. I never had to go hungry or beg for anything in 2009.

I'm thankful for the good times that I enjoyed, and the not-so-good times where God was my strength and hope.

I'm thankful for laughter and fun in my life. There are too many sad and lonely people in the world today.

I'm thankful to God for adding another year to my life. I celebrated a birthday in perfect health, surrounded by good friends and family.

I'm thankful to God for the many wonderful new friends I made this year. Especially my fellow bloggers who have become my friends and sisters. Aloted, Believer, Writefreak, Nolimit, Diamond Hawk, GoodNaijaGirl and more. And to my writing mentors: Abidemi Sanusi and Dr Tade.

I'm thankful for another peaceful, happy and fulfilling year of marriage. I know I am so blessed and privileged to share my life with a man that makes me happy, believes in me, loves me, supports me and wants the best for me.

I'm thankful because I'm older and wiser now, than I was a year ago.

I'm thankful for protection and safety. I went through 2009 without any accidents - amazing.

I'm thankful for the trips around Europe I enjoyed during the year.

I'm thankful for the progress I made with my work this year. And the opportunities I have to explore further in the coming months.

I'm thankful to my co-writers on our blog series: Latifa, Jaycee, Icepick, Flourishing Florida, Diamond Hawk, Ayodele, Writefreak and Rayo. Thanks for believing in my idea and working with me.

I'm thankful because I've moved closer to God this year.

I'm also thankful for the many lessons I've learnt this year:

I've learnt to depend on God more than ever

I've learnt that respecting my husband is the key to a peaceful marriage

I've learnt to be more patient

I've learnt to appreciate the important things in life

I've learnt not to compare myself with anybody

I've learnt that I should choose carefully whose opinions I take on board

I've learnt to receive criticism graciously

I've learnt that a positive attitude wins in the end, even in the face of overwhelming odds.

I've learnt that pride and sacrificial love are not compatible.

I've learnt to be humble and content with what, who and where I am at the moment.

In 2010:

I want to be completely in tune with where God wants me to be, what God wants me to do and at His perfect timing.

I want to be more and more like Jesus everyday.

I want to achieve my potential with my writing.

I want to become a better wife, sister, daughter and friend.

So help me God.

Now I'm counting down to 2010........................!!!

Happy New Year to everyone! May 2010 be the best year ever in all aspects of our lives!

Understand Me

2009-11-11T23:46:00.002Z

Relationships are based on love, trust, communication and understanding. This is more so important in marriage, where two people (who are NOT mind readers) try to know and understand each other better everyday. I’m going to talk about how listening and learning can really help couples to understand each other better.

First, what is understanding? Here’s what I think: understanding is the act of seeking to know somebody, accepting who they are, putting yourself in their shoes, listening without jumping to conclusions, keeping an open mind and asking, instead of assuming.

I think, like most things in a relationship, listening to understand someone begins spontaneously, but as time goes on, it has to be nurtured. When we first start dating, we actively seek to know more and more about the other person: who they are now, where they are coming from, and where they are going in future. We spend time to piece lots of information together, to form a picture in our minds about the person. But this picture is never complete. As much as we think we know someone, there is always something more to be discovered, and no matter how predictable somebody is, they can still reveal something about themselves that can surprise you.

So how can you understand another person better? It’s a learning process and one of the first things you need to adopt is: the right attitude. I’m sure you would have heard couples say in frustration: “I just don’t understand him!” or “She’s impossible, how can anyone ever understand her?”

I say the right attitude, because that determines whether you are open and receptive, or you

have already made up your mind that understanding that person is impossible. If you say or think the words “I can’t” , you are already admitting defeat. You are literally saying, “I’m not going to understand this person, so I’ll just give up and stop trying”. However, if you decide to put in the effort into really knowing the other person, you’ll find that with time, it becomes easier everyday. So that even when you are having a conflict, you can still seek to understand where the other person is coming from – what they are saying, what they are not saying, how they are feeling and what they need.

Here are some tips on understanding that I’ve picked up form reading:

Create an atmosphere of acceptance: Don’t jump in and criticise what your partner is saying. It is easy to counter someone every time they try to open up, such that they stop trying to reveal their innermost thoughts. Don’t jump into conclusions either, if they are still expressing something. If what they are saying doesn’t quite add up to you at first, you may need to hear it again before it begins to make sense. Women often have no problems opening up to their partners, but they often try to censor what they want their partners to open up to them about. For example, we don’t often want to hear our partners telling us that they struggle with temptation in the workplace, that they are scared of death, that they have self-confidence problems, etc. So if the man tries to open up once and we dismiss those topics, he is not likely to bring them up again. Which is sad, because a man really needs his wife to support him in his areas of weakness. But if she doesn’t listen, she can’t understand, and she can’t help him.

Listen without interrupting: When you are having a conversation, allow your partner to finish their train of thought, and their sentences. Resist the temptation to jump in and finish their sentences or hijack the floor. You may miss something crucial if you are not paying attention. Your body language also speaks volumes. It will be obvious if you are more interested in the TV, than in the conversation. Don’t try to hurry the speaker up by nodding and butting in when they are mid-sentence.
It is said that most women are quicker with forming words and sentences than men. So in a conversation between them, a woman is usually two or three sentences ahead in her mind, while the guy is still trying to answer the first question. That’s why when you ask a little girl a question, she replies immediately, and if you ask a boy the same age, he is slightly slower to answer, and sometimes his mother or his sister jumps in and answers for him. That’s also why women tend to win verbal arguments.
It can easily become a bad habit when a wife assumes she already knows what her husband is going to say, so she jumps in and speaks for him, even when they are in public. I find myself guilty of it sometimes, speaking for hubby even when he’s on the phone! I have to remind myself to hush as he is perfectly able to have his own conversations.

Keep an Open Mind: Don’t say things like “That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard” or “What did you expect?” when you partner tells you something about themselves. Comments like that, even though they may mean nothing to the speaker, may sound judgemental to the hearer. Negative comments put them on their guard. If they express their hurt over something you said, don’t brush it off by saying things like “You’re just too sensitive”, they have a right to be upset if you have genuinely hurt them.

Put Yourself in the Other Person’s Shoes: The other person, no matter how much you know and love them, is still different from you in many regards. That means you may find yourself sitting at two opposite ends of an argument once in a while, and neither party wants to budge. If they express something, don’t just dismiss it, listen and try to imagine where they are coming from. A common example of this is when a husband hears the following words from his wife: “You spend too much time at work!” and he immediately becomes defensive, saying “But I have to work to meet our needs….”. If he is really putting himself in his wife’s shoes, he will see that she is not saying she doesn’t want him to work. She just misses having him around and is asking for a bit more of his time.

If You Are Unsure, Ask. Never Assume: Verify that you have heard and understood something. Instead of guessing, ask again, until you are sure. Repeat what they have said back to them and say, “If I understand you correctly, you are saying….?” Or “Let me see if I’ve got this right, do you mean…?” This way, you are checking that what you heard is the same thing as what they meant to say. So many arguments can be avoided if we stop to double check that we’ve got the information right, before we proceed with our actions.

Don’t Dismiss an Opinion: Because it is different from one you hold, doesn’t mean it is any less valid. Our opinions are made up of our experiences, which make up who we are. Dismissing someone’s opinion without giving it a thought is like throwing away their thoughts and their mind. Instead, validate their perceptions, thoughts and feelings. They are as valid as yours.

Observe: This is something you will always have to do if you want to understand somebody more and more. Watch, listen and learn: what things makes them happy, what things make them sad? What things are they really passionate about? How do they react when they are frustrated? How do they spend their money? What are their hobbies and interests? Etc, etc. Just as you are never 100% predictable, and you learn something new about yourself everyday, it’s the same thing with your partner. Even after you think you’ve got somebody sussed out, they can still surprise you, so you keep learning something new about them! It makes married life fun and interesting, it would be boring otherwise! I remember someone saying to me that her parents who have been married for 35 years, still discover new things about each other. Hmmm….

By nature, we human beings are incredibly complex, and we can always keep learning and changing. So even if you think you won’t change, most likely your partner will! So the quest to continue to understand each other should not stop at any stage. Understanding deepens our knowledge of each other, and knowledge deepens our love for each other.

As always, stay blessed and favoured!

Respect Experiment

2009-09-08T12:44:00.000+01:00

As I said in my previous post, I had been reading the Love and Respect book and I had learnt a few truths about the importance of showing my husband respect. The book is based on the premise of this scripture in Ephesians 5 v 33 where Paul said: "However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband." The writer of the book practically promised that the best way to get my husband to love me was to show him respect. A good promise right? So I decided to conduct a little experiment of my own to see if the principle worked..... yep I decided to be the guinea pig!

In the book, it is called "The Respect Test" and there are a lot of tips for wives on how to start showing your husband respect. Most of the tips can be personalised, so after a quick glance through the tips, I came up with my own list:

Look out for the accusatory or nagging tone when you are asking him to do something
Appreciate his dislikes, don't force him to do or eat stuff he doesn't like
Don't argue over the TV programmes he wants to watch. If you want to watch something else, ask nicely
Appreciate everything good about him. Tell him often how much you appreciate who he is and what he does
Have his meals ready when he gets home
Listen and consider his ideas and opinions, even if you don't always agree

Okay, so I had my list and my watchword which goes something like this: Is what I'm about to say or do going to come across as disrespectful to my husband? and I was good to go. I was still a bit cynical about the whole thing and at some point I wondered if I was being a bit hypocritical, like I was putting up a false pretense. I didn't say anything to hubby about my experiment (obviously), but I prayed about it and asked God to help me. As I started to work through my list, it wasn't actually as hard as I had imagined! Most of it was a change in attitude: doing the right thing at the right time, knowing when to speak and when to be quiet, showing him positivity and letting go of my desire to "control" him. And I found out that once I took the first step and made the right move, the feelings caught up with me soon.

Okay, now to the results:

After one week, hubby must have noticed something was different, cos he suddenly asked me one day: "Babe, you've been very nice to me lately, what's going on?"

I smiled and said nothing, but in my mind, I was like "Oh my goodness, it must be working!"

That was very encouraging, so I decided to step it up a notch. By week two, there was a noticeable change about him. He was much happier, he was a lot more relaxed, he smiled a lot more. More importantly, he wanted to spend more and more time with me! Previously hubby had never kept me company in the kitchen while I was cooking, but that week, he actually came to gist with me while I was doing my chores! This was something I had been trying to get him to do forever!

By the third week, he was positively glowing. He was so sweet, he couldn't do enough for me. We had a short break to Germany and throughout the trip, he didn't say no to whatever I asked for! When we got back, he commented on how happy he was and he actually thanked me for making him so happy!

I was totally amazed at this. I felt like a huge burden had been lifted up. So all along, I didn't need to nag to get my views heard. I didn't need any of those power struggles. I realised that indeed as a woman, my strength is not in trying to control or manipulate my husband or try to bend him to fit my ideals. All I have to do is to let go of my pride and respect him and then he would do anything to please me! (Talk about several lightbulb moments in those three weeks, lol). Honestly, I can say that those three weeks were the best weeks of our marriage up to that point.

But of course, I had to go and ruin it, lol. After we got back from our trip to Germany, I did something that hubby said I shouldn't do. I knew he was annoyed, but more than that, because I now understood him a lot more, I could sense that he felt upset because I had disrespected him. I could feel him withdrawing and I knew that if I didn't make amends, we would lose the lovely rapport we had been enjoying in the past few weeks.

So as soon as I had the opportunity, I apologised to him and I made sure I used the words "I'm sorry I disrespected you" when I was speaking. As soon I said it, I could literally see the tension between us evaporate! I knew then, that the word "respect" truly resonates with a man in the way it doesn't resonate with a woman. That was all he needed to hear and I promise you, now that I know I will never let go of that precious knowledge!

Okay, so my experiment went very well, praise the Lord! Of course I have only talked about half of the book. Apart from respect, it also focuses on what husbands have to do to show love to their wives. So I'm going to recommend that hubby reads the book too, hopefully we can read it together and discuss the ideas in it so that we get the full benefits of the topics discussed. And I would recommend it to everyone reading my blog as well. Respect and Submission are not politically correct topics nowadays and I would not have believed it for myself if I hadn't seen that it works! So I would encourage you ladies, to try it out for yourself and see how such a simple thing can transform your relationship. I am not perfect at it yet, because I am only human, but I will continue to practice respect and by God's grace, continue to reap the rewards!

Helpful Links:

Buy the Love and Respect book from Amazon

Click here for the Love and Respect Website

Stay blessed and favoured

R-E-S-P-E-C-T

2009-08-19T19:46:00.000+01:00

It's been a while! Sorry if it seems like I abandoned this blog for so long. I'm just constantly juggling many things on my plate.

Hubby and I recently celebrated our fourth wedding anniversary! I thank God for my journey beyond the aisle, I've grown so much, learnt a lot, matured a lot and gained wisdom in the past four years. And I'm still learning something everyday. I'm so full of joy and I'm looking forward to spending the rest of my life with hubby cos it's shaping up to be a great adventure! (The beauty of walking with God is that He is present in every area of your life, so you can be sure He will guide you in every step of the way).

Okay, on to the topic of today: RESPECT. For our anniversary present, my sister gave us this book: Love and Respect by Emerson Eggerichs and told us it was highly recommended reading for married couples. So a few days later, I thought I should glance through it to see if it was any good. And wow! Before I knew it I had read the whole book from cover to cover. And I can definitely say that it opened my eyes in a way that I hadn't imagined before.

Basically the book is based on the premise of this scripture in Ephesians 5 v 22 - 33 where Paul was talking to married couples in the church. The main focus is on verse 33 where Paul said: "However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband." The author talks about why Paul had to ask husbands to love their wives and wives to respect their husbands. Shouldn't love and respect come naturally to us? The answer is: not really. Let's face it, it's quite easy to take someone for granted and stop appreciating them when they are no longer new to you. Soon, a crazy cycle develops in the relationship where wives don't feel loved, so they stop respecting their husbands, and husbands don't feel respected so they stop showing their wives love! This vicious cycle goes on and on until someone consciously breaks the cycle by stepping up and deciding to sow what the other person really needs.

The major eye-opener for me in the book was how much men desire respect from their wives. I remember during our marriage prep classes, I was told over and over again, the importance of respect and submission. Even on our wedding day, the preacher mentioned it again that respect way the way to get my husband to love me more. But somehow it didn't really click to me how and why respect was such a big deal to men. I used to wonder why, how come when the guy was toasting me back in the day, respect was not an issue, but once we get married it becomes an important ingredient. Now I know it's much more important to men than it is to women.

According to the book, men derive their sense of value from how much people (especially their spouse) shows them respect. Showing a man respect conveys the message that you cherish him, value him, honour him and esteem him above everything else. Paul gave that command to the church because women need love from their husbands just as much as men need respect from their wives. When a woman receives love from her husband, she is happy and she will do anything to please him. In the same way, when a man receives respect from his wife, he is happy and he will do anything to please her. And it flows in a circle, if a woman respects her husband unconditionally, her husband will love her too unconditionally. Note that Paul did not command women to love their husbands. He knew that it is easy for a woman to love a man, but it is a lot harder to show him respect. In fact, a woman can be so loving to her husband, that she does not realise she is being disrespectful to him!

That's all well and good, in theory. In reality, things can be a bit more complicated. I think there is a basic fear in me (and most wives) that men might take advantage of this principle of submission and respect. We worry: if I submit and respect this man unconditionally, will he not abuse that power? If he knows that I will not argue with him, will he not see that as an opportunity to bully me? Will he not start looking down on me? Can I completely trust him to make wise decisions if I allow him to always have the final say? Will I not lose some of my personality and turn into a weakling who doesn't have a mind of her own? And by the way nowadays is there not a notion of 50-50 and we are both equal before God? The bible and some chapters of the book provided my answers. In a Christian marriage wives are called to submit to their husbands as unto the Lord, trusting God to guide the man to lead wisely. And men are called to love their wives as Christ loves the church. Men have a far greater responsibility to provide, protect and even die for their wives if need be. Wives just have to submit to their headship and respect them in return. If wives can take the first step of submitting, we can win over our husbands without a struggle. You can get what you want (love) by giving him what he wants (respect).

As I read, I thought to myself a few times: have I been unknowingly disrespectful to hubby? I would have rated myself as quite a respectful wife because I don't think I'm rude to anybody, talk less of my husband. I recognise him as the head of our home, even though we don't always agree on everything. So how can I be even more respectful? Perhaps I just wasn't showing it enough? Thankfully there were illustrations in the book that I could relate to and adapt. For example, I could be unaware that my facial expressions and tone of voice when I'm talking to him is disrespectful, even when I don't mean to be. I can be dismissive of his requests and opinions sometimes, and if he doesn't complain, I don't take them seriously. I can choose to ignore his advice and do things my own way, but expect him to bail me out when I get into trouble. Perhaps I'm too quick to judge when he does something I feel is out of line. Or I can be well-meaning in my quest to correct him when we disagree, but it comes across as harsh criticism, etc etc. (There are many more subtle or subconscious ways women disrespect their husbands but these are some I recognised in myself).

By the time I finished reading the book, I thought it was very eye-opening and I was inclined to try out some of the advice in it, but I was still not too sure if it was true how men felt about respect. So I decided to ask a friend of mine some questions. He is the most laid-back guy I know, who would never try to bully his partner. So I figured that if the respect thing works for him, then it could work for every guy. I told him about the book I had just read and asked him if it was true that men desired respect a lot more than love. Surprisingly he said yes! He explained that most men feel that they he can get love from almost any woman if they say and do the right things she wants. But a man knows that not every woman can respect him, so he is particularly drawn to the woman who shows him the most respect. (I was quite shocked at this, to be honest!). I also asked him if a man had to choose between love and respect, which one would he go for: and he said he would definitely choose respect all the way. It doesn't mean love is not important to a man, but men tend to take a woman's love for granted once they are married (cos after all, she must have loved him to agree to marry him), but he cannot take respect for granted.

After that interesting conversation, I decided to take the plunge and go the extra mile to show my husband respect. I figured, I didn't have anything to lose - if it works, great and if it doesn't, I will discard the book, no harm done. So I took on one of the recommended steps for wives in the book, which is - ask yourself before you take any action: is what I'm about to say or do going to come across as disrespectful to my husband?

I tried this for three weeks and I was thrilled at the results! Will continue this gist in my next post.

PS: I would like to ask any guys reading this post to please add their views and comments. Is respect really at the top of the list of what men want?

Mr and Mrs Imperfect

2009-06-07T23:53:00.003+01:00

This post was inspired by a conversation I had with GNG some weeks ago. We were talking about relationships and accepting imperfections in your partner and she suggested I should do a post about that. So here goes:

When we are single and thinking about the attributes we would like in our future partner, most of us think about the desirable things we would like. For example, we could say we want a man that is God-fearing, caring, patient, hardworking, honest, family-oriented, intelligent, etc. This is great and there is nothing wrong with setting a high standard for one's choice of future spouse. After all you are going to spend the rest of your life with this person, and you have to love them, and be proud to show them off to family and friends.

However, many of us forget that no matter how great a guy is, he will definitely come with his faults, weaknesses and imperfections. Just as in the same way, no woman is perfect and the guy too would have to deal with an imperfect wife. We don't often think about these things until we are confronted with them. I am often amused when I come across wedding websites and I read about the couple's glowing remarks about each other. Of course they both talk about the great characteristics of the other person and present them in the best possible light. Still, I know that even the happiest couples have to deal with each other's "shortcomings".

Now, please note that I am not talking about obvious major deal-breakers here. If a man totally compromises your principles on major stuff like pre-marital sex, religion, honesty, physical violence, integrity, fidelity, alcohol and substance abuse, etc, then that is a completely different issue and it is best if you try to spot those issues VERY early on, before you get into a serious relationship with him. It would certainly not be worth the heartache to start dealing with the consequences when things go wrong as a result of things that you are totally not comfortable with.

What I'm talking about are those "little" things that we would like to change in our partner but it's not really up to us if they can change. It could be things like: he doesn't know how to share his deepest feelings with you, or he doesn't like to be the first to say sorry after an argument, or perhaps he's a complete introvert and your friends think he is anti social. Maybe it's the opposite and he's so friendly and social that you feel his life is too crowded. Perhaps you like to receive gifts often and he's just not the gift-giving type. Or maybe it's something as silly as: he totally abhors any kind of physical contact when you are in public. (I know a friend of mine that said she would like to hold her fiance's hand when they are out together but he doesn't like it! But apart from that, she's totally fine with him).

These are things that don't mean he is a bad guy, and they could stem from many things, either the way he has been brought up, his experiences in his previous relationships, things he observed in other people's relationships and many other things that could have shaped his views. The same thing goes for you as the lady. You are a great person no doubt, but you have also been shaped by many factors that make up the totality of who you are.

I read somewhere that the 80:20 principle comes into play here. Since nobody is perfect, you are never going to find somebody that is 100 percent good 100 percent of the time. (Only God is good all the time!) So the rule is that you are most likely to meet someone that ticks 80 percent of the criteria on your list. If you fall in love with that person, you then have to deal with the remaining 20 percent that is missing. It could also mean that you two are perfect for each other, 80 percent of the time.

Now imagine that you have found the man of your dreams and he is everything a girl could ever wish for. He is God-fearing, generous, intelligent, well educated, considerate, an excellent cook, got a great sense of humour and good looking to boot. But he has a few minor flaws, he's a bit of a workaholic and he chews his food really noisily, so how do you deal with it? Especially once you get married and you are confronted with these issues over and over again? (I would like to hear your answers please!)

Let me give you a personal example. Hubby is the best man in the world (yep!) but he doesn't usually compliment me on how I look. It used to annoy me a lot before, especially when I make an extra effort to look fab and he says nothing. But when we are out, I get compliments from everyone else and I wonder if he just doesn't notice. I brought it up one day in conversation and he said he would try to give me compliments more often. I can't say he does it a lot now, but oh well *shrugs*. I've learnt to ignore it and compliment myself when I look in the mirror. I've also had to learn how to receive compliments from other people without holding it against hubby. Hopefully one day he'll change, if I'm patient enough but what if he doesn't? I can't do anything about it, that's something I've come to accept. In the meantime, I know for sure that he's having to cope with my own flaws too. I'm not the most organised person in the world, and he has to work around that. I'm not likely to change into Martha Stewart anytime soon!

L - Listen
O - Overlook
V - Value
E - Encourage

(I'm guessing overlooking imperfections is a major part of love!)

Have a great week!

Date Ideas for Couples

2009-04-10T02:40:00.002+01:00

It's the long Easter weekend! While we remember and celebrate the death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, we should also remember the message of sacrifice and love behind it. And remember to integrate them into our daily lives.

Last week, hubby and I were having a discussion on how we spend our "quality time" together. He had been very busy lately with his work, and as a result we were spending less time together as a couple. Also, even when we had some time together, we had more or less gotten into a rut, doing the same things over and over again. Not good, I thought. So I went to look for some more ideas to give us a breath of fresh air. I found a few on the internet and I'm happy to share them with you guys!

So on that note, if you are blessed to have the whole Easter break to spend with your significant other, and you are struggling to think of what to do, here are some inexpensive date ideas for you.

STAYING IN

Cook a low budget meal together. If you choose dishes and ingredients wisely, it costs a lot less than going out to dinner. In addition, the act of cooking together will add romance and creativity to the night.

Have a board game night at your home. Monopoly is always a favourite, or you can try a new one. The winner gets a "prize" that you predetermine.

Have a sensual evening. Soak in the bathtub, and take turns giving each other massages afterwards.

Put on a CD of your favourite music and dance in your living room. Or you can make your own compilations, choose a nice mix so that you can have a funky dance and well as a slow, romantic one.

Set up a scavenger hunt for your love around your house. Give them clues to where you have hidden a small gift for them.

Bake a huge chocolate chip cookie and put a romantic message on it with icing, like "I'm sweet on you" or "You're my sweetie." Then have fun eating your treat!

Have a dinner at home where all the food and decorations are the same color. That should get your creative and digestive juices going.

Read the Guinness Book of World Records together, and find something the two of you could potentially achieve as a couple.

Have a movie night in, challenging each other to bring a flick within the allotted theme of the night – such as worst movie of all time or the best classic you’ve never heard of. You could even go so far as to make a weekend out of it and create your own personal Oscars screening or private themed film festival.

Write a poem or compose a song together.

Gather some information on a skill you always wanted to learn and spend a day practicing it together. It could be a day of learning card tricks or learning how to juggle. Any skill you have always wanted to try can make a fun and interesting date.

Make life lists together. This activity is fun in and of itself but it lets you brainstorm ideas for future low-cost dates. You’ll get to know yourselves and each other better and you’ll get new ideas for things to do together in the months to come.

GOING OUT

Take dancing lessons together. It could be salsa, swing dancing or any other, and it is a lot of fun. Frequently you can get a discount for couples. In addition, you learn something new together and have a new skill you can employ on future date nights!

The park is a great place for good dates. Alternatively, spend some time playing around on the playground for a nostalgic good time.

Go to an amusement park together or with a group of friends. It is exciting and you’ll really feel the rush of adrenaline.

Concerts are expensive but there are many small venues that have live music for free. Find the places in your area that offer this because it makes for a great low-cost date.

Spend a day together at the beach. It is a low-cost date and a good way to find out about the other person. You can snorkel and explore sea life, collect sea shells and driftwood, go for a swim, or have a rock skipping contest.

Coffee shops and bars around the nation host weekly open mic poetry nights that are fun to attend. Be a good date and write a love poem to read to the person that you’re taking to this event.

Get active. Exercise is good for your body and it gives you those good feelings. Go for activities like swimming, jogging, hiking, and cycling together.

Skip the big dinner out and just get dessert, coffee or ice cream and happy hour dates.

Go to the theatre and see a play. You can always get better seats if you ring up in advance and tell them it's a first date, or even better, tell them you are on your honey moon.

Go ice-skating together. This is a great date idea, especially if you are both beginners.

If you both are avid readers, go to a book signing, attend a poetry or book reading together. Most of these events are free, and you’ll learn something new to discuss over coffee later.

Take a class together of any kind. E.g. cooking, painting, crafts, music, ceramics etc.

Take your camera and pretend you are professional photographers. Make a day out of taking photos together. Make a theme for the day if you want or just take any crazy photo that comes to mind. Once finished create a memory album together for the day that will live on forever.

Go bowling together. You don't have to be good at bowling (or any sport) to have fun with your sweetheart doing it.

Go on a tour of a local industry. There are plenty of great tours to suit just about anyone, from wine and cheese tasting to chocolate making and of course, eating!

Go to a roof top or revolving restaurant. Eating outdoors always makes things more memorable, just remember to make a booking first.

If you know how to ride a motorbike, take your date for a ride somewhere scenic or at night time in the city.

Go to your local jazz club and relax. Everyone loves jazz.

Go to the zoo. Most zoo's have nigh time exhibits or exhibits out of the norm for people to see.

Go canoeing and have a picnic lunch somewhere, by the waterfront or park. Find out what your date likes to eat and bring all their favourite foods.

Go window shopping in a trendy part of town, just don't buy anything expensive!

Go for a bike ride (get a bike built for two for something special).

Go on a "progressive dinner" date (Starters at one place, dinner at another, and dessert at still another place.)

Go to Starbucks, grab a latte and have a conversation. Take a pack of cards with you for added fun. One of the best date ideas there is.

Dress up all fancy and go to a play, opera, symphony or just a nice place for dinner. Alternatively, you could go to a photo studio to have your pictures taken. Then you can choose the best prints.

Hope these ideas would get us excited about holidays and times that we spend together with our spouse. It's important to remember to create time for each other to reconnect often, after the busyness and routines of our daily lives.

Have a wonderful Easter, try not to overdose on the hot cross buns and chocolate eggs!

FG

Resolving Conflicts - Understanding Differences

2009-03-21T23:58:00.000Z

The beginning of a new relationship is often fun and exciting. When you are just getting to know someone, everything is fresh and exciting. You tolerate each other and you may even enjoy hearing another point of view. You often notice how much you and the person have in common. You both seem so compatible, it's unreal.

However, as you settle into a long-term relationship, it's often surprising how quickly differences in our personalities seem to appear from nowhere. Or the very things that attracted us to the other person suddenly become annoying. Sometimes this can lead to conflict and resentment builds up in the relationship and we wonder how we were attracted to the person in the first place.

This was certainly true for my relationship with hubby. In the beginning, I was amazed at how much we had in common, how we would often agree on opinions and personal convictions, how our life goals seemed to match perfectly and so on. It was much later that I noticed that we are actually very different people in some areas, and the way we see things can also be very different too.

Fortunately, the differences in our personalities can be a good thing. I've realised that in marriage, we don't need a clone of ourselves, we need two different sides of the coin. Our relationships will become boring if the other person just agreed with everything we say and do all the time. Furthermore, since I am not perfect and I have flaws, it means I need someone who complements me so that he can help me with the areas I struggle with. That's why people say opposites attract - we instinctively get drawn to somebody who has the strengths where we have the weaknesses and vice-versa.

In order to deal with the differences between us, we first need to realise that we cannot change someone else, no matter what we do. We can nag, grumble, shout or complain all the time, but ultimately we can only change ourselves. In trying to get someone else to take your point of view, we risk missing the point. I have had to remind myself many times that hubby is not me, he will never be me and I cannot get him to change unless he really wants to.

I read this quote somewhere:

"A relationship will not work if we try to force someone into our way of thinking. Making a marriage work is not about resenting or tolerating your partner's differences. It's about treasuring them"

There are many areas where couples find that they have different personalities and views. For example: Spending vs Saving, Introvert vs Extrovert, Early Bird vs Night Owl, Prefer Going Out vs Prefer Staying In, Neat vs Messy, Logical vs Intuitive etc. This is by no means an exhaustive list since every one is different, so every relationship is unique.

I'll talk about three issues that I have realised the differences between hubby and I, but there are lots more. It's up to every couple to figure out what their differences are, and work out how to resolve them. As usual, communication is key, and it goes a long way in resolving many issues.

Money: I've heard so often that money is usually one of the main areas of conflict in marriages. This could stem from the different ways we approach money - do we spend it or save it? If one person is naturally a spender, it means they are better at buying things and allocating money to match their needs. If one person is naturally a saver, it means they are better at budgeting and saving for the future and they hesitate to spend money unless they really need to. Now in most marriages, each person will be one or the other. Conflicts can arise when one person assumes that their approach is better than the other's, when in truth, we need both approaches to get a better, and more balanced view of our money.
I'm more of a spender and hubby is a saver, and we used to have arguments about money, but after a while, we realised that both skills are equally useful. I'm better at shopping for groceries and things we need around the house, buying gifts for friends and family and planning our leisure times. Hubby is better at making an budget and balancing our spending versus savings. Utilising both skills means that we can embrace our strengths and work better together.

Structure: Naturally, I'm laid back while hubby is a planner. For example, he plans everything ahead of time, he knows what he will be doing everyday for the next few days, weeks and even months! I'm a go-with-the-flow person so I often don't have my exact days planned out according to a schedule. We used to have disagreements on this matter a lot, for example when we are planning a holiday. Because neither approach is perfect, we have had to adjust to each other. I used to resent it before, but now I realise he is helping me to be better organised, while I help him to be more flexible and adaptable if things don't go according to plan.

Leisure Time: When we are not working and want to take some time out of our routines, have a date, or chill out, we have to decide on what to do. I like going out while hubby prefers staying in. I might suggest we should see a movie, have dinner out, go for a walk, a concert or anything - as long as we get out of the house. Hubby might suggest that we should rent a movie instead, play a board game or have a romantic meal for two at home. Sometimes I find that I practically have to drag him out, but he ended up enjoying the outing. Or sometimes he convinces me that we should stay in and we ended up having a cosy evening at home. We both have to make allowances for each other's preferences so that we enjoy trying something new that we may never have considered doing.

As with most things in relationships, understanding each other requires tons of communication, patience and a willingness to coompromise. But the benefits are great: we complement each other instead of fighting, and we develop greater intimacy. That's well worth it!

As always, stay blessed and favoured!

~ Tolerance and celebration of individual differences is the fire that fuels lasting love ~ Tom Hannah

.

Resolving Conflicts - How to Fight Fair

2009-02-28T23:56:00.002Z

Here's a quote I read in a book once:

"Speak when you are angry and you will make the best speech you will ever regret"

No matter how wonderful a relationship is, and in marriage especially, there will inevitably be conflicts. Arguments, disagreements, miscommunication and unmet expectations are inevitable, because marriage brings two totally different people together. We have different backgrounds, different personalities, desires, views, priorities and different opinions. We do need to keep in mind though, that conflicts are not necessarily destructive, in fact they are potentially beneficial, because understanding and intimacy can grow if we resolve conflicts fairly. Hubby and I rarely have major battles on our hands, but once in a while, minor conflicts arise and I'm learning how to deal with them.

Hubby and I have had situations where a simple case of miscommunication leads to an argument. Then I am upset or angry and I feel I have to confront the issue otherwise there will be tension between us for ages. I've learnt that I can either attack the issue, ignore it and hope it will go away or try to discuss and negotiate. Of course the first two options are not ideal. Attacking the other person usually becomes counter-productive because they become defensive and unwilling to give up their position especially if they feel they are equally right too. On the other hand, if I choose to ignore it, resentment builds up and I'll probably explode at some point over a minor issue totally unrelated to the first one. So the best way to resolve a conflict is to bring it out into the open, be willing to express myself without judging or accusing hubby and making an effort to listen to his point of view. It helps too, if we talk without raising our voices because that helps us to really put thought into the words we speak. I've realised that yelling in anger does nothing except to further inflame an argument.

Then there's the issue of timing. There is no "perfect" time to air a grievance or start a difficult conversation. But if I really need to talk to hubby about something that has upset me, I should think about the ideal time to bring it up. Usually that is when both of us are calm and quite rational, not in a hurry, not too tired to listen or getting ready to go out. Sometimes it's better to let the issue rest for a day or so and talk about it after we've both had time to reflect on what went wrong. That helps us to understand where the other person is coming from.

Here's another quote:

In marriage, there are two phrases you must avoid at all costs: "you always" and "you never"

Why is that? Because once you start a discussion with either of those two phrases, you are automatically accusing the other party of some failure on their part. And it means we have stopped attacking the issue, instead we are now attacking the person. Imagine hearing stuff like this all the time:

"You never help me around the house"
"You are always grumbling about your job"
"You never spend quality time with me"

"You always come home late"

It doesn't mean there is no truth in these statements, but it has been distorted and exaggerated. It's better to express those feelings in a more productive and less accusatory way for example:

"I would really appreciate it if you helped me around the house a bit more"
"It upsets me to know that you are very unhappy about your job"
"I miss spending quality time with you, let's set aside some time to reconnect"
"I feel frustrated when you arrive home late. Would you please call me to let me know if you are going to be held up?"

This way, you are not attacking them, just honestly expressing your feelings about something. Also without the accusatory tone, the second set of statements make it easier for the other person to respond positively and try to find a solution. And ultimately that's what resolving conflicts should be about: working together to find solutions to issues we have to deal with.

That sums up the topic I want to discuss in this post and my next one. I won't claim that I have fully grasped the concept of resolving conflicts amicably all the time. What I will say is that I've noticed that when hubby and I have misunderstandings, I am calmer and more able to resolve things peacefully after I have prayed and asked God for wisdom. Sometimes God makes me realise that I can't hold grudges against hubby indefinitely. Sometimes God helps me to see things from a different perspective, so that I understand that things can't always go my way. And sometimes God gives me the courage to admit that I'm wrong and I need to change a particular flaw in my character. More about this topic in my next post!

As always, stay blessed and favoured.

A Valentine's Day Poem

2009-02-14T02:35:00.001Z

ALL OVER AGAIN

Last night I fell in love with you
All over again,
More deeply in love,
Than ever before.
No one has ever expressed their love for me
With such beautiful and kind words.

Last night I fell in love with you
All over again,
With such stronger faith
Than ever before.
Knowing that you will always be there for me
When dark shadows enter my life.

Last night I fell in love with you
All over again
With a stronger friendship
Than ever before
When ever I need a tender shoulder to cry on
I know you will wipe away the tears

Last night I fell in love with you
All over again
With more respect
Than ever before
I look up to you and admire your strength
In turn you have strengthen me

Last I fell in love with you
All over again
With such care
Than ever before
Now I truly believe how much you care for me
You have given me life.

Last night I fell in love with you
All over again
With more happiness
Than ever before
You have brought back to me smiles and laughter
Through your loving eyes.

Last night I fell in love with you
All over again
With more love
Than ever before
For the first time in a long time
I have really felt love.

Author: Cheryl Hornbeck

Lessons From Time Apart

2009-02-07T08:40:00.000Z

I was in Lagos this past Christmas break for three weeks. I went with my sisters and it was one big, happy family reunion. It was so much fun - an escape from the freezing weather in the UK , time spent with family and friends, weddings and parties to attend, reunions and get-togethers and lots of other cool activities. The only thing missing was that I wanted Mr to come with me, but he couldn't make it due to work commitments. We did try to stay in touch by phone everyday though.

Spending time apart wasn't bad though. I learnt a thing or two about my relationship with hubby while we were apart. I had a few hilarious reactions and experiences with people I met in Nigeria. Family and friends who knew I was married would ask: "Where is Mr?", "Why is he not here?", "How could you leave your husband alone in the cold to enjoy yourself in Lagos?" etc etc. But the funniest reactions I got were from people I was meeting for the first time.

The day after I arrived, I went to a party with my very good friend. Her friend was hosting a get-together and she didn't want to go alone so I tagged along with her. I didn't know anyone there, so I left her to make all the introductions. After some time, a guy came to talk to me. He seemed interesting and he was quite good looking and we were having a good conversation. When I told him I was married, and he did a double take and looked at my left hand. Then the started asking me questions like: "What, you're married?", "Are you sure?" ,"Where is your husband?", "How long have you been married?", "How come your husband let you travel on your own?". Then he also made comments like: "If I had a wife like you, I won't let her out of my sight". And my personal favourite: "You don't look married". I found these comments hilarious. I often don't know how to react when people say I don't look married. I wonder, how do married people look? Is there supposed to be a sign on my forehead to show that I am married?

Anyway we continued talking and then I suddenly realised something. I was enjoying the gist because it was a "getting to know you" conversation. You know the kind of conversation you have with someone you have just recently met, when you are keen to know how this person thinks, what they like and dislike, what they do, where they are coming from, etc. When it was time for us to leave the party, the guy was very reluctant to let me go, he kept asking for my number and arranging another meeting. I had no intention of calling or seeing him again in the future so I mumbled some stories and scampered off!

But later on I reflected on that meeting. I hadn't realised I was missing something in my relationship with hubby and that was the "newness". We have been together for almost seven years - that's including our dating years. I realised it had become easy for us to take each other for granted. So I determined that when I got back, I would put an effort into really getting to know him again - take him on a date or a holiday and "toast" him all over again. I don't think we can fully capture the freshness of a new meeting but we can take a step back and appreciate each other through new eyes.

About a week later, I went to another party with my friend again and when we got there, she introduced me a group of guys and one of them promptly attached himself to me. He was really nice, friendly and welcoming, offering to get me something to eat and drink. At first I thought he was being nice and hospitable so I didn't think much of it. As time went on, we got talking and I found out he was married too, but his wife was not at the party. I whispered to my friend that he's a bit of a flirt and she said he was only joking so I played along, chatting with him and allowing him to call me "his new girlfriend". He was funny and interesting to talk to at first. Things started taking a different turn when he started paying me suspicious compliments, saying he wishes he had met me before my husband, my name rhymes much better with his own surname and would I consider leaving Mr and marrying him instead. I asked him about his wife, and he was rather dismissive so I thought to myself, I think I better stop talking to this guy so he doesn't get the wrong message (I had heard enough stories about guys in Nigeria preferring to sleep with married girls nowadays because apparently they would not be bugging them for a serious commitment!). But the attention he was paying me was rather flattering on some level so I didn't say anything.

However I knew I was in trouble when we were dancing and he started getting too close for my comfort. Then he started asking for my UK mobile number! I snapped out of my daydream at once. What was he thinking? Like I would really give him my number and start carrying out a long-distance affair or something? Besides he is married too, so what about his own wife? I was so glad when my friend decided it was time to leave the party and I could escape. Imagine people present there thinking I was some kind of husband snatcher or worse!
Thinking about it later, I felt I didn't do anything wrong but perhaps I should have made it clear to him from the start instead of encouraging his advances. I learnt that I shouldn't let my guard down when I'm not with hubby. It may seem a bit extreme but it can prevent a whole lot of heart ache later.

On a funny note though, I reflected on how easy it would have been for someone in my shoes to have an affair in Lagos within such a short trip. And this is just a tip of the iceberg. Once I was accosted by a Lebanese guy in Shoprite.....

May God help all of us to keep our promises to Him and to our spouse.

Have a great weekend!

Happy 2009!

2009-01-01T22:30:00.005Z

Happy New Year folks! I pray that 2009 will be a wonderful year for everyone. I pray you achieve your dreams and goals for the year, I pray that you will be in wonderful health throughout the year, I pray for success, peace and above all, I pray that each of us draws closer to God and His purpose for our lives this year. Amen!

Thanks for being wonderful readers of my blog in 2008. I know I didn't update as often as I should have, naughty me. Thanks for your lovely comments and to my silent readers, I still appreciate you!

I've been away from this blog for a while and for that I apologise. I have been in Nigeria for the last three weeks. I didn't get a chance to come online often so I didn't update any of my blogs in that time. I just returned yesterday so I'll get round to sorting myself out and back on my regular routines. In the meantime, I wish you a blessed month of January 2009!

Me, You and Him

2008-11-27T20:31:00.000Z

Adjusting to married life was a very interesting process in more ways than one. Sometimes I found myself wondering if every newly-wed couple had to go through the same process of adjusting like we did. And I wished someone could have told me what exactly to expect, so that I would feel like I was better prepared. You know how you ask your friends who recently got married, "So how is married life?" and they just say "It's fine, it's wonderful!". You wish they would say more, but you don't know how to ask. The truth is though, that no matter how much people tell you before, you have to experience some things for yourself. Here's an example of something I wish somebody told me earlier.

In my last three years as a single girl, I had developed a close relationship with God. I used to worship, pray and read my bible every day without fail. I enjoyed spending time in my Heavenly Father's presence as much as I could. I could pour out my heart to my God anytime and He always answered me. I always felt that I was God's special daughter and nothing could take away that wonderful relationship from me. God's love and His presence was always around me. My heavenly father was a big guiding factor in everything I did because I always made sure I consulted Him before making any big decisions. He was the main "man" in my life and my world revolved around Him.

A few months after I finished my Masters degree and moved back home, I suddenly noticed something odd. Something was definitely different in my Christian life, God was out! I had gotten so excited about having a new permanent man in my life that I had edged God out and didn't crave His presence anymore. In the middle of adjusting to married life, having a husband and becoming a wife, my heavenly Father had taken a back seat! My time, my focus and my mind was now filled with thoughts of my husband 24/7 that I didn't have time for God anymore. In essence, I had replaced God with hubby. At first I was slightly worried but I didn't know what to do. I didn't think I had done it on purpose, it just happened that way..... I didn't know whether to feel guilty about it or not..... I didn't know whether this was quite a normal thing to happen to other newlywed brides...... I didn't know whether it was just me getting carried away with my new status. So I didn't do anything, I didn't even discuss it with hubby.

As time went on though, I began to question myself. Why have I replaced God with my husband? Isn't that dangerous? Hubby might be a good man and all, but really nobody can and should take the place of God in my life. I couldn't even pray any more because I had lost the urge to! So I started fretting and making myself confused and worried. Until one day I decided to call my pastor's wife to ask her if she had experienced the same thing when she first got married. I hoped she would then be able to give me some advice. When I called the pastor, I asked to speak to his wife but she was not around. He could tell I was distressed about something so he asked what the matter was. I told him everything I had been feeling and surprisingly he laughed! He said it was alright and God understands, and He was not angry with me for working on bonding with my husband. He also said that the fact that I'm worried about it shows that I am missing something, so I should just relax and allow myself to slowly get back in tune with God.

It was such a relief to hear that! Afterwards I went to pray and it was something along the lines of: "Lord please help me, it's no more just me and You, it's now Me, You and Him so I need Your wisdom to guide me so I can balance having both of you in my life".

About a week later, I was chatting online to a friend of mine from uni and she asked me how married life was going. I told her what I had recently prayed about. To my surprise she said that in her fellowship group, there was a newly-wed lady who recently shared with them about going through the exact same thing! The lady said that she also felt guilty for spending all her time with her husband and not enough time with God anymore! I was really glad to hear this. I felt like it was God's way of telling me that I'm not alone and it's quite normal!

Thankfully with time, prayers and patience I got back in touch with God and I've been able to balance both relationships. God now has His rightful place in my life, and hubby has his right place in my life too. Hubby and I now have our separate quiet time with God, and then have our couple time with God together. It makes me wonder though, how much adjusting I would have to do when children come into the relationship and I have to divide my time, attention and focus even more.

Theory and Practical (2)

2008-10-03T05:19:00.000+01:00

Hi everyone! I finally got round to posting this second part. I had been a bit down with a cold last week, but I'm fine now. Anyway, as I was saying in my last post, there is a big difference between knowing what to do and actually doing it. Sometimes I would do, or not do something I know is right and then have to evaluate my behaviour afterwards. I'll continue with the good but sometimes difficult things I struggle with putting into practice.

Patience: We all know patience is a virtue and one that every relationship requires. If you had asked me a few years ago, I would have said I see myself as a very patient person. But now I'm discovering I'm not! It was quite a shock to admit this at first, but now I'm realising I need more and more patience everyday. In fact, recently I had an argument with my sister and afterwards I realised that I should have been more patient to hear her point of view before jumping into conclusions. The same thing in my marriage, I'm figuring out that need lots of patience when arguments happen, when I'm grumpy and hubby asks me to do something, or when things are not going my way. I also need to be patient with other people's faults, including myself. We all make mistakes and nobody gets it right all the time, so I'm learning not to over-react when somebody gets on my nerves.

Forgiveness: Here's the deal, we all know we can't have healthy, happy relationships without forgiveness. Best friends, siblings, married couples, etc have arguments. We are all human and sometimes we unknowingly hurt or annoy someone close to us. Sometimes though, when the other party says "I'm sorry" you don't feel like forgiving them immediately. I know this is bad, but sometimes I hold on to my anger and keep punishing hubby for something he has apologised for. I know it's not fair on him but the idea of him saying he's sorry over and over again is tempting. But one day the tables turned on me: I was apologising for something and he wasn't minding me much. Then I said in frustration, "I've said I'm sorry, what more do you want me to do?" and that was when it clicked to me that I do the same thing to him too. When someone genuinely apologises, the best thing I can do is to forgive quickly, even though I may not feel like it at that particular moment. I've learnt that I need to make the choice first and then let my feelings catch up later. Now I'm also learning to put things behind me once a matter is resolved, so that our relationship can return to a peaceful state quickly.

Appreciation: I've heard that one of the things that couples argue about is the fact that their partner stops appreciating them for who they are and what they do, and instead starts taking things for granted. I've been guilty of this too - one time I was grumpy about something I wanted and hubby had not yet gotten round to responding. Then my former boss said to me, "FG, you've got to appreciate the people in your life who don't let you down". It made me think that perhaps I had stopped appreciating my family and good friends, including my husband who has been nothing but good to me since I met him. I had started taking him and our relationship for granted. I thought about it some more and I realised how easy it is to fall into that trap. I shouldn't take it for granted that he's been a faithful husband - I should appreciate it. I shouldn't take it for granted that he provides for the family - I should appreciate the fact that he's a responsible man. So what if he doesn't take out the trash more often - I should appreciate it when he does. It can be hard to put into practice though, especially if you have certain expectations that you feel your spouse falls short of. But I'm learning to appreciate him more and more for who he is and what he brings to our relationship, instead of focusing on what he's not doing. I'm asking God to help me, when I need reminders on what I have been blessed with.

That's all I can think for now, I hope you'll bear with me. I've been quite busy but I promise I won't be too long before I write my next post!

As always, stay blessed and favoured!

Theory and Practical (1)

2008-09-06T08:01:00.000+01:00

As a single girl with a desire to be in a good marriage in future, I set about preparing myself to that reality. I read a lot of books on christian relationships and marriage. I prayed for God to make me a better person everyday. I listened to quite a few discussions and teachings on marriage. I attended quite a number of relationship seminars. I observed a lot of married people around me and took note of what I wanted to emulate and what I wanted to eliminate. Then finally, hubby and I participated in a marriage preparation course. So I would say in terms of theoretical knowledge, I was definitely well prepared for marriage. I mean, how much more preparation does one need?

However, I think we can all agree that knowing something is one thing, but putting it into practice is quite another. I'm sure many of us know the benefits of eating a healthy balanced diet, having regular exercise, making time for daily praise worship and bible study, etc. But in reality we still struggle to put these things into practice. The same thing applies to relationships. I knew what marriage requires, but it wasn't until I was actually in it, that I had to start practicing them. So I'm going to talk about a few of those things that are essential in any relationship, but I sometimes struggle to practice.

Submission: I've talked about this subject before (here) when it first came to my attention as a single person. I read books about it, asked other people questions and thought I knew what it was all about. But getting into marriage, I was now faced with the reality of living it. And here is where things really become interesting, knowing that this man is now my husband, and he now has legitimate authority in our home. Several times, we have been discussing an issue and it seems like he has made his mind up while I am trying to convince him to take on my view. It takes a lot to know when to back down and accept hubby's decision. Sometimes I can get him to see my point of view and then we both agree on the way forward. Yet, sometimes I feel with every single bone in my body that I am right, but he disagrees and I have to accept his final decision. We have had situations where hubby and I couldn't reach an agreement over something and then later, I feel the Holy Spirit convincing me to go along with my husband's decision. And I've found that when I do, everything usually works out better than I could have planned it. It takes a lot of getting used to, and I'm still not sure I've fully grasped the hang of it, but God is helping me. It has made me think that God put the man as the head of the home to make the tough decisions, so really when I submit graciously, it takes the pressure off me. It still takes a lot of grace and practice, but to have peace in your marriage, I recommend following the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

Compromise: In relationships, there are two people coming together from different backgrounds, with different opinions, different values and different ways of doing things. Sometimes there is no right or wrong way to do something, we just have a preference for the way we are used to. For example, I hate waiting for ages at train stations and airports so I prefer to arrive very close to the scheduled departure time and board immediately. Hubby likes to leave enough time beforehand and arrive early, in case there is a delay on the way. Now, I find that I get irritated waiting for thirty minutes doing nothing, and he gets irritated if he arrives two minutes before departure and has to run to catch the train or flight. As it is, neither of us can have our own way all the time. So to avoid fights, there has to be some sort of compromise between us as to when we should leave home and when we should arrive at the train station or airport.
That is just one example out of many of the different situations in which I have to practice making compromises. There are so many other things, such as how we spend our income, how we spend our leisure time, how we celebrate birthdays and Christmas holidays and so on. Compromising usually means letting go of some of my choices, and trying to find a middle ground that we both agree with. It's not always easy, but I'm still learning.

Apologising: Who would agree with me that apologising is not always easy? Saying "I'm sorry" usually involves admitting you have done something wrong. Or you are guilty of something, or you have hurt the other person's feelings. Most of the time, it was unintentional too, so you have to apologise even when you didn't mean to annoy or hurt them. It's not easy to say sorry, we all know it's far easier to make excuses for our behaviour. More than once, hubby has pointed out something I did wrong and I have found myself making excuses, or trivialising it as if it doesn't matter. But if it mattered enough for him to point it out, then I should say sorry and try to make amends. I know I expect him to apologise immediately when he has upset me, so I should be ready to do the same thing when I upset him. It's something I'm asking God to help me with, because I struggle with admitting that I'm wrong.

Obedience: This is closely related to submission that I've talked about. Obedience to any authority doesn't usually come naturally, as we human beings have a tendency to question why or rebel when asked to do something. Even when God asks us to do something, we sometimes procrastinate or demand to know the reasons why. And we can carry this attitude into our relationships. Of course I'm not saying that I have no free will of my own, or that I must obey my husband even if something goes against my conscience. But if I put my pride aside, and I recognise that he is acting in love, then obeying him becomes slightly (slightly!) easier.

There are a few more things I'm going to talk about, but I'll continue in my next post.

Stay blessed and favoured!

Sex After Marriage

2008-07-13T03:00:00.007+01:00

Greetings bloggers and readers! Apologies for my long hiatus.

This post is one that I felt was necessary to share, sex from a Christian perspective. Let's face it, we are bombarded daily through movies, TV shows, blogs, magazines, newspapers, and so on with the wrong messages about sex. The messages we get out there are stuff like:

(1) there's no need to wait until you are married before you have sex,
(2) having multiple partners is great - in fact the more the better,
(3) sex is a purely physical need you can meet with no strings attached,
(4) saving sex for marriage is unnatural and outdated,
(5) sex is just a bit of fun to be enjoyed and there are no consequences for having sex outside of God's will, etc.

So I thought a little clarity from a Christian's point of view would be helpful to people who read my blog. And since I had promised to be honest when I started this blog, I decided to give it a go. Nothing too explicit- mind!

Well as you (my wonderful readers) can imagine, after abstaining and waiting to get married before having sex, I was more curious than anything else as to what it's really like. Before marriage, I had tried to imagine and ask christian couples about it, but most people were too shy to give me any satisfactory answers. Until I met my mentors and one day I brought up the topic and we had a frank discussion. The wife told me that the first few times is really awkward because it's all new and strange but after some time, you understand yourselves more and more and you get used to it. Which somehow made sense, but wasn't really what I wanted to hear, having read too many Mills and Boons novels as a teenager, painting a picture that sex is a wild, passionate whirlwind of sensations!

It turned out to be true though. Sex in marriage is a journey of discovery. There's no way you're going to be good at something if you've never done it before! It takes time to get to know yourself, what you like and don't like. It also takes time to understand the other person too, so don't let the pressure of having a "fabulous wedding night" get you under pressure. But having no experience is not necessarily a bad thing. In fact it's a good thing because marriage gives you a safe and secure framework to discover and express your sexuality. Our first time was quite awkward but I look back on it now and smile. A few days into our marriage, we opened our wedding presents and some people had kindly given us some books on sex written from a Christian point of view. We read some of the chapters and it was good to have some more facts we could add to our knowledge. And things keep getting better and better after the first time. In fact, I think that's the way God designed it so that you won't get bored easily.

Seeing sex now as a married person, I really understand why God designed it to be enjoyed within the commitment of marriage. As a single person, you may think that God's rule is just too harsh, too impractical or too restrictive but there are reasons why. Apart from the purely physical stuff, what makes sex in marriage beautiful and complete for me is the fact that it's a hundred and one percent worry-free, risk-free, guilt-free, God-approved pleasure! Did I mention it's fun too? Ha ha! But it's true though. God's rules are always for our own good.

Sex in a loving committed marriage relationship is worry-free for many reasons. For example: (1) I'm assured that this person loves me and he is committed to me,
(2) I know he's not giving me lyrics just to get in my pants,
(3) I know that he is not selfishly using me to meet his own needs,
(4) I don't have to worry about whether he will dump me tomorrow if he doesn't feel I'm good enough in bed,
(5) I know he's not going to slag me off to his friends tomorrow about that babe he has just 'scored',
(6) I don't have to worry about whether he's sleeping with several other ladies at the same time
(7) I know that sex is an expression of the love we have for each other
(8) Nobody can come and arrest me or accuse me of sleeping with her man
(9)I have no fear of catching any funky diseases
(10) I never regret sex by waking up the next morning thinking "OMG, what did I do last night!"etc.

There's also a big issue of trust involved with sex. I personally can't imagine giving myself to somebody that I don't know or trust enough. The idea just doesn't make sense to me. I think God designed sex to be within marriage because that gives you the framework to be yourself. You have to trust the other person to be able to relax and be completely at ease. You have to trust that they won't hurt you. Otherwise what's the point of giving yourself physically but withholding emotionally? Sex is best when you connect at every level. It just makes the whole package complete because it's about pleasure, intimacy and the bond we share, it's not a performance that I have to measure up to. There's no shame, guilt or embarrassment between us.

I could go on but I'll just say a few more things. Sex is never a "no-strings attached act". It creates a deep emotional and spiritual bond between two people. And that's because God designed it to be an intimacy builder in a marriage. So whenever a married couple have sex, they are actually making their bond stronger. If you take sex outside marriage, it still creates a bond between two people. I'm sure we've all heard of people in toxic relationships who can't seem to leave as they are emotionally tied to the other person because they've had sex with them. Or two people supposedly just having "casual sex" but end up having feelings for each other and someone gets hurt.

And one last thing, sex should never be used as a bargaining tool. That defeats the whole purpose it was meant for. Withholding sex for selfish reasons cheapens it and turns it into a commodity. It shouldn't happen in a loving, Christian marriage. I'll stop there, but for anyone who has questions, feel free to email me. If anyone wants to read more I've put up links to some books that may be helpful: Intended for Pleasure , The Act of Marriage , The Marriage Book

As always, stay blessed and favoured!

Learning to Listen

2008-03-27T18:22:00.004Z

It may sound like a cliché but you may have heard many happy couples say the key to staying together is communication. Usually what springs to mind when you hear this is: you and your partner should be able to talk to each other, express your feelings clearly, don't bottle things up, etc. Of course, you can't keep a relationship alive without talking to your partner. How else would you get to know them, find out their likes and dislikes? And how else will you share your feelings, thoughts, goals and motivations with each other?

However, something that is often overlooked in communication is the art of listening. Being in a healthy relationship means you must be able to listen as much as you talk. Really, one person cannot be doing the talking all the time. At any point, somebody will be talking and somebody has to be listening, otherwise the communication is not complete. This is important in any relationship, but even more so in marriage.

In the early stages in a relationship, it's easy to take turns talking and listening because you are curious to know what the other person has to say to what you tell them, you hang onto their every word and enjoy listening to their voice. As you settle down into a long-tern relationship however, we get comfortable together and may develop some bad communication practices: you start getting used to hearing their voice, so you may unconsciously tune them out. Or you get into the habit of thinking you know what they are about to say anyway, so you don't bother to wait for them to finish their sentences. Or you listen to half of their sentence, before interrupting them with something else that you want to say. I'll tell you of a few examples of how easy it is to NOT listen.

Sometimes when hubby and I are discussing a topic that we both have strong feelings about, I've found that it is easy for both of us to talk about his/her own views, because we both want our views to be heard. Not listening to each other sometimes means that at the end of the day, a lot of words have been spoken, but nobody has taken anything new on board. Why? Because we were both talking at the same time and neither of us was listening.

Another thing that springs to mind is when hubby is trying to talk to me when I'm watching TV, chatting to my friends online or reading a book. Sometimes I just don't hear what he is saying. And sometimes I hear with my ears, but my brain doesn't register any information, so some time later, I'll have to ask, "Sorry what were you saying?"

Or another example: I'll ask hubby a question and he'll say yes. Later on he will ask me why I took the action I did and I'll tell him, "But I asked you and you said yes", and he'll say, "When did you ask me?". This means that he wasn't really listening when I was talking to him, he was distracted by something else that was going on.

Previously, I wasn't aware that I had to actually learn the art of listening. I thought those things come naturally as long as we had a healthy relationship. I now know that no matter how good a relationship is, there is always room for improvement. And I needed to improve my listening skills. Not listening to hubby has led to misunderstandings in the past, and a breakdown in our communication; things that I would rather avoid.

Some time ago, I read a chapter of The Marriage Book that dealt with communication: specifically on the topic of talking and listening (I would recommend reading it!). The authors talked about the things you need to do to be a good listener. One important thing is making the effort to give our partner our full attention. This is not as easy as it sounds. Imagine I'm watching my favourite TV show and hubby decides he wants to have a conversation. It will take a lot of effort on my part to switch off from the TV and turn my attention to what he's saying. And if I can't concentrate on what he's saying, it may be worth asking him to give me a few minutes till the end of the programme. But if it's something really important to him, then he should take priority over the TV show right?

Something else the chapter talked about was our body language. Usually when we are giving someone our full attention, we tend to use eye contact and other subconscious signals. If I'm talking to someone and they can't be bothered to look at me or show any signs of interest, then I'm likely to feel ignored. So I'm also learning to pay attention to my body language when I'm having an important conversation with hubby.

I could go on and on, but you get the picture. If we are thoughtful of the way we talk and listen to each other in a relationship, we will certainly benefit from better communication. I know I am getting better at listening now than I was a few years ago :)

Adjustments (2)

2008-02-18T23:28:00.007Z

Hello all! As I mentioned in my last post, I had to make some changes and adjustments in my life after the wedding. I’ll like to say that it wasn’t just me though, as Mr had to adjust to being married too. But since I’m writing from my point of view, I’ll focus mainly on my own experiences.

One day Mr and I went shopping outside our town. It was just before Christmas, about five months after our wedding. At the mall, we bumped into a friend of mine. I decided to hang out with her, since Mr was getting bored already, so we parted ways and agreed to meet in a few hours. My friend and I shopped to our heart’s content and when we got tired; we went to a café and sat down to have a bite and a chat. As we sat down, she turned to me and asked, “So, FG I’ve been meaning to ask you. How is married life?”
I wanted to answer the question honestly, so I told her that married life is a lot of fun, but there are many adjustments to make. She asked me what kind of adjustments, and I told her that they were stuff you would never think of if you were a single girl living on your own and accountable to no one but yourself. I told her, “For example, when we were shopping just now, I had to be mindful about the clothes and underwear I was buying, because someone cares about them”. She found that really funny and said that she couldn’t imagine having to put someone else in the picture when making the smallest decisions such as the clothes she bought or what she wore underneath. I laughed and told her that it does take a long time to get used to.

Apart from that though, there were a few more “inconveniences” we had to work around, for example:

We had to learn to share the television fairly. Who knew that something that sounds so simple in theory can actually be very complicated? Mr and I have very different taste in TV programmes. I like watching dramas and sitcoms, he likes watching wild-life documentaries, sports and news debates. Even when we want to watch movies, his choices are always very different from mine. Cue arguments and accusations such as “change the channel, my show is on now!”….“But you’ve watched that show a hundred times; can I watch my own show now?”….. “Hey, you can’t change the channel; my show comes up in a minute”…… “Can we watch something else?”…… “Babe please change the channel, this show is boring!”…… etc. You get the picture (lol). How we manage to resolve it? Patience, patience, patience and compromise, as in seriously. Recently, reminders and one-hour-later channels have made a big difference too. LOL

One of my hobbies is listening to music. Preferably as loud as possible, with me singing along since I usually know all the lyrics by heart. To me, that’s one of the ways I relax and tune out stress. For example, after a long day at lectures or at work, when I get home, the first thing I do is to put on my CD player or my laptop and turn up the volume. Now this was fine until I got married and I had to factor in somebody else living in the same house as me. I got a shock one day when I was enjoying my music in the afternoon. Mr came into the living room and said I was making noise and he wanted some peace and quiet. I stared at him as if he wasn’t making sense. How could he call my music “noise” and ask me to turn it off? Did he not know that listening to music was one of my favourite things to do? We argued for ages but we still didn’t come to a resolution. I just couldn’t imagine giving up listening to music because of him. He suggested that I should use headphones. I grudgingly obliged but it was just not the same. Now though, I have learnt to leave the room he is in when I’ve got my music playing. And I make the most of it when he is not at home and I can turn it up as loud as I want to!

Something else that needed to be worked out was sharing the chores in the house. In this regard, I must say I’ve not had much of a problem, as Mr gets stuck in with the housework and he doesn’t leave it all to just me. He doesn’t like dirt and grime so he would rather scrub the tub himself, for example, than wait for me to do it. We’ve got some unspoken rules as to who does what, but they are flexible depending on who got there first. And we don’t have a time-table as such so we just do our chores as and when necessary. Usually on Saturdays, he wakes up before me and starts tidying up and I’ll join him later. And sometimes, I take charge, make a list of what needs to be done and we share both the difficult and easy tasks accordingly. It works well for us right now, but I have a feeling that when we have kids, we will need to be clearer on who does what!

Well what else? I think those were the major adjustments for me, but there were some other practical things that I had to deal with so I’ll continue writing about them.

Stay blessed and favoured!

Adjustments (1)

2007-11-15T19:29:00.002Z

In my last post, did I say “live happily ever after”? Well there are some things that only happen in Disney fairy tales. In real life however, after marriage there are adjustments to be made and not all of them are easy. There are some things you can’t do anymore, some patterns you have to change, some inconveniences you have to adapt to, and so on. Some adjustments can be amusing though, depending on how you manage it. Let me give you some examples of the adjustments we had to make.

The first major adjustment we had was getting used to being with each other most of the time. Before we got married, we used to meet up for limited amounts of time, usually after work or on weekends. Now that we were married, we were spending all our time together. One week after our wedding, we were driving along together in the car when Mr turned to me and said “Babe, I’ve noticed that you have been following me around for the past week. How come?” I saw the funny side and burst into laughter. I replied, “Hello? We are now joined together, who else will I be following around?” Then he saw the funny side too. He explained that as a single guy, he was used to going out and coming in whenever he pleased without a chaperon. Now that he was married, he had to either take me with him, or tell me where he was going. He had to tell me about even a simple trip to the supermarket. I understood that because I was learning to adjust to having him around me all the time too.

The second major adjustment was learning to share our personal space. Since we were now married and living together, we had to share a house. And that meant sharing a bedroom, a wardrobe, a bathroom and everything! It was fun moving all our things into our first flat together, putting up photos on the walls and things like that. When it came to sharing the wardrobe space, there were a few disagreements. When I was a single girl, I had my whole wardrobe to myself. I didn’t have to deal with having a man’s shirts, boxers, socks and ties competing for space in my wardrobe. Hubby too had never had to share his space with a woman’s excessive number of shoes and handbags. So we had some disagreements over who had a right to more space. We also had to share a dressing table and a chest of drawers and understandably, there were more arguments. No matter how many times I explained it, hubby didn’t understand why I had so many creams, cleansers, lotions and stuff. I didn’t understand why he had so many t-shirts taking up all the space in the drawers. Thankfully, somehow we managed to fit all our stuff into our room without having too many arguments. And then one funny day, hubby said he discovered feminine stuff in his bathroom. I started laughing and reminded him that he was now living with a woman and it was now our bathroom!

I had another adjustment to make. I had to get used to cooking regularly for two people. As a single girl and a student, I didn't bother to cook much. I ate whatever I had and cooked whenever it was convenient for me. At times I would not bother to cook for many days, relying instead on take-aways and meals I could get on campus. Now that I was married, I had to think of poor hubby’s meals! It meant I had to get into a regular routine of shopping, planning and cooking meals that I had never bothered with doing before. That was a major adjustment for me and I’m sure it is for many newly-wed ladies too.

Then I also had to adjust to my new name as Mrs. This meant I had to go through a lot of my official documents and change my name one by one. I had to change my passport, bank account details, my National Insurance details, driving licence, employer records, phone bill records, redo my CV, update my details on online accounts, etc etc. It took forever and it was a major drag but I had to do it! Even now I still come across some website or document that still needs to be updated.

There were some more adjustments I had to make, but I’ll stop here. Stay tuned for my next update.

Remain blessed and favoured!

What Happened Next

2007-10-24T17:00:00.000+01:00

We drove away from our reception venue in excitement. I was thinking “Wow! So that was our wedding day!” It was almost unreal. I looked at my new husband as we drove to our hotel, and I was thinking to myself over and over again. “We are now married, no really, we are married!” We talked excitedly about how the day had gone. We were really glad everything had gone well and all our months of planning paid off in the end. I thought about the task ahead of us, thanking everybody who had helped to make our day a success, but I pushed that to the back of my mind. I wanted to enjoy this moment, and we were looking forward to more exciting things.

Soon we arrived at our hotel and checked in with all our stuff. I’m sure the receptionist was quite amused when she saw us arriving in our native wear with a wedding cake and lots of presents! When we got to our room though, I started to get a bit nervous and I told hubby. He didn’t want to put any pressure on me. But in my mind, I wanted to experience “my wedding night” the way I had been dreaming about it since I was a teenager. I won’t go into details, but I’ll say it went very well! Just before I fell asleep, my husband (in every sense of the word now *wink*) held me and said “”Thank you for keeping yourself for me…” and I will always treasure those words. That appreciation made all the waiting and abstaining worthwhile.

The next morning, we woke up too late to have breakfast at the hotel so we drove to the mall not too far away and had breakfast in a nice café there. Over breakfast, I marvelled at how much things would change between us. I was trying to decide whether things had changed between us as a couple apart from the wedding rings we were now wearing. Something did feel a bit different though, but I couldn’t really place a finger on it. After breakfast we strolled hand in hand through the mall before we went back to the hotel. And then I don’t know what happened, but I think all the mixed emotions I had been going through in the past week just welled up in me and I burst into tears! Hubby didn’t understand it and I really didn’t as well, but I wasn’t sad so they were tears of joy. After I had a good cry and hubby consoled me well, we spent the rest of the day lounging in our room. In the evening we went out for dinner and a movie. That was nice, and at the end of the day, I remember thinking this was a good way to start married life!

We spent our first married week together this way, apart from the day we went to say goodbye to my parents when they were leaving. We didn’t have a proper honeymoon as such because I had to go back to Nottingham to complete my dissertation. During that time though, we still had stuff to do. We contacted our gift registry and arranged for delivery of our stuff, we started designing our ‘Thank You’ cards, we sorted through all the cards and envelopes that we were given on our wedding day, we contacted our photographer and videographer to finalise our pick-up date, we made a list of people to thank and a list of people we were going to visit, etc.

After our week at the hotel, we drove down to hubby’s place (where I finished consuming the top tier of our wedding cake – so much for saving it for one year- lol!). We had to move his stuff out of his old place and into our new place together. Some days later, we had a thank you party/get-together for our hostesses, groomsmen, bridesmaids and friends. It was fun to catch up with everyone and we got great feedback from them. We were hearing stories of the people who hooked up, people who met old friends, made new ones and so on, at our wedding!

A few days later, hubby and I headed up to Nottingham for me to continue my work. Fortunately, my housemate had gone on holiday so hubby and I had the house to ourselves. I started working (or trying to work) on my dissertation while he kept me company at the library. He even helped me to do some research and organise my work. It was a very cosy arrangement, I worked during the day and we hung out for the rest of the time. Eventually he had to go back home, so a month into our marriage, we spent some time apart. I stayed in Nottingham frantically trying to complete my work because the deadline was drawing near, but I made sure I went home every weekend.

I spent the rest of my time there, practically part of the furniture in the library; working, typing, researching and doing everything to finish it, and do a good job. It was a big relief when I finally finished my 20-000 word dissertation, got it bound and submitted it! The very next day, I packed my stuff, said goodbye to Nottingham and ran home to… live happily ever after. LOL.

Our Wedding Day!

2007-09-09T23:56:00.000+01:00

My alarm went off early in the morning, waking me and my girls up. It was my wedding day, the day I had been waiting and planning for has finally arrived! We all got up and started chatting excitedly. One by one, we got organised and started preparing for the day’s activities. While everyone else started getting ready, taking their showers, getting their hair done and everything, I went to another room to pray. I was getting nervous and I had to calm my nerves somehow. I thanked God for our relationship, the plans and preparations we had made towards our marriage, I prayed that everything would go well throughout the day, and the journey Mr and I were about to embark on would be a blissful and happy one. Just as I finished praying, my aunt, three of my cousins, one to do my make-up, arrived at the house to help me get ready. My bridesmaids came to call me to go and shower. Meanwhile my sister (the chief bridesmaid) started laying out my ensemble for the day. She brought out my dress, gloves, shoes, jewellery, make-up, purse, bouquet and finishing touches and placed them in the dressing room.

When I stepped into the room, everyone crowded around and started helping me to get dressed. It felt a bit odd but it was fun at the same time being pampered and looked after. I just sat down patiently checking the mirror while my hair was done, my make-up was applied and my sister forced cereal down my throat. I remember protesting, but she said something like “You have to eat something to keep your energy up all day…” and everyone around agreed so I put up with it. Finally they were done with my hair and face and they brought out my white dress and fitted me into it carefully. They teased me that I had gained some weight since I was measured for the dress! Then my shoes went on, then the earrings and necklace, then the gloves, and then finally my veil. A few final touches and I was ready to go. I inspected myself in the mirror, twirling this way and that. I almost didn’t believe it was me! It was perfect.

Meanwhile the photographer and videographer had arrived. My hostess and bridesmaids were all dressed and ready, the bridesmaids were wearing lilac outfits with silver accessories, and the chief bridesmaid wore a cream dress with a lilac sash. We picked up our bouquets and posed for photographs as we walked down the stairs. Our transportation arrived just in time and we posed for more photographs as we walked out to the car. The neighbours came out of their houses to watch our little procession and we had fun posing for several shots. I remember the photographer telling me to keep smiling as he would be taking photos of me all the time. So I kept a big grin on my face all day.

After posing and taking enough photographs, my bridesmaids and chief hostess and I piled into the limo and we drove down to the church . I was feeling less nervous now and more determined to enjoy the day as much as I could, no matter what happened. At least I hoped nothing terrible would happen! We all chilled out and enjoyed the ride, talking about how the rest of the day would pan out. The church service was to begin at 11.00 am and we got there about 10.45 which was good because I really didn’t want to be late. (I had heard of a wedding ceremony where the bride arrived so late that the service began without her!)

As the limo was pulling up to the church I could see some of my friends, the groomsmen and the ushers waiting for us outside. My friends came to the car to say hello and they commented on how nice I looked, asked me if I was nervous, etc. My parents and the rest of the bridal party also came round to the limo and we took a few more photos before we lined up to go into the church. My sister went to peep into the church and she came back to tell me “The church service is about to start and your groom is waiting for you!” So we formed our procession: the flowergirls and the page boys paired up, the bridesmaids and groomsmen coupled up and led the way into the church. Then my dad took my arm and my sister carried my train and we walked slowly into the church as the processional hymn began. This was the moment when it dawned on me that I was actually getting married today! As my dad and I walked slowly down the aisle, I was trying not to cry, that would just ruin the moment (not to mention my make-up). I glanced at people in the pews as I walked past and smiled to say thank you. My dad led me to the altar and the minister took my hand and led me the rest of the way as the hymn came to an end, then he asked the congregation to sit down. So we made it to our wedding day!

I glanced at my groom, looking relaxed, proud and handsome beside me. I relaxed too and decided to enjoy the rest of the ceremony. When we sat down, he whispered to me “You look really beautiful” and I smiled at him and whispered back, “You look nice too”. My sister and the best man sat behind us on the altar and the service began. First there was a bible reading, then another hymn. After that, the minister began to speak: “Dearly beloved we are gathered here to join this man and this woman together in holy matrimony…..” It was then I noticed the congregation of family, friends and church members seated. It was amazing to think that all these wonderful people were here because of us! I noticed the church decorations were beautiful- the florist had used white and lilac flowers to decorate the altar, the aisle and the pews. My church choir had decked out so well too, with huge headties and all. It was all very exciting.

The minister continued speaking – asking the congregation if anyone “had any just cause why these two people should not be joined together, speak now or forever hold your peace…..” Thankfully nobody stood up (two days before, my cousins had threatened to punch anyone that stood up, which would have been hilarious), so he called Mr and I to recite our vows. Mr lifted the veil off my face and we began:

The minister asked Mr: "Will you have this woman to be your wedded wife, to live together in holy matrimony? Will you love her, comfort her, honour and keep her in sickness and in health, in sorrow and in joy, and forsaking all others, be faithful to her as long as you both shall live?"

He said yes!

Then he asked me: "Favoured Girl, will you have this man to be your husband, to live together in holy matrimony? Will you love him, comfort him, honour and keep him in sickness and in health, in sorrow and in joy, and forsaking all others, be faithful to him as long as you both shall live?"

I think I said yes too (LOL). Then we repeated our vows to each other. Mr went first:

“I (Mr), take you Favoured Girl, to be my wife, to have and to hold, for better or for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish; from this day forward until death do us part”.

Then it was my turn:

“I Favoured Girl, take you (Mr), to be my husband, to have and to hold, for better or for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish; from this day forward until death do us part”.

The words flowed quite easily because we had practiced them the day before. I thought about the enormity of those vows and I meant them from the bottom of my heart. Everyone clapped and then it was time to exchange rings. The minister blessed the wedding rings and gave them to us to exchange and recite some more promises:
“I give you this ring as a symbol of my love for you and a token of our marriage. Let it be a reminder that I am always by your side and that I will always be a faithful partner to you”.

After that, he said a few more words and then he declared us husband and wife! Everyone in the church clapped and cheered. Then the groom kissed his bride….. that kiss lasted about three minutes!

Moving on swiftly, the rest of the service went well – there was a short message, Mr and I went to sign the marriage register with two witnesses, after that we had thanksgiving session where my mum danced and danced lol. Everyone came out to congratulate us and it was fun! Finally, prayers were said and it was the recessional hymn and the end of the service. I remember walking out of the church, hand in hand with my new husband, grinning from ear to ear and lots of cameras flashing in my eyes. Finally we made it out of the church with the bridal party and the officiating ministers, and then we gathered round to take the official photographs.

Hubby and I stood there smiling and smiling while the officiating ministers, our family members, friends, bridal party, co-workers, church members and so on gathered round to take photos. Then we had some portraits shots taken and the crowd started moving on to the reception venue. We drove down to the reception venue in the limo together with the flowergirls and page boys. They were teasing us about the long kiss at the altar and me blushing afterwards. The ride to the reception was cool; hubby and I were chatting about how the day had gone so far and I kept looking at my finger and thinking “Wow! I’m now married!”

We got to the reception venue at about 2.30pm and the reception was due to start at 3.00 so we had to chill in the limo for a while. I didn’t mind, my sister helped me touch up my make-up and we got to take more photos. Our friends and bridal party came round to wait on us hand and foot. They got us some snacks and drinks to munch on while we waited for the opening ceremonies. At some point, I peeped into the hall to check out how it had been arranged and decorated, it was lovely! There were purple and lilac balloons, flowers, white and purple table cloths, purple napkins neatly folded on the tables, the favours were arranged in order and everything looked nice. I was really pleased and my sister-in-law had done a great job! In the meantime, my hostesses were getting ready to start their duties; they changed into their native wear and headties and lined up at the entrance to the hall. Later on when we watched the video, we saw the MC calling our parents, grandmas and the chairman to the high table. When it was time for us to go in, our coordinator and the hostesses came to get us. So we lined up and danced in: my hostesses, the bridal party and the “youngest couple in town”. It was a long procession and I danced and danced as we came into the hall. Hubby claims he danced more than me though, but I don’t agree and we still debate it till now, lol. By the time we finally got to the high table, I was already out of breath! Hubby and I sat in the middle, next to my new mum-in-law and the chairman of the occasion, and my sister and the best man sat behind us with a fan, because we were hot from all the dancing.
The reception began; my dad gave a small welcome speech, there was an opening prayer, then the buffet was open and our guests tucked in. I was almost too excited to eat, but I managed a few mouthfuls because I needed the energy. Hubby and I waved at our friends as they went past the high table. It was fun sitting on the high table observing how everything was going on. My mum made me laugh when she said she had been attending so many weddings recently and she was waiting for mine so she could sit on the high table! Meanwhile, my dad was cracking us up, telling funny jokes about married life, and the chairman was telling us how my dad was the best man at his wedding. Hubby and I were just shaking our heads in amusement. I saw the hostesses helping to serve and coordinate everything going on and I was touched. The DJ was playing some nice music and hubby remarked that everything was going well, so thank God all our months of planning paid off!
Soon it was time for the chairman’s speech and that was fun. Our chairman was my dad’s best friend that I’ve known since I was a little girl, so I was glad he agreed to be our chairman. Well I don’t think he had any choice really, lol. He gave a nice speech, some advise for us as a married couple and some anecdotes.

After his speech, it was time for us to cut our wedding cake (and hubby’s birthday cakes as well) so we got off our seats and went to the cake stand. My sister-in-law had made us a lovely 4-tier cake, and the birthday cakes I had ordered for Mr were there too. He was really pleased that I had made a note to celebrate his birthday. We cut the cake and posed for more photographs, hubby even got a “happy birthday” song! We fed each other a small piece of cake as is the tradition, to see “how we would feed each other at home”, that was alright too. I gave hubby a small piece of cake and he gave me a small piece too, and then kissed me. So sweet!

Then I had to throw my bouquet. This part was quite amusing. Hubby went back to his seat while the MC called out all the single ladies at the reception. My friends and cousins came forward, all winking and telling me to throw the bouquet to them. I think I just closed my eyes and threw it back, and then I turned to see who grabbed it. It was my good friend from uni that caught it and she held it up triumphantly. I was really pleased too cos she is a very nice girl and she deserved it. The MC said something like, “See me after the ceremony” to her and everyone burst into laughter.

The next thing was our official first dance as a couple. We had initially chosen “Endless Love” by Diana Ross and Lionel Ritchie but the DJ had forgotten to bring it or something, so we danced to “Oruka” instead. Hubby and I didn’t mind too much, we still rocked it. When the song ended, the music changed to other upbeat grooves so we got dancing for like another 10 minutes.

I finally got to sit down, while my friend that caught the bouquet came up to give the toast. She went to the same uni as hubby and I did, so she took the microphone and started chatting about how I stopped coming to study in the library with her when we started dating! In my mind I was thinking, “If I catch this girl, I will deal with her. Thank God I passed my degree or else….” It was funny though and at the end she proposed a nice toast and everyone clinked glasses. On the high table, my dad was saying “Your friend has exposed all your secrets, so you used to spend more time with Mr than you did studying….” I just laughed and said “Well it’s too late now to do anything about it Daddy!”

Soon afterwards, my brother-in-law gave the vote of thanks and there was a closing prayer for the first part of the reception. Hubby and I were called back to the dance floor where we danced alone for some time, then with our bridal party, then our hostesses, then the rest of our friends. That was really fun because there were more young people than old at our wedding so the dance floor was groovy! All sorts of funny, crazy moves: the groomsmen trying to out-do each other, hubby’s English work colleagues trying to dance to Nigerian music, my uni friends forming a circle around us clapping and cheering, my twelve-year old cousin dancing better than my friends, etc. Watching the video footage of the dance floor later was hilarious. Soon the adults joined us in the dance and we continued dancing for about another half an hour, before we had to go and change into our native wear.

I was already getting tired at this point, so I welcomed the short break to sit down and catch my breath. Our coordinator got our outfits out and my aunty helped me to get dressed and tie the gele since I still don’t know how to tie a perfect knot! A quick touch up on my face and we were ready to go. Our wedding attire was packed into a box and taken into Mr’s car and we headed back into the reception hall to meet and greet our evening reception guests. I remember we had to go round the hall greeting everybody and posing for more photographs. Then we continued dancing and more guests came onto the dance floor to join (and spray) us. My sisters were helping us to pick up the money and pocketing some for themselves too! Well I don’t blame them, lol. We danced for like another hour and then went to change a second time, to continue dancing till it was about 10.00pm. By then I was tired, having been on my feet dancing for more than three hours.

Hubby and I decided to leave soon after 10.30pm because we had to check into our hotel before a certain time and he was getting tired too. So we told our bridal party that we were getting ready to leave. They helped us pack our stuff and put them in the car, including our outfits, wedding gifts, one of hubby’s birthday cakes, and the top tier of our wedding cake. The photographer called us for some last minute portrait shots just as we were trying to sneak out of the reception hall. As we were leaving, I saw our friends still rocking the dance floor to “Olufunmi”, some of them were even dancing on the stage.

We called our parents to tell them we were leaving and then all of a sudden my mum became very clingy! All throughout the ceremonies, she had been enjoying her status as mother of the bride. It was as if it just dawned on her that I was leaving her to start a new life elsewhere, and she couldn’t come with me. I felt a tiny tiny bit sorry for her, but I was also quite amused. Eventually she made me promise to call her as soon as possible and my dad took her off me. Hubby’s parents were cool, he’s the last born so they had done this several times before now! The four of them walked us to our car as we left, blessing us and wishing us all the best in our married life. I remember thinking, “Awww this is so nice, who better to send us off into our new life together than our parents?” We got into the car and waved goodbye to them as we drove off together as Mr and Mrs for the first time.

Countdown to D-Day

2007-08-23T23:40:00.000+01:00

This post is about the last 10 days before the wedding. The pace and excitement of the preparations picked up the day after I left Nottingham and arrived in London. As you can imagine, those remaining days were hectic - so many last minute preparations, the arrival of family and guests from far and near, lots and lots of outgoing phone calls (usually me arguing with my suppliers, or yelling at my poor hubby-to-be, or yelling at my bridal party), lots and lots of incoming calls (from people calling to say congrats, calling to RSVP at the last minute, or asking silly questions about address of the venues and such like), last minute shopping for favours and gifts, a completely out-of-nowhere second bridal shower, meeting with my hostesses, meeting with the groomsmen, final rehearsals and so on.

Friday, week before wedding: My parents, parents-in-law and grandma arrived from Lagos. Mr insisted I had to go and see them so I went to London even though I had to come back to Nottingham one last time before the wedding. I met my father-in-law for the first time that weekend. When Mr called me to say they were on the way to my house, I told my mum that this was going to be my first meeting with my father-in-law and I said if he didn't like me, well, it was too late for him to change his mind. My parents and I had laughed about it because they had already done the traditional engagement ceremony! Thankfully our meeting went well, and he said he had heard only good things about me so it didn't matter.

Sunday, week before wedding: That Sunday we all went to church as usual and it was good. At the end of the service, my aunt told me she wanted to see me for a brief discussion in the Sunday school and when we got there I was so surprised! The hall had been set up for a bridal shower and all the women in my church were seated and there was a chair in the middle for me. I was so surprised I couldn't speak for a while; I thought it was really nice of them. It was lovely, we prayed, opened presents, talked about married life scenarios and so on. I had a great time and I went home with lots of gifts. See I’m so favoured; I got two surprise bridal showers! Later that evening, my parents and I went back to Nottingham to finish packing my stuff for the next three weeks. So this is how the rest of my week went:

Monday: That morning, some of my family came down to Nottingham, I finished packing my stuff, then we went to the bridal shop to pick up my wedding dress. It was exciting to see the finished product all packed and ready to go. We drove down to London that evening. I went to my auntie’s place to pick up the flower girls’ dresses and we took them to their house. My niece was excited to try on her dress and accessories. Everything was fine, so I finalised their hair and accessories, overnight and travel arrangements with my sister-in-law. My mother-in-law had brought our native outfits for us, so I tried them on and they fitted well so that was sorted! I also booked a birthday cake for Mr because his birthday was approaching.

Tuesday: My sister arrived from the US this morning. It was good to see her and she was as excited about the wedding as everyone else. She came with our wedding rings, inscribed favour boxes, sweet bags and some jewellery. Then I met up with my friend who was also one of my hostesses. We went to Confetti to purchase the mints, chocolates and sweets for wedding favours, a wedding album, table decorations, ribbons and some gifts. Then we also went shopping for my make-up. We spent ages at the make-up counter trying lots of stuff, but I made sure we didn’t leave until I was satisfied that I had got what I wanted. Then we went to the store with out gift list to sort some things out. I’m sure she was tired of me by the time we finished that afternoon.

Wednesday: I went to get my hair done. My appointment was at noon, so before I thought I had some spare time to go shopping and who would I bump into in the street? One of my “toasters” who had been on my case for more than a year. I had stopped taking his calls after a while so I felt guilty and I tried to avoid him but it was too late! He had seen me and was already walking towards me. He said he was glad he bumped into me – until I told him I was getting married in three days’ time. He looked sad then he said “Really? So I finally lost you?” I didn’t know how to reply, I just mumbled that I was getting late for an appointment and I bolted off. Got to the hairdressers and spent 5 hours braiding my hair and I was pleased with the result. Meanwhile I was taking calls from our officiating minister, the florist, caterers and the store with our registry, each person confirming details. When I got back home, more family members and guests had arrived and the house was full!

Thursday: I had a back and forth telephone conversation with my sister-in-law this morning. She was very busy because she was decorating the reception venue and making our wedding cake. We were finalising the little details for the décor of the venue and table settings. I also met with three of my hostesses to give them their ‘geles’ and a list of their duties, lol. Then I went to the beauty salon for some pampering and to get my nails done. I had taken good care of my nails for months and they had grown very long, so I didn’t have to use extensions, they decorated my natural nails and they looked great! When I got home I gathered my sisters and cousins together and we filled all the favour boxes with sweets and mints, and tied them together with ribbons. It was fun doing that; they kept trying to eat the sweets so I had to keep an eye on them.
Later in the afternoon, I met up with Mr who was meeting up with his groomsmen. They had just taken delivery of their suits and they wanted to try them on. I tried to sneak a peak but they didn’t allow me to see their outfits. Then we discussed all the arrangements and their duties. Afterwards we hung out till late and had a great time. They were all telling me how they remembered it like yesterday when Mr told them he had met a girl and now they couldn’t believe we were getting married!

Friday: Lots of things to do today. First thing for me was to meet up with my aunt to shop for accessories for my native wear. Then my sisters and the other bridesmaids were going to get their hair done and meet up with me in the church later in the evening for rehearsals. So off we went. I met up with my aunt and after picking and choosing for an hour, we decided on the shoes, the bag and beads and made our purchase. When we left the market, I met up with Mr and our best man; they were going to have a hair cut and a shave or something like that. I told them they had better look nice the next day. Later the best man called me and joked that he was looking so nice, I might mistakenly marry the wrong groom!
It seemed like everything was going well. Until sometime between leaving the guys and getting home I lost my mobile phone! As you can imagine, that was the “wrongest” time to lose my mobile because so many people were calling me. I was meeting my friend who was my chief hostess, I was supposed to call the officiating minister to finalise the rehearsals, I was supposed to call my florist to deliver my flowers, I was supposed to call so many people! Fortunately I had some numbers stored in my diary so I got a new sim card and started calling everyone to give them my new number. But so many people tried to reach me and I didn’t get their messages, I didn’t get my original number restored until 2 weeks after the wedding.
Meanwhile, other things were going to plan. My cousins went to the hall with the table decorations and favour boxes, Mr’s birthday cakes arrived which was great, my chief hostess who was staying with me overnight arrived; my sisters and the other two bridesmaids came to join us and we went for the rehearsal. When we got there, the guys were already there. We practiced the procession and everything else we were supposed to with the officiating minister and it was cool. Just as we were leaving, the florist arrived to start decorating the church. Mr and his guys headed off to the reception venue to start putting things together. Afterwards they hung out at a friend’s place playing PS2 games all night. (I was really glad Mr decided not to go to a bar or club for his bachelor’s eve). My bridesmaids, chief hostess and I headed back home to make plans and pick up our outfits. I saw the bridesmaids’ outfits for the first time, thank goodness they were nice! Then we called a cab to take us to our place for the night – we were going to get a hotel but my auntie’s friend was going on holiday and she offered to let us use her house so that was great. When we got there, we planned the morning’s activities with military precision (lol, the minister had warned us not to get to the church late) so that we had enough time to get ready. We ordered Chinese, had our facials and settled in for the night. Around 11.00pm the florist delivered my bouquet and the flowers for the bridesmaids and flowergirls and she remarked that I looked calm and relaxed for a soon-to-be bride. I guess I realised that I couldn’t do anything more so there was no need to stress anymore! At midnight, I called Mr to wish him a happy birthday and before he hung up he said “See you at the altar tomorrow!” Awwwwww. Afterwards, my girls and I prayed, set our alarms and went to bed with just a few hours to go before the merry celebrations!

Bridezilla

2007-07-27T09:20:00.001+01:00

In the previous post, I might have given the impression that all the wedding plans went smoothly without any problems. Now that won’t be honest! Anyone who has planned an event like this would know how stressful it is. Tempers can easily fly when everyone disagrees with suggestions for something. I think I was quite calm in the beginning, but as time went on, stress levels rose and I noticed I was getting more impatient with everyone. I just hope I didn’t turn into a full-fledged Bridezilla though!
Planning wasn’t always easy or smooth sailing. We had a long list of things we had to do. Mr and I divided the tasks as best as we could, and we delegated some things to our close family and friends. Whenever we met up, we would discuss and compare notes on who has done what. And then we would decide what task was next on the list. We spent long hours on the phone discussing and arguing. At some point, all our conversations were about planning and we often started with “have you sorted out….?” Or “did you confirm….?” I’m sure my housemate got tired of me after a while because I was always arguing with someone on the phone.
When I look back now, it’s a wonder Mr and I didn’t call off the wedding. We had arguments over almost everything. We argued over the budget, we argued over the number of guests, we argued over the wedding invitations, we disagreed with each other’s choice of music, we argued over our families’ suggestions, we disagreed over the choice of wedding rings, we disagreed over the wedding favours and so many other things! Fortunately, after arguing, we often compromised or came to an agreement. And thank goodness, there were a few things we could agree on.
I was in charge of sorting out my wedding dress and accessories, my hair and make-up bridesmaids’ outfits, hostess outfits, the caterers, the wedding cake, flowers, venue decorations, favours, choosing music, the gift list/registry, the wedding website, and wedding colours. Mr was in charge of: the official paperwork, booking the reception venue, booking the bridal cars, ordering wine and drinks, invitations and postage, the wedding programme, his groomsmen outfits (once I had chosen the colours), choosing the photographer and videographer, choosing wedding rings, booking the DJ and so on. We both had to choose our friends for the wedding party, get measured for traditional outfits, and draw up a guest-list of everyone we wanted to invite.
I remember making dozens of phone calls everyday and spending countless hours online researching stuff. I joined The Knot wedding planning website and found a lot of their suggestions useful.
I think the first thing I started doing was looking for a wedding dress. We know how important that is! I spent hours browsing through several websites, looking at several wedding magazines, and several catalogues and brochures. Eventually, I chose a few styles and armed with the print-outs in my bag, I marched off to the bridal shops.
The first time I stood outside a bridal shop, I didn’t know what to expect. I got there just as the shop was opening. As I stood outside one of the attendants came to say hello and invited me to come in. Then I told her I was looking for a wedding dress. She looked at me and asked, “Are you the bride?” and I said yes. And she had this funny look on her face, like I didn’t look old enough to be wandering around in bridal shops. Anyway I told her what I was looking for and she went off to bring four gowns for me to try on. I must admit it was a funny experience the first time I tried on a wedding dress and looked at myself in the mirror. It was odd but exciting at the same time. I tried on all four gowns but I didn’t want any of them. I told the attendant I would be back later as I had a lecture soon and I had to head back to campus. She gave me their catalogue to take with me. So it was back to the drawing board to look at different styles on the internet.
Some days later, I booked appointments at three bridal shops and I took a friend along. I think I tried on 12 different dresses and I still didn’t choose any of them! Then one weekend my sister came to Nottingham and we went looking again. We tried five bridal stores. Each time I tried on a dress she didn’t like, she gave me a funny look. Eventually we went to a store and I tried on a dress that caught my eye and it was perfect! Phew! So I asked the fitting assistant a few questions and they said it would be ready in time for July if I ordered it straight away. So that was sorted!
My bridesmaids and I couldn’t agree on outfits for a long time. One of my sisters in the US was a bridesmaid and the others were in the UK so we had to choose on her behalf. When we went shopping, we argued on styles so much that I gave up on them. I told them the colour and I told them that they must turn up on the wedding day in that colour otherwise I won't let them join my train. Eventually they sorted themselves out and went shopping by themselves and chose their gowns. They described it to me but I actually didn’t see their outfits until the night before the wedding!
Another cause of arguments was the catering. We had to estimate the number of invited guests we were going to have. But knowing our Nigerian settings, we had to plan for extras! That was so hard – trying to balance a sensible catering budget with an unknown number of guests. I had several arguments with my aunt over how much extra food we should have. She was saying we should plan for up to 300 extra plates of food. I was saying I didn’t want to waste my money on too much food, since I had other things I could do with that money! She was adamant that we needed more than enough; we should hire more crockery etc. I was telling my aunt that if anything went wrong with the food, I wouldn’t forgive her. Finally we dragged my mum and the caterers into the argument and they reassured me that everything would be fine.
Then there was the one with my sister-in-law over the flowergirls' outfits. I liked one thing and the mum's wanted something else. After countless telephone calls, trips to department stores and discussions over bridal catalogues, I was at my wits end. Fortunately I was rescued by my mum's sister who designed something that we were all happy with. Phew.
I think I had one more quarrel with my aunty saying that I shouldn't wear a strapless gown. We really had a big row over that one. What? After I had spent so much time, effort and money into picking the dress, then I can't wear it? No way. The argument raged for ages. My aunty reported me to my parents, saying the dress was too revealing. My dad offered to buy me a new dress a week to the wedding if it would put an end to the arguments. I absolutely refused. In the end, she backed down and I was able to wear my lovely dress.
There were several other hair-raising moments and screaming matches, but I can't describe all of them. It was a lot of fun though. In the end, when everything finally came together, all the hard feelings melted away and everyone involved was smiling.

Trusting God

2007-07-12T02:44:00.000+01:00

Update! I decided to continue the post and make it one long post instead of two short ones. I continued from where I stopped......

I mentioned in the previous post that I really learnt to trust God during this stage in my life. When I look back now, I see that there is indeed a God, without whom I cannot do anything. If I ever feel discouraged, or it seems like God is not hearing me anymore, I remember how He helped us when we were planning our wedding. Well in February, Mr and I sent off our applications for the Certificate of Approval from the Home Office. We had been told that it could take up to 13 weeks to process. I was already a bit worried because we had so little time. But we had no choice, we could only pray that it came back on time. Meanwhile we decided to continue with wedding preparations. The best way to explain how things were going is to break it into some sort of monthly time-line. Here goes:

January 2005:
We decided to get married and announced the wedding date to our family. Our families start making their plans. I informed the church and the Registry. Registrar tells us of the new rule. We need to apply for a COA from the Home Office. We tell our families of this new development, but we assure them that all is well and the wedding plans will still go ahead. I have my first semester exams. We started the application process for the COA.

February 2005:
We send our applications to the Home Office. Everyone is praying that it will be returned on time, so that we can finalise the rest of the legal requirements before the proposed wedding date. In the meantime, wedding plans are in full swing. We agree on budget and size, choose our wedding colours, draw up a guest list, set up a wedding website and send out "Save-the-Date" emails. Mr chooses his groomsmen, I choose my wedding dress and paid the initial deposit, choose my bridesmaids and hostesses. We continue attending marriage classes, while I also carry on with my lectures at uni.

March 2005:
No word from the Home Office, not even an acknowledgement letter. Anyway we carry on planning. We book the reception venue, contact a caterer, contact a florist, print the invitation cards, decide on the wedding cake, book music for reception, choose wedding rings and draw up a registry/gift list. We ordered our wedding bands from the US so we had to get them delivered to my sister. It's my mum's 50th birthday and my parents come to the UK for a brief visit. Everyone in my family is informed of the coming wedding. Later on, we send our measurements to my mum in Nigeria, who is busy making plans of her own. Our families meet up and get on well (yay!) and they start planning the traditional ceremonies. Meanwhile, I chose my dissertation topic and I have to start researching before everyone else so that I can have a head start.

April 2005:
April is a very busy month. Still no word from the Home Office. I make two telephone calls to them. The first time, they told me that they will deal with our application but there is a huge backlog, and that's why it's taking long. The second time, I spoke to a different person who told me that their computer systems are playing up but our application was in the queue. I start getting worried. Meanwhile, it's Easter break from uni. Mr and I go to London because we have so many people to meet and things to do in a short space of time. First we have a meeting with our officiating minister and he asks us how far with the COA. We tell him that we have made the application and we are waiting for the Home Office to send it back to us. Afterwards, Mr meets up with his guys to sort out their groomsmen outfits. Then I meet up with my bridesmaids and we go shopping for their dresses. We couldn't agree so we leave it till later. The next day, I meet up with one of my hostesses to choose their head ties. Eventually we settle for something we both liked. Afterwards, we went to the Department Store to update my gift list. The next day Mr and I go and check out the reception venue. We meet with the caretaker and go through a list of questions we have. Everything seems fine so we are happy with that. Mr's sister-in-law offers to bake our wedding cake and decorate the reception venue for free, since that is what she does for a living. My aunt offers to pay for the photographer and videographer . That was very nice indeed! After the Easter break, I go back to Nottingham and back into the thick of coursework and lectures. I also start making progress on my dissertation.

May 2005:
Still no word from the Home Office! Mr and I are getting really worried now. We get a lawyer to advice us on what we can do. He said we should write to them and request that they speed up our application. I sent off a letter, hoping and praying they will respond. I followed up the letter with several phone calls to no avail, nothing seemed to change.
While all this is going on, Mr said we had to send out the wedding invitations! I was feeling so nervous and doubtful. How can we be sending invitations for a wedding that is hanging in the balance? I could just imagine having to call each of our guests to tell them that the wedding had been postponed due to "unforeseen circumstances". I was getting so frustrated and stressed out with the whole thing. In a moment of despair, I went on my knees and prayed. I poured out my frustration. I prayed without knowing the exact words to say, but I know that God knew what I was feeling so it didn't matter. After I had been kneeling down for over an hour, God answered me. I was reminded of when I had prayed for a husband and He had answered me (post link). I was reminded of the fact that God was there when we started our relationship (post link). I remembered that we had prayed even when we had set the wedding date as a joke 2 years before and He had been listening! Now as I was worried, God was trying to tell me that He had already answered our prayers long ago. Indeed He had planned our paths all along, nothing of this was my own doing. So there was no need for me to be worried. All I had to do was to hold on to my faith and trust Him to do the rest. I felt much better after I finished praying and I had enough faith to remove the seeds of doubt that the enemy was trying to plant in my mind. So, I called Mr and told him it was okay and the wedding invitations went out to all the guests.
It's also my birthday this month. I have a get-together and Mr comes to Nottingham. Most of my friends hadn't met him so it's a good chance to introduce the groom. My friends are invited to the wedding and they are excited. School work continues: I have second semester exams so I stop wedding planning for 2 weeks to concentrate on revision. After exams wedding plans continue to go ahead: I finalise the menu with the caterers, order favour boxes and other gifts, my bridesmaids finally decide on their dresses and accessories, I organise the outfits and hairstyles for the flowergirls and pageboys, meet up with the florist to discuss options and try some new make-up.

June 2005:
It was less than 8 weeks to the wedding and we still hadn't heard back from the Home Office. I was getting tired of getting phone calls from concerned family asking us if we had "any news?" from the IND. Nice though it was, they were only adding to my worry. Sometimes I had so much faith that God was going to make a way. But sometimes I was very doubtful. Eventually we got another lawyer. He advised us to get our local Member of parliament involved. He also wrote another urgent letter to the Home Office. Mr and I continued making phone calls to them. They were still telling us the same old story: our applications were in the queue, and no, they couldn't be speeded up. Our parents too were getting worried. They were making plans for our traditional engagement ceremonies back home. So every time I called them, they would express concern over the delay of our COA. I would tell them not to worry, that everything would still work out. At some point, Mr and I were thinking that if the COA didn't come, we might carry out the ceremonies anyway and then get the official documents later! But that would be a sham and we didn't want that. So we just had to continue praying everyday.
Plans and preparations continued though. After my exams, I went for my first wedding dress fitting. It felt surreal to be standing in front of a mirror in my wedding dress! I asked for a few adjustments to be made, and then I booked in for a second fitting. I had to go to London for a while to sort some things out. I had a meeting with three of my hostesses and we planned the wedding itinerary. Then came back to Nottingham. I went shopping for my wedding accessories: shoes, veil, tiara, gloves and jewellery. Then I had a final consultation with the florist and we agreed on the flowers for me, my train and the church decorations. We made finishing touches to our wedding website. Our gift list went live around the middle of June. It was exciting to check it and see stuff that people had bought for us. I booked an appointment to get my hair and nails done a week before the wedding, and went for three beauty appointments. I also continued working on my dissertation. I had a meeting with my supervisor and confessed to him that I was going to take time off during the summer to get married. Fortunatley he was a very nice guy and he suggested that the more I could do before the wedding, then the better for me when I came back. So I got busy and did a fair bit of research and writing in June.

July 2005:
Gosh so many things happened this month! Time seemed to fly like a blur because I was so busy. I'll write about the final weeks of preparation in detail in my next post. For now, I'll summarise. After all the months of anticipation, worries, anxiety and prayers, we finally got our documentation! It was such a huge relief. As soon as we could arrange it, Mr came to Nottingham and we went to the office together to get everything sorted. When we finished there, I went to my room so happy and jumping up and down for joy. I probably danced more that day than I did on the wedding day itself, lol. As soon as we told our parents and family that everything was sorted, the nervous anticipation disappreared and every one started getting excited. I had my second dress fitting and I was satisfied with the dress. Yay!! So I paid for the balance and booked a pick up date. My friends in Nottingham organised a surprise bridal shower for me, that was really cool. We had a great time, it was food, fun and games, and some very interesting discussions! Our parents arrived a week before the wedding day (and I met my father-in-law for the first time!), then I packed my bags, picked up my wedding dress and Mr and I headed to London. More family arrive from everywhere and the countdown to the big day begins!

Obstacles

2007-07-05T08:34:00.000+01:00

As I mentioned in the previous post, I got back to Nottingham in January 2005, and Mr. and I had decided to start making plans for the wedding. We felt that it was God’s will for us and He was going to make things happen the way we had prayed. We had set the date for 23rd of July so we had only about 6 months to plan everything from start to finish. I had exams in January so I put planning out of my mind for the first two weeks so that I could concentrate. It was after exams that I really started working on my very long wedding to-do list. You would think that since we had God’s 100% backing, that everything would go smoothly right? Wrong! Trust the enemy to put obstacles in your path and doubts in your mind.
Around mid-January, I called my pastor in my home church in London to inform him of our proposed wedding date. I also wanted to know what procedure we would have to take to get married. At the time, Mr. and I didn’t have any friends who had recently got married, so we had to find out most things ourselves. Well the pastor told me that I had to tell him who I wanted to officiate the wedding and where it would take place. Apparently, not every pastor or minister is authorized to officiate a wedding, and not every church building is licensed to hold weddings in the UK. So I told him that I wanted him to officiate and I wanted my base church to be the venue for the church service. Fortunately, he is authorized to carry out weddings and my church is a licensed venue. Second thing he asked me to do was to ring the church secretary to inform her about the date so that she could put it in the church calendar and she will tell me more about the legal requirements and the process of getting married in the UK. No problem so far. I called the church office and spoke to the church secretary. I informed her of the date and she looked it up in the church calendar and said it was available so she wrote it down. Then I asked her what we needed to do. She told me a long list of procedures: we needed to go and give notice of marriage to our local registry office, the registry need at least 14 days notice although the norm for this was 8 weeks, we needed to fill out some forms and pay a fee, the Registrar would then issue us a marriage schedule, we would bring this schedule back to the church, the officiating minister must sign this, before a marriage certificate can be issued etc. Basically it was going to be some looooong process. Now to complicate it further, we were intending to get married in our church in London, but neither of us was based in London during that period. Well I thanked the secretary for the useful information and hung up with a promise to call back as soon as I had sorted everything out. Feeling overwhelmed already, I called Mr. and left a message for him, and then I called the registry office.

The nice lady I was speaking to asked me lots of questions. I gave them all the information that they needed. Everything was going fine until she asked me if Mr and I were British citizens and I said we were not. She asked what status we were in the UK. I told her that we were both Nigerians, I was a student and Mr had a work permit. She said I should hold on for a second. She came back on the line and said that there was one more thing we would need to do. Apparently in 2005, the UK government decided to start clamping down on fake marriages involving immigrants, who get married solely for the purposes of obtaining British citizenship. So as from that time, any non-UK person planning to get married in the UK must obtain permission from the Immigration Department. If everything is fine, the Immigration Department will then issue the intending couple a Certificate of Approval before they can get married. I was thinking, “Oh great. We have another bridge to cross.” I thanked the lady and rang Mr back and left another message on his phone about what the lady at the registry had said. Then I went to research into the new rule on the IND website. I found out that we would have to apply (and pay for the privilege) for the Certificate of Approval separately and it would take up to 13 weeks to process. 13 weeks! Remember our proposed wedding date is in July and we were already approaching February.
That evening Mr and I discussed it and we decided to send the applications right away without further delay, in the hope that we would get the certificate back, and be able to proceed with all the other steps we had to take. So two days later, we filled the forms and everything and sent our application off.

Now, in the meantime we were faced with this conundrum: should we put a hold on the wedding plans until we got the certificate or should we continue planning while we were waiting?

We prayed about it and we decided that we would go ahead with planning. Knowing that we had six months, and time was not exactly on our side, we thought it was better to keep plans going steady. That way we would be on schedule if and when the Certificate arrived. So we continued making our wedding plans.

Making Plans

2007-06-25T15:06:00.000+01:00

Seems like I haven't updated in ages! So much going on, apologies to everyone.

In the hectic period of December 2004, when I had all the coursework deadlines, exam revision and things to do, I felt God was telling us that His plan was for us to get married in summer 2005. I was trying to push the thought out of my mind, thinking this was absolutely impossible. I was facing an even more hectic 2nd semester as my course workload was going to increase, plus I had a dissertation to write that summer. I was worrying about how to tell our family that we were planning to get married in the next year. I was worrying that there wasn't enough time to plan a successful wedding.
Eventually we had our Christmas break from uni. I remember that holiday clearly. In the middle of Christmas celebrations, revising for January exams and what not, I was worrying and worrying. Mr and I came back to London and started talking seriously about it. We put all our concerns and worries into prayers. In the end we decided to go ahead with it, that we will do as much as we could and then let God take control of the rest. We tentatively chose a date in July 2005 (I remembered we had jokingly mentioned the date as a possibility in the past, see here) and so we began the planning process.
First thing to do was to inform our families so that they could start making their own plans. On New Year's day in 2005, myself, Mr and my two sisters went to spend the day with his older brothers and their families. From there, we called my parents and told them of our plans. I was dreading the call because I expected my dad to hit the roof. Surprisingly, he didn't. He asked us a few questions. Some stuff about me having to finish my degree and make sure I pass my exams. I promised that the wedding won't affect my studies in any way. And then he said it was okay! (That's some faith). He said he and my mum would start putting things in place. That went well, I thought. Then we called Mr's parents. They sounded pleased too, and said they would start putting things in place at their own end. When we hung up, Mr and I looked at each other and said something like "so we are really going to do it this year!" and went to announce the happy news to the rest of the family. It was like "Hey everyone, we are getting married in July!" If anybody was worried or surprised, they didn't show it. Everyone started talking at once. His older brothers started asking Mr about plans to bring their parents over because we said we wanted the wedding to be in England. My sister-in-law started discussing about planning every detail, asking about my bridal train and offering to help. All the kids were jumping up and down and telling me they wanted to be my flowergirl or pageboy and were already asking what they would wear. My sisters started planning their summer holidays around the wedding as they were going to be bridesmaids, naturally. It was a bit surreal, I was in a daze, my mind was swirling with so many questions and ideas and it was just beginning to sink in that I was getting married soon. Mr on the other hand was already talking and then I realised, right Favoured Girl, snap out of it, there's so much to do and so little time. By the time we left his brother's house, I was already dreading how busy I was going to be over the next few months.
Over the next few days, we informed other members of our families, our pastors and our friends. I remember telling my good friend on the same course as me, and she sounded excited. But she expressed concern over how I was going to cope at uni with the added stress of planning a wedding. I must have sounded more confident than I felt, cos I told her I don't know, with God all things are possible (while agreeing with her and wondering what I had gotten myself into!).
Soon the holidays were over and I had to go back to Nottingham. Mr and I agreed that we would meet up once a month in London, aside from the marriage classes, so that we could deal with issues that we couldn't sort out over the phone, visit the necessary people, meet vendors, look at venues and so on. You can just imagine us trying to squeeze everything we had to do in 2 weeks into a single day everytime we met in London lol. After many calm (not!) conversations, we drew up a budget for the wedding and got the ball rolling.
I got back to Nottingham, resumed lectures and started revising for exams. Some of the lecturers were already talking about the summer dissertation. During one class, the lecturer was giving us advice on how to manage our time mroe effectively over the summer. He gave us this sage advice: "Don't be like one of my students last year who finished her exams in June, went home and got married over the summer, and then failed her dissertation because she didn't have enough time to research and write it properly". I could have laughed but I couldn't because I was in the same situation. My two friends in the class turned to look at me with funny looks on their faces. After the lecture, they teased me saying "Did you hear what the lecturer said? One student did what you are planning to do and she failed!" I knew at once that I was going to have to be much more organised with my work and with the wedding plans. And boy did I become organised. I made very good use of my diary, appointment book and the academic year planner on my wall. I made a time-able for everything I was doing every hour of the day. It meant I was constantly busy, because if I wasn't studying, then I was planning. If I got tired of studying, I would do some wedding planning. And if I got tired with all the planning, I would take a breather and go and study! I can definitely say that during those months between January and July 2005, I was never bored.
During those months, I also really learnt to trust God more. There were some things that could not have happened without God's divine help, but I'll talk about them in the next few posts.

Marriage Classes

2007-06-06T17:30:00.001+01:00

Just as I was settling back into life on campus, lectures and coursework assignments, I got a call from Mr one day. He told me that he had gotten a call from my aunt, who had gotten a call from one of the coordinators in our church. Apparently, my name and Mr's name had been put down to attend the marriage preparatory classes without our knowledge. They were calling to check up on us to ask why we hadn't attended the first two meetings! Well we had no idea! Who wrote our names down on the list of people getting married? Till today we don't know. Anyway, my aunt had called Mr and persuaded him that we were ready to start attending these classes, as we had been engaged for over a year and we were serious about getting married in the near future. Mr was now telling me that he had agreed to the classes. We were to attend them once a month. They were being organised by my church in London. At first I was fuming. What? In the middle of my busy schedule already, you want me to be travelling to London every month for marriage preparation classes? Do they know that I am reading my books here? How am I going to fit this class into my time-table now?
Anyway Mr calmed me down and explained it to me that it was a requirement by the church if we were planning to get married soon. Plus he would have to attend as well, and that way we could meet up every month and hang out, since the classes were only about two hours or so. I asked him if he would foot my travelling bill and he said yes. Eventually, I agreed to attend the marriage preparation classes.

The plan was this: I would leave Nottingham very early, around 7.00am and get to London for 9.30, meet Mr at the station and we would attend the preparation class. Then we would hang out for the rest of the day. Around 8.00pm he would drop me back at the station and head for his town and I would jump back on my coach or train and head back to my town. Since he was paying for my tickets, it wasn't a big deal after all! So for the next seven months, once a month we both left out respective towns and headed to London on a Saturday morning. I remember telling my flatmate the first month that I was going to London the next day. She asked me when I would be coming back and I said - tomorrow. She must have been amused.

The first time we turned up for the class, we were asked if we had set a wedding date and we said no, we were just going with the flow. The classes were quite interesting actually. There were four other couples attending at the same time as us. Our tutors were a pastor and his wife, and sometimes the Senior Pastor and his wife came in to add to the discussions. They covered every topic about marriages, (such as: commitment, the marriage vows, dealing with in-laws, handling finances, forgiveness, sex, submission, handling conflict, love languages etc) and we had a question and answer session as well. As the classes were taught from a christian point of view, the teachings were a mixture of biblical references, practical applications and the personal experience of the writers of the course. Mr and I learnt a lot and it was interesting when we were asked practical questions of how we will apply the principles we were learning to our relationships.
While we were attending the classes, Mr and I started praying about the timing of our wedding. By the end of 2004, we were sure that God wanted us to get married in 2005. Looking at it from a human stand point, it seemed like such a crazy idea and almost impossible. I was in the middle of a challenging Masters course. We were in two separate towns far away from each other. My dad was still unaware of what was going on. And since I wanted a summer wedding, it meant we had less than 8 months to plan it all! Plus I had to write a 20,000-word dissertation about the same time as we were planning to get married. How was it all going to happen?
Let's just say that with God, all things are possible.

Move to Nottingham

2007-05-30T01:09:00.002+01:00

Soon the days passed and it was time for me to move to Nottingham. Mr turned up at my doorstep on the evening of 17/09/04 to help me move all my stuff. We finally left London around 11.00pm in the night. The journey was fun though. I remember being so excited about the year ahead. I was glad to be out of the 9 - 5 work life and be going back to student life.
We arrived in Nottingham around 2.00am and popped into a filling station to buy the essentials: a map and two bottles of water. We finally located my flat after about 15 minutes squinting at the A to Z. My flatmate had already moved in, so she had put some things together. She had gone to her parents to spend the night, so she wasn't around when we got there. Fortunately I had the keys to the flat and we were able to get all my stuff in. Mr and I stayed up all night trying to unpack and arrange my stuff. Eventually we dozed off at about 5.00am.
Early the next morning I made a shopping list of things I needed for the house cos it came partly funished and it was almost bare apart from the basics. We popped out to go to Ikea (the haven for student furniture!) and Argos to get stuff. Then we went to the supermarket to stock up on groceries enough to feed an army for a month, lol.
That afternoon when we got back to the house, my flatmate was there with her parents. We introduced ourselves and they left. Mr and I got talking about visiting each other and stuff. But we both agreed that with him in Essex and me in Nottingham, we really couldn't meet up often. And I also knew that with a hectic schedule of lectures and school work, I couldn't really afford to take many weekends off. I remember feeling a bit sad too, cos that day was our second anniversary. Seemed like we had been going out for ages, really it had just been 2 years! We celebrated our anniversary with lunch and a kiss, then it was time for him to go. We promised to speak to each other everyday. I waved him off goodbye and that was it! I was now on my own in Nottingham. Fortunately I already had a group of friends there so I didn't feel too lonely.
First day of school was spent doing the normal stuff: registration on the course, getting my university username and password, registration in the library, the surgery and a welcome lecture from the Vice Principal of the Business School etc. During all these necessary trips, I met three Nigerian Masters students and I found out one of them was on my course! We swapped phone numbers and became friends at once, and we are still good friends now. We went to the freshers' fair together, signed up for the AfroCarribean society and a few other societies/clubs, located where everything was, and caught a bus tour round the university park. It was all cool stuff.
Gradually I settled into life back at uni, woke up to the shock that Masters was a whole different ball game from undergrad and made more friends. My housemate was very cool and we got on quite well. She was training to be a teacher, so she was a responsible level-headed girl. She had a boyfriend who lived and worked in Sheffield, so he came to visit once or twice a month.
Mr and I didn't see each other but we kept in touch over the phone every evening. I don't think a single day passed in that whole year that I didn't talk to him once or twice. Thank God for T-Mobile free call allowances! I missed hanging out with him though, but we made the best out of what we could.
A month after I moved to Nottingham, I invited my friends round for lunch and a discussion and from then on, it became a monthly occurrence. I'll talk more about that in future posts.

Predictions

2007-05-10T00:42:00.000+01:00

Just before we finalised our moves out of London, I went to church one Sunday and after the service, the Senior Pastor said he wanted to see Mr and I, so we should come and visit him after church. Which was cool so we arranged the time and paid him a visit. It was a nice chilled out discussion this time. He asked us a few questions about our relationship and future plans. We told him we were engaged but we hadn't made any definite plans for our wedding yet. Then he asked us when we would most likely want to get married. I said "In about two years' time" at the same time as Mr said "Next week" and then we looked at each other in surprise. The pastor must have thought both of us were not serious. Did we not have our plans laid out yet? I was thinking, "I didn't know this guy was so keen!" LOL. The pastor then asked me why I thought we should get married in 2 years' time. I explained to him that we were making plans to live in different cities, I was due to start a Masters course in two weeks and there was no way I was going to be able to fit in a wedding with my studies. Besides my dad had only just met my boyfriend and he had no idea that we were engaged and getting that serious. The pastor said that I should not worry, and he predicted that by the end of my course, I would be married. In my mind I was thinking, "How is that going to happen?" but I kept my mouth shut. Meanwhile Mr was smiling and agreeing with the pastor when he was talking.
After we left the pastor's house, we got talking in the car. I was quite doubtful as to how we would organise a wedding while we were both taking huge steps in the next two weeks. Then there was the small problem of informing our parents. Eventually we decided to leave things for a bit as they were. We would revisit the issue later on.

Separating

2007-05-09T20:51:00.000+01:00

After getting the crush out of my system, I was swimming in the land of bliss in my relationship. Everything was fine. Until six weeks later. Mr called me one day to give me some news. The good news was that he had gotten a job. Yay! The bad news? The job was outside London so he would have to move away. What!?
Okay fine, I knew he had been job hunting since he finished his Masters. Okay I admit I knew he had gone for a few interviews outside London. I can also admit that he told me he had been called for a second interview at some town far away from civilisation. But it hadn't really dawned on me that he might actually get the job, accept their offer and pack his belongings out of London. I had never pictured us being in a 'long-distance' relationship. Fair enough we would still be in the same country, but it just wouldn't be the same anymore! We would be in different cities, so we won't be able to just meet up and hang out whenever we felt like it. He won't be able to pick me up from work anymore. I can't visit him knowing that I can easily catch a tube back to my own house. We will have to book trains to see each other.... and for how long will we be in separate cities again??
All these thoughts were running through my head as he started telling me all about the job, why it was a good move for his career, why he has decided to accept the offer, his plans for the future, etc. I listened in silence. One part of me was thinking, "yeah go for it!" and another part of me was thinking "you can't be serious, what about us?". Eventually he stopped talking and asked me what I thought and I almost burst into tears. I said I needed to think about it. He said he didn't have much time, as he had to give the company his response in less than a week. I told him we should sleep on it and discuss it again when we met up at the weekend.
In the meantime, I went to agonize over this latest turn of events. I thought that telling him not to go for the job would be a completely selfish thing to do. So what was my option? Tell him to go for it? So what about us? I was worried about what the future would hold for us. Eventually I prayed about it but I was still very worried.
Some days later I got a letter from a university. I had applied to them the year I graduated to do my Masters, but when I got a job, I deferred my entry for a year. They were now writing to invite me back to the course. Right, so something more for me to decide. That evening I told Mr about the possibility of me going away for a year at university outside London. So both of us had these decisions to make. He was about to go off to the East of England for a job, and I was about to go off to the Midlands to study! How complicated is that?
What to do? More prayers. I prayed for Mr and his job offer, trying not to pray selfish prayers...lol. I also prayed about my offer of admission to the Uni of Nottingham, should I leave my job, leave my family and friends in London and go? I told God about my worries for our relationship and the fact that we would be in two different cities for at least a year.
For some days we discussed it back and forth. Eventually I told Mr that I felt at peace with his plans to go for the job. I also told him that I felt God wanted me to go to Nottingham for my Masters. The timing was convenient as well. I told my parents also that I might be leaving my job in London to go and continue my studies in Nottingham, and they seemed fine with it.
We talked about what the distance would do in our relationship. We would obviously have to rely mostly on phone calls and texts to stay in touch. I was thankful that at least we were both still in the UK and T-mobile gives us free call allowance! We decided that we'll talk about visiting each other once we had settled in to our respective locations.
So in a few weeks, we started making plans. Mr accepted the job and went off to look for accommodation in the town. He set a date for moving out of his place. I emailed the uni and told them that I was accepting the place on the course. I handed in my notice at work and started making plans to move. The uni organised an accomodation event that I went to. There, I met a nice English girl. She was a fellow postgrad student who was also looking for a flat close to campus too. We found a lovely 2-bed flat close to campus and we signed the contract there and then.
Soon everything was arranged. Mr moved out of London first. I remember going to his flat to move his stuff out and thinking of the fun times we had shared in that flat. I was going to miss it. Then a week later, he moved into a flat in the new town. He still had some stuff to do in London for a while so I saw him quite often in that month. In the meantime, I quit my job and my colleagues gave me a lovely send-off! I also told my friends and ushering team in church that I was moving away. They all said they would miss me. Awwwww.... Before we left though, the senior pastor told me he wanted to see Mr and I, so we agreed to meet him at home one Sunday after church.
So here we were, stepping out in faith into unknown pastures...

Confused (2)

2007-04-25T14:23:00.001+01:00

Continued from previous post -

After I hung up the phone call, I sat there thinking. What this guy was up to? He was coming to England to see me? What do we have to talk about? I thought we were good friends and that was it. Fine, we had a thing for each other, but it never developed so...? I contemplated telling Mr about it but I didn't. What would I even tell him? "Hey guess what, my old crush from Nigeria is coming to see me?" What would he think? So I decided against it.

I was also wondering if I should just ignore him and cut him off completely. But I thought, for the sake of our long friendship, I wouldn't be rude to him so I'll be nice. I would talk to him and make him realise that there was no way we could be together anymore. But there was no reason why we couldn't remain friends.

Sure enough, I got a call from him the next day. He said he would be around for three weeks. Men those three weeks were the most confusing time of my life. He wanted to see me, but I kept making excuses, giving him reason for us not to meet. I wasn't sure what I would say or do if I saw him face to face. I wasn't sure of myself, knowing that I was still attracted to him.
Nevertheless, we spoke to each other everyday. We talked and talked about everything that happened back in high school, we talked about our friendship and crushes. He told me about how he had really liked me from way back in high school. So one day we decided to retrace the events of the past years to see how we didn't get together. One conversation went like this:

Him: FG, you know I've always liked you, right from when we were friends in high school
Me: Really?
Him: Yes
Me: I guessed you liked me, but I also knew that you liked my friend (let's call her H)
Him: Yes I liked H for some time but in the end I still liked you more
Me: Well you see, I knew you liked H, so there was no way I was going to get involved in a love triangle. That would have been messy cos we are friends
Him: There was no triangle. I stopped liking her
Me: Ok, then why didn't you ever ask me out?
Him: I wasn't sure how you felt about me
Me: You could have taken the chance
Him: I know, but I didn't want to spoil our friendship if you had said no. I thought it would be better to have you as a friend than nothing at all.
Me: But I liked you, so I would not have said no
Him: I didn't know you liked me
Me: I did, but I was definitely not going to ask you out
Him: So you liked me all along?
Me: Yes, but I got tired of hoping you would notice, so I pushed you out of my mind and moved on with my life
Him: Awww
Me: Yep you had your chance but you didn't use it. Even after high school
Him: After high school you told me you had a boyfriend
Me: That's true, but I heard you had a girlfriend as well
Him: Who told you that?
Me: It doesn't matter anymore now, does it?
Him: Ok I had one, but I still wanted to be with you. But you left Nigeria not long after
Me: No, I left a whole year after high school
Him: And you were not sure when you would come back
Me: Yes but I saw you two years later
Him: And we both had partners but you promised that you were going to marry me
Me: Are you for real? I thought that was a joke
Him: No I was serious
Me: Well I'm sorry. Shortly after my holiday, I met my current boyfriend and now I'm engaged to him
Him: When I heard you were engaged, I cried
Me: You did what?!
Him: It's true. My mum saw me and asked what the matter was. And I told her all about you, how you were the one girl I really liked, how I was going to marry you but now you were engaged to someone else
Me: (shocked) Incredible
Him: That tells you how serious I was
Me: Awww, I see. I guess we just was never meant to be. You do know that I'll be getting married soon don't you?
Him: Yes, and I envy the guy so much. He's taken you away from me. You are the love of my life
Me: Stop saying that
Him: It's true
Me: Ok o. So will you attend the wedding if I invite you?
Him: I'm not sure. I might stand up if the minister asks if anyone has a reason why the couple may not be joined
Me: Eh, please don't do that o
Him: Or when the minister says "You may kiss the bride", I'll have to look outside the window instead. I can't watch another guy kiss you
Me: Sorry o, but he's about to become my husband
Him: That hurts
Me: :laughing:

Ok I'll admit it. It was fun talking to him and it was very flattering too in a way because I knew that he liked me. Before long, all the old feelings came back and I felt drawn to him again. The thoughts of "if only I wasn't engaged to someone else" crept into my mind. (Now that's dangerous). Then I started feeling guilty. For one thing, I was spending more time talking to this guy than to my fiance. I was enjoying the trips down memory lane, his professions of love and the like. I wondered if this meant I was cheating, maybe not physically, but emotionally. But I was now more confused than ever before. I knew I had to stop it before things got out of control.

Around this time, it was Mr's birthday. I had been talking to this guy the night before when Mr tried to call me and I ignored his call. The next day I felt so guilty when I called him to wish him a happy birthday. We planned to meet in the evening after work. All day at work I was so restless and jumpy, even my manager noticed that something was wrong with me. After I left the office, the guy called me again and we talked throughout my journey to meet up with Mr. Eventually I had to tell him to get off my phone cos I was meeting my fiance. We went out for dinner and I gave Mr his birthday presents. To make me feel even worse, Mr was sooo happy and excited that evening. He was telling me how I was such a wonderful girlfriend and how he's been so happy since he met me etc. In my mind I was like "Oh no, why is this guy making me feel even more guilty now?"

At the end of the evening, I was so relieved when he dropped me off at home and I could do some thinking. I called my sister and told her what had been going on. She just laughed and said "How can you be confused? I thought you knew Mr was the man for you? How can you be drawn to another guy? Fair enough, you liked him before, but that's in the past now. Forget about him. Ok if you are really confused, pray that God should remove the feelings for this guy that is disturbing you".

I thought, well here's an idea! I could pray about it. Why didn't I do that before now? So first thing the next morning, I prayed to God to help me sort my emotions out. And God answered! It seemed like God was telling me some things:

1) Anything that takes away my peace is not God's desire for me.
2) I had more control over my emotions that I thought - if I stop encouraging the feelings for this guy, they would go away.
3) He did not allow me to date this guy because he would have been a big distraction for me
4) God's plan for my future was linked to my fiance and no one else.
5) It is not everyone I meet or feel attracted to that is meant to be in my life.
6) Of course I would get tempted sometimes, but it's what I do that determines the outcome.

Immediately I finished praying, I felt at peace again. All the clouds of confusion seemed to have been miraculously lifted. So God was still in control after all! I pondered everything for a long time. Sometimes I don't understand God's love for me. God loves me so much that He can prevent me from dating someone so that I would not miss the blessings in store for me. It made sense to me now.

Later that evening, I met up with Mr and I told him everything. At first I was worried about how he might react, but he just shrugged. It wasn't even a big deal to him. He said it was natural thing, and what matters is how I handled it. I loved him even more for that.

In the final week before my old crush left, I'm sure he noticed that my behaviour towards him had changed. I was now calmly telling him to forget about anything happening between us. I explained to him that we can be friends but nothing more. Knowing what I now knew, I agreed to meet up with him on the day before he left. It was nice seeing him, but the spark I had been dreading was no more there. We talked for a while and I bade him farewell. And that was it really. I went back to my fiance and appreciated him more.

(Something was revealed to me much later that annoyed me so much, but I will save that for another day and another post)

Confused (1)

2007-04-16T17:46:00.000+01:00

This is the story of how Favoured Girl got confused. For this post to make sense, I'm going to dig up some historical archives. Where do I begin? Right, back to senior secondary school. I had just started in a new school and I was quite shy so I didn't make friends with many people at first. But after a while I started to come out of my shell. Then I was introduced to one guy who was in my set and we became friends. We hung out and talked and walked together and stuff. Our friendship was nothing extraordinary at first although some of our mates thought we were going out at the time.
After a while though, I started liking him more and more, but I didn't know what to do. Sometimes I felt he liked me too, and sometimes I wasn't sure, so we remained just as friends for a long time. After a while I noticed he liked one of my best friends and she seemed to like him too! Now I was stuck in the middle: go for the guy seeing as I liked him? lose the friendship with best friend? In the end I decided that my friendship with my girl friend was not worth losing over the guy (see, I'm so loyal! ....lol) so I left it. We all remained good friends until we left secondary school.
My girl friend and I ended up going to college together. Both of us still kept in touch with this guy. He even came to see us in college on valentine's day to take us out. One day in college we were talking about secondary school with another friend of ours and she asked us about this guy that was our friend. As we started talking about it, I asked my girl friend if she was aware of the triangle back in secondary school. She said she liked the guy, he seemed to like her too but he never made a move and she was aware that I liked him too! We laughed about it seeing that both of us had been thinking the exact same thing all along and we hadn't brought it up before.

After we were done with college, I left Nigeria for England. Before I left though, I visited the guy and we hung out and promised to keep in touch and all that. After I left Nig though, I didn't really keep in touch with him anymore. I had too many other distractions. Besides I thought there was no point keeping my crush on him alive, seeing as neither of us could do anything about it. So I pushed all thoughts and emotions with this guy out of my mind.
Two years later, I went home for a holiday and saw him. Everything just came flooding back. This time I couldn't deny there was still chemistry between us. Unfortunately (or not), we were both in relationships at the time. How funny is that! I knew I liked him but there was no way I would break up with my boyfriend in England to do long-distance with him. He also didn't want to break up with his girlfriend. So what could we do? Never theless, we spent a lot of time together during my stay in Nig. By the time I was leaving, his girlfriend absolutely hated me. Apparently he had been talking about me non-stop and she was tired of hearing my name. She had even found my photo in his car!
The day before my flight back to England, we met up for the last time. He asked me if I had plans to come back to Nig after my degree. I told him I wasn't sure. He said that if I came back, would I marry him? I didn't know if he was serious or not, so I just said yeah sure I would. By the time I came back to England, I was frustrated with liking someone I couldn't have, so I pushed him out of my mind again.
Then my current boyfriend at the time disappeared, and you know the rest of the story. I stayed single for a while until Mr came along. I was in a happy and wonderful relationship so I had no reason to think of anyone else. After I got engaged, I received a funny phone call one day from this old crush. He said he had heard I was engaged through some friends of mine and he was very sad. He was calling to confirm if it was true that I had dumped him for someone else. I thought, "What is this guy on about, we were never in a relationship". I told him, yes it is true I'm now engaged and I'm sorry for not telling you earlier, but I didn't dump you". Then he reminded me that I had promised to come back to marry him. I was like, we were both kidding that day, you have never asked me out, you had a girlfriend, in fact you still do, so did you expect me to put my life on hold waiting for you?" Fortunately I was on a bus and I told him we really couldn't discuss it, so he should call me back some other time. He didn't call back that day so I forgot about that conversation.
Fast forward to three months later. I saw a missed call on my phone one morning from a Nigerian mobile number. I didn't know who it was and I thought, if the call is important the person would call me back. Later that evening, my phone rang again. This time I picked up and the conversation went like this:

Favoured Girl: Hello?
Caller: Hi, Favoured Girl, it's me (it was him)
Favoured Girl: Oh hi, how are you?
Caller: I'm good. Guess what, I'll be coming to England tomorrow
Favoured Girl: Oh, erm, that's nice.
Caller: I need to see you, we need to talk. I decided that we can't talk over the phone so I'm coming over to see you in person.
Favoured Girl: Why?
Caller: Can't talk right now. I'll call you when I arrive. We need to talk about us.

WHAT!!!!

To be continued...

Mentors

2007-04-06T22:15:00.000+01:00

One thing I have touched on before, is the idea of having mentors. I think I should write a bit more about it, since it is so important. The idea of having a mentor might seem weird at first. Nobody wants to feel like their relationship or their decisions are influenced by some external party. Then there is the issue of confidentiality - how do you trust that the person (s) will keep your gist confidential? Or how about trusting that they won't later use that information against you. And how can you guarantee that they will not be partial in their advice to you and your partner? All these are valid concerns. I still believe though, that for any young person in a Christian dating relationship, having Christian mentors is really important.
In my case, when I first started dating Mr, I realised that going to my friends for advice was not helping, in fact it was making things worse. My friends were well meaning people, but at the time, they were just as unwise and as immature as I was. I soon realised a few things: my friends couldn't give me better advice than I could give myself, most times they only said what I wanted to hear, they always took my side even when I was wrong, and at the time none of them had been in a long-term committed relationship so their knowledge was severely limited. After Mr and I had had two arguments early in the relationship and advice from friends was getting me nowhere, I decided to go somewhere else.
I started speaking to my aunt instead. I was quite close to her so she was the easiest person (in the absence of my mum) that I could discuss with. I thought, since she has been happily married for more than 20 years, she must know a thing or two about making relationships work! I found out that when I talked to her, she always made me see things from a point of view I would never have thought about. Even though she was my aunt, she was very impartial. Unlike my friends, she was not afraid to tell me bluntly if I was in the wrong. She taught me so many things: keeping myself from losing my temper during an argument, putting my issues into prayers, expressing to Mr that I love him, how to practice submission, avoiding sexual temptations and so on. Sometimes when I just wanted to get a load of stuff off my chest, she would sit down and listen to me. Afterwards she would advice me and we would pray together. As time went on, I became wiser and started recognising what I had been doing wrong. Now I'll always be grateful for her guidance.
Later on, I got close to a couple in my church and they became my official mentors. I used to admire their relationship so much. They were always smiling at each other and you could tell that they were very good friends. I became close to them after we were put on the same table at a wedding reception. They were teasing me that I was next. Thereafter, they asked about my relationship and how it was going and we started gisting. I liked the fact that even though they were older than me, they were still young at heart and they could come down to my level. Over time, I learnt so much from them as well. They were very honest and open, there was no topic that we didn't discuss. We talked about everything: from facing sexual temptations to dealing with in-laws to managing finances and their funny experience on their wedding night. Some of the stories they told me about their courtship were hilarious. Mr got to know them too and he liked them at once. Whenever I saw them we always had fun talking. I still try to keep in touch with them now cos they helped me so much.
I think mentors have a role to play in helping young people with relationships. Having mentors really helped me and that's why I think they are so important. They can fulfil the role of giving you practical advice. They can speak from their own experience. They can correct you if they think you are making a mistake. They will look out for you and pray with you. I also think it is the best way of passing down wisdom from one generation to the other. Choosing a mentor can be quite difficult though. Ideally you should choose a couple, so that you can hear from both points of view. They should be people you look up to and admire. They should be happily married, who have successfully gone through all the stages you are currently going through and have stayed together. Choose people you can see or speak to on a regular basis so that you can keep in touch easily. And choose people who are not biased so they can be impartial in their opinions. And above all, trust God to lead you because human beings can only say what they know, but God knows everything.

Submission

2007-03-14T11:31:00.001Z

Here's one prickly topic with today's modern woman, including me. When I first heard a message on women respecting and submitting to their husbands, I thought to myself, "What?! I hope I don't have to deal with this anytime soon" and I promptly pushed it out of my mind. Well you know what, I got into a relationship and got engaged. Sooner or later, the topic came up again one Sunday in church. This time it was the pastor's wife preaching. She used herself as an example, and told us a story. When she and her husband were engaged, they visited an older friend who was advising them. He then asked her some questions: Do you love this man? She said yes. Do you trust this man? She said yes. Will you obey this man? She frowned. Their friend said to her, "No matter how much you trust and love someone, you are not ready for marriage until you can learn to submit and obey your husband".

Now as she was preaching, she said it took her almost 10 years, but her marriage became much better once she learned to submit to her husband. Someone asked, why did it take you so long? She said it is because submission is not a natural thing to do. We all want to feel like we are in control of our decisions. As a child growing up, we learn to rebel against authority. Imagine now, as you are finally an adult capable of handling your affairs, you are now being told that you have to submit to your husband's authority over you. Of course, your natural instinct is to rebel and disobey. So it took a lot of time, hard work and prayers before she learnt to tame her rebellious nature.

This time, the message hit home for me. At the time Mr and I were now serious about the future of our relationship. We had also just had an argument and I hadn't been willing to back down. Now I realised that I couldn't ignore the matter of submission anymore if I wanted a happy, peaceful relationship. But I wasn't comfortable with the idea that I would have to submit to someone. I thought to myself and came up with some difficult questions. How do you submit to someone without becoming a doormat? How do you submit while still having a say in matters that come up? How are you sure that the guy won't use submission as an excuse to bully you? And how do I know when to submit and when to stick to my argument when I'm convinced that I'm correct?

I remember having a discussion with my christian friends over this topic. It seemed that they were even more resistant to the word than I was. One of them said that it is lazy women who don't want to take responsibility for their lives that hide under the umbrella of submission. Another one said that she doesn't believe that her man should have a say in her affairs at all, such as her finances. I was quite surprised actually. Yes before marriage your boyfriend has no business controlling your finances. But then won't it be important after marriage and he has become the husband? When do you start practicing submission?

There are no simple answers. So I went back to my bible. I saw that it was not really optional. The command was for husbands to LOVE their wives, and wives should RESPECT and SUBMIT to their husbands. I found some books and teachings on the subject and read them thoughtfully. Slowly I began to comprehend the subject. I understood that it did not mean 1) a violation of my rights as a human person; 2) it does not mean for me to submit to my husband’s desires blindly, totally, and completely because his desires may be unreasonable 3) it does not mean I'm to be treated like someone unable to make mature judgment. Actually the scripture talked about mutual submission. That meant both of us had to bestow equal amount of love and respect to each other. That meant that we both had to be completely unselfish when we want to get our point across. What it meant was that being a woman did not mean that I was incapable of making my own decisions, but I should recognise that I had someone who was capable of making selfless decisions for my welfare on my behalf. If I trust him to be a God-fearing, sensible, caring, and loving man, then I can safely submit to him, knowing that he will put my best interests before his own. I asked my happily married aunt for advice. She also told me that it was when she was most submissive to her husband that he was most loving to her. So those commandments of Paul in Ephesians must go together. You cannot submit to someone who doesn't show you love. Of course that meant that my choice of husband must be the right man. He must be the kind of man that I have confidence in. He must be the kind of man that I can trust completely. He must be a reasonable, selfless man. Who wants to submit to a loser or a creep? So if I can't imagine myself submitting to my boyfriend, perhaps it's best not to marry him. If my husband was being selfish and unreasonable, he cannot expect me to submit to him. I would be more willing to submit if I knew his motives were for our mutual benefit.

Still it is very hard. Knowing something in your head is very different from putting it into practice. My pride sometimes gets in the way. There are so many examples of times when my fiance has suggested something and I did not listen. Only for me to reaslise much later that he was right all along and I was wrong. Then I would feel bad for not listening right from the beginning. And I would ask God to help me again and again. It's not easy but I'm learning.

To read an article on submission, click HERE

To be continued....

Meeting Dad

2007-03-03T23:24:00.000Z

By this time, most of my family knew I was in a serious relationship. Except my dad. (A little background info: My dad and I have always had a close relationship. He's such a cool guy. Even when my friends meet him, they go "your dad is so cool" and I agree. He has always treated me like an adult and he respects my opinions. We talk and argue about anything. I remember my dad telling me when I was younger not to have a boyfriend until I was 20! LOL, I guess he was just trying to protect his little girl)
I was not in a hurry to introduce any guy to him until I was sure he was the right one. I was a bit nervous. Funny enough, my dad never seemed to mind when he met my guy friends. But I was worried about how he would react to my boyfriend. I knew it was now time though. After Mr proposed and I was now engaged, I asked my mum for advise on how to break the news to dad. She suggested that it was better face-to-face rather than over the phone. So I should wait until he was around, and he could meet the boyfriend. As God would have it, dad was coming for my graduation ceremony in December that year. Since I wanted Mr to be part of the ceremony, he was going to have to meet dad then. The day my parents arrived, I told my dad I wanted him to meet someone. The conversation went like this:

Me: Daddy there's someone I'd like you to meet.
Dad: Who?
Me: My boyfriend
Dad: Your what?
Me: Dad, he's not just any boyfreind
Dad: I see, what kind of boyfriend?
Me: He's my serious boyfriend
Dad: How serious?
Me: Serious enough for me to want to introduce him to you
Dad: How long have you known him?
Me: Almost two years
Dad: Two years!
Me: Well he's been my boyfriend for just over a year now
Dad: But you've only just graduated. Has he been distracting you from your studies?
Me: Not at all Daddy. He's actually been very supportive
Dad: I see
Me: Dad, just meet him first and give him a chance. I'm sure you'll like him
Dad: I'm not sure.
Me: Ok if you don't like him I'll take that on board. But you have to meet him first
Dad: He's trying to take my baby girl from me.
Me: Nooooo he's not! I'll always be your baby girl
Dad: Okay so when am I meeting him?
Me: Well I want him to be at my graduation ceremony so can you meet him before then?
Dad: This is serious. Ok tell him to come on Thursday.
Me: (hugs dad) Thanks dad! I'll tell him right away.

I ran to tell Mr that my dad wanted to meet him. The guy was a bit nervous. Just a bit... lol. I told him to be himself and he'll be fine. Thursday came and Mr came round to meet my parents. I was glad my mum had met him before this, otherwise it would have been even more nerve-wracking for the poor guy. As they settled down to talk, I left the room and left Mr on his own. After a while my dad called me and said I should see him out. On the way back to his car, I asked Mr what he and my dad had talked about. He said it was 'man-talk' so I wasn't meant to hear. I ran back inside to hear the verdict. Mum was smiling ear to ear. Dad looked thoughtful. I asked dad what he thought. He just said "He's a nice, responsible young man". I said "I'll take that to mean you liked him then." And that was it.

Some days later, it was my graduation ceremony. I remember turning round to wave to my parents in the auditorium and seeing Mr sitting beside them talking to my mum. And that was it, just like that he had been accepted as a member of the family. I was sooo pleased. Later on when we were taking photographs, my dad jokingly asked Mr if it was okay for him to hold my hand. My friends could not believe their eyes when they saw Mr sitting confidently with my dad. They came to ask me how I did it. I remember one of them telling me that she was dreading the day she would introduce her boyfriend to her dad too. I told her to get her mum on her side, that seemed to help. I'm just glad that the meeting went well and my dad liked him at once. So that major hurdle was over.

Temptations

2007-02-28T21:43:00.000Z

I just thought I should use a tantalising title... wink ;-) no not really.

Okay I mentioned in one of my past posts (here) that I was going to talk more about abstaining. At the beginning of our relationship, Mr had told me that he would respect my decision to wait until we were married before having sex. I was really pleased that he was supportive and willing to help me. We both had a duty to help the other person to stay pure. At the time, both of us hadn't had very long abstinence relationships, so we didn't know what lay in store for us. We just started and let things take their course. As time went on though, we realised we had to come up with ideas on how we would not to get tempted to take things too far. As you know, it is one heck of a slippery road to keep your body under control when you are in a loving relationship.

I remember attending a few singles' seminars. No matter what topics are discussed, whenever there is a question and answer session, the question of "how far should you go before marriage?" always comes up. And whenever the topic of physical stuff in relationships comes up, there is usually a hot debate. Some people think everything you do is fine, as long as you don't have sex. Some people think even kissing is wrong. And then there are people like me who are in-between. So what's the verdict? Can we hug? Kiss? Make out? There are still no definitive answers. For me, I thought kissing was okay, but we just had to be very careful not to get carried away.

The first year of our relationship was great. I was learning and discovering so much that we didn't get too physical, nothing more than hugs and kisses. I was learning to trust Mr too, and I really respect him for not pushing me to go further than I wanted to. After we got engaged, it seemed things got much harder. We had been going out hugging and kissing for a year and naturally our bodies wanted more. At first we ignored it. But it became more and more obvious to us that we had to do something, otherwise we would slip. So we tried everything. We limited the number of time we saw each other each week. Nope, that didn't help. We decided not to visit each other at home. Well that didn't work too cos we could still hang out in his car or at the cinema. We stopped seeing other on weekends, and saw each other at weekdays. Still had issues with controlling our body's desires.

At the end of the day, we had to come to our own decision. So in a moment of "wisdom" we decided we would stop kissing. Maybe that would give us some relief. Well it did last us a couple of months. It was good to go back to basics again like before we started going out. And it was like rediscovering that we had things to do and stuff to talk about. Those months were great! Did it last long? Hmmm... a bit. We kissed twice in three months. But then held on for a few more months. Eventually we gave up and actually prayed to God to help us cos we couldn't resist the temptations on our own strength alone anymore. This is where some Bible passages came in handy: Remember that the temptations that come into your life are no different from what others experience. And God is faithful. He will keep the temptation from becoming so strong that you can't stand up against it. When you are tempted, he will show you a way out so that you will not give in to it. 1 Corinthians 10:13 NLT. So now when my friends ask me now how we managed to stay three years without sex, I just say it was God that helped us.

Oh I must add that my mentors helped me a great deal too. Every once in a while, they would call me to ask how our relationship was progressing and then reiterate about the benefits of remaining pure before marriage. That often encouraged me. One of my uncles also had a girlfriend for 10 YEARS before they got married. When they told me they abstained for that long, my jaw dropped. And then I thought, if they can do it, then so can I. It still wasn't easy, but it made me feel more positive about achieving it.

Spreading the News

2007-02-20T13:27:00.001Z

To say that the event that had just happened to me was a surprise would be an understatement. I was so unaware of what Mr had been planning. It was after the whole thing, that I started noticing clues. A week before, my cousin was asking me when I thought my boyfriend would propose and I told her, I didn't think he would propose till two years time! Meanwhile he had asked her to help him find a ring! LOL. I also remembered him checking my fingers and commenting that they were very slim. At the time he had been trying to judge my ring size but I hadn't suspected! And then I also remembered meeting his siter-in-law in church a week earleir and she had practically begged me to come for the party. And on the way to the party, my uncle was grumbling something like, "they should come to us, we shouldn't go to them..." I also remember him bugging me to give him my mum's number because he wanted to ask her something, and I had told him to tell me what he wanted to ask her but he wouldn't. Now it all added up. I'm glad I didn't guess though because I would have spoilt the surprise. I'm sure no lady wants to ruin the moment when her boyfriend asks her to marry him.
As soon as we left the party I called Mr. I teased him endlessly and asked him how he set the whole show up. He was blushing as he told me how he had planned it with his brothers and my family, how the party was a cover-up, how he had chosen the ring with my cousin, and persuaded my uncle to bring me. Awwwww..
The next day was a Sunday. As an usher, I smile when I welcome people, but it seemed everyone noticed that I was smiling even more that morning. My pastor came to ask me what was up and I showed him my finger. He was like, "Wow, so the man is serious? That's good...." I showed off my ring to my ushering team, and they were so excited too, as another member was getting married and we were planning a bridal shower for her that afternoon. After the service, I attended the shower and was imagining what mine would be like.... Later that afternoon, I called my mum and told her the news. She was pleased and she said it was time to tell my dad that I was in a serious relationship. I told her I would tell him when he came to England for my graduation in three months' time and she said that was fine.

For the next week or so I was floating on clouds. I remember getting to work on the Monday after, and my manager asked me if I'd had a good weekend. I smiled and showed him my ring. He jumped and shouted to everyone in my department, "Look everyone, Favoured Girl* got engaged over the weekend!" and they all crowded round my desk to congratulate me, offer to make my tea, ask questions about how it happened and such like. It was fun. I also told my sisters and two of my very good friends that I was engaged. At the time none of my other mates were engaged or married, so I was the first one to share such news. They were excited and happy for me, and I remember telling them to hurry up and join me soon.

But gist spreads fast o. Before I knew it, they told someone who told someone who told someone etc. I started getting different calls and emails from friends, well-wishers, haters and other random people. The funny thing was three of my male friends came out of the shadows saying they had crushes on me and were hoping something would still happen between us. I told them that it was too late. (More on this later). Some people were calling me to say congrats. Some people were calling just to hear gist and do "gbeborun". Some people called to say they heard from somebody else and they were offended that I didn't tell them myself. Some people called to tell me they heard I was married and I hadn't invited them to my wedding. Some people called my best friend to confirm fom him, then he called me to tell me that speculation was rife among some friends who didn't know me very well. People were spreading all kinds of rumours that I had gotten pregnant and was rushing into marriage to hide my shame. I heard another rumour that my parents could not afford to keep me in England anymore, so they were marrying me off to some rich old man who wanted a young wife as soon as possible. I was 20 when I got engaged, and I know that's young, but people can be so hateful. Why would such a thing enter somebody's mind if not for envy? At least find out the truth first, before spreading spiteful rumours.

Well I wasn't going to let rumours dampen my joy, so I chose to ignore them. I really enjoyed being engaged. It was fun telling and re-telling the story whenever people asked. It was great fun planning and anticipating the next steps that we were going to take. I still called Mr my boyfriend though cos I never really got used to introducing him as my 'fiance'.

One Year and a Surprise

2007-02-14T09:16:00.000Z

It's Valentine's Day today! I thought it would be perfect to write a happy, oh-so-romantic post today. So here goes.

Before we knew it, time flew by and Mr and I had been going out for a year. I remember looking back at the year that had gone by, how much I had grown, how many things I had learnt and being so happy that I was a better person that I had been the previous years. We talked on the phone the day before. I suggested we should celebrate our anniversary by going back to the cinema where he had asked me out a year ago, and actually watching a movie this time. It sounded like fun. After the movie we hung out in the car (like in the beginning), swapped anniversary presents, and talked about the past year. I teased him about when he was asking me out then, hoping and praying that I would say yes. He teased me back saying I was already "jelling" for him so I couldn't resist. Had a right laugh about it all. I couldn't stay there till 3.00am though. I had to wake up early the next morning cos I was ushering at a wedding.

Besides we were meeting up in the evening anyways. The event was a party at his older brother's house. He had told me a week before that his brother was having a small get-together and I was invited. Initially I told him I wasn't sure I was going to make it because I had to attend and help at the wedding and my family was going to be there. He came back to me and said that my family had been invited to the party too and they had agreed to come, so we could all come to his brother's place after the wedding. That was cool by me, so I agreed to attend.

The next day I had a busy but nice time at the wedding. I like hearing the couple making vows and dancing and the whole point of getting married. Throughout the day lots of people were teasing me saying, "you are next!" and I was thinking "you people need to slow down". At the reception, I remember watching the happy couple having their first dance and thinking, love is sweet o! Little did I know.

Eventually I rounded up my family and we left the wedding to go to my future in-laws house. When we got there, I met Mr there already, his brothers and their wives were there getting things ready. I offered to help in the kitchen but they said I shouldn't worry, I should just go and chill with the kids in the living room. While I was playing with the kids, Mr's second brother got up to give a speech. I think it went like this. "Thank you all for coming, and many thanks to the family for bringing Favoured Girl* here. Let me not take too much of your time. I'll just step aside and allow the person that called us here to do what he wants to do". I looked up in confusion, wondering what was going on. Then I saw Mr who was sitting beside me, fiddling in his pocket. He brought out a ring, knelt down in front of me and said "Babe, you have been the best girlfriend I've ever had. The past one year has been wonderful (I was in a complete shock, it wasn't really sinking in, I managed to hear a few words) ...... official..... like to ask you .... ..... Will you marry me?" He must have waited for ages before I recovered and finally said "Yes!" and then he hugged me and put the ring on my finger. Then everyone came round to hug us and congratulate us. The rest of the party passed like a blur cos I was floating on some clouds all the way home.

Talking about Trust

2007-01-26T10:22:00.000Z

Picture this scenario:

I'm chatting with three of my girlfriends. We are in the library in uni, but we got bored with studying, and started gisting instead. We are talking about girl stuff: clothes, make-up, shoes and.... relationships. Then one of my friends turns to me and the conversation goes like this:

Friend 1: Favoured Girl*, what kind of contraception do you use?
Me: I don't use any
Friend 2: Why not? You have to, or you would get pregnant!
Me: Don't worry I'm not going to get pregnant
Friend 1: You can't be so sure
Me: I'm sure
Friend 2: How?
Me: I'm not having sex
Friend 1: Really? But you have a boyfriend!!
Me: Yes, but we are not sleeping together yet
Friend 1: For real? How come? Doesn't he bug you?
Me: We agreed not to sleep together. And no he doesn't bug me for sex
Friend 2: How long have you been together?
Me: About 8 months
Friend 1: So you've been with him for 8 months, you haven't slept with him and he is not bugging you?
Me: That is correct
Friend 1: Aaaah, he must be getting it from elsewhere
Me: No I don't think so
Friends: What? How do you know he's not getting sex from other girls outside?
Me: Because I trust him
Friends: You trust him?!
Me: Yes, is that so strange?
Friends: Of course! You should never trust any guy
Me: I see... so you don't trust your boyfriend?
Friend 1: Not completely
Me: Aaaah

Which leads me to this touchy subject. How much should I trust someone I'm in a relationship with? Should I trust him completely? How do I know he will never hurt me? Well relationships are complicated sometimes. But I think we should believe the best of everybody that comes across our way, until they prove that they can't be trusted. It's easier said than done. We will meet people that will disappoint us, and we may feel like we need to protect ourselves from being hurt again. I think, forgiveness releases us from pain and allows us to trust again.

For me, I have been disappointed by my friends in the past. I've felt like I trusted some friends and they betrayed my trust. And I could not believe that my last boyfriend just left me without any explanations, talk about a betrayal! Still, I had to learn to trust again. Meeting a new guy, I was still a bit wary though. I thought to myslef, I don't know this guy from anywhere, what guarantee do I have that he will not let me down? But my confidence grew when I realised that I could trust God completely. See, the trust that I have is not that Mr and I are so strong that we cannot fall into temptation. It is not because I think we are above sin. It is however based on the fact that we both know that God brought us together. If God was to choose a husband for me, then I can be rest assured that God will never give me a man that will hurt me. I can trust God that if I play my part in being the wife that He wants me to be, then He will play His part in upholding my relationship. If Mr can trust God that I am the woman God gave him, then he can be safe in the knowledge that God will uphold me, and help me when I am prone to failing. He is the source of our strength. What a relief.

No relationship can be complete without trust on both sides, from both parties. No matter how much you love each other, it just won't work. When there is no trust, the devil will enjoy planting lots of doubts in your mind. You might start recollecting little things that seem to add up to a reason for doubting the other person. You always believe that he could be hiding things from you. You'll find it hard to forgive them because you won't trust them when they say "I'm sorry".You would drive yourself crazy with worries and doubts.

Trust is so essential. A guy needs to fully trust a lady before he proposes to her. A lady needs to trust that the guy who is asking her out has good motives and will not turn around and hurt her. You have to trust your boyfriend when he says he couldn't call you at 6 o'clock last night because he had to work late. You have to trust that he will not cheat on you behind your back. And most importantly, when there is a misunderstanding and you are upset, you have to trust that the other party didn't mean to hurt you, it just happened because of a breakdown in communication somewhere (That last one, I still find hard to deal with). It's not easy, but there is no other way to live at peace in a relationship. God help us.

Some Firsts

2007-01-21T22:49:00.000Z

At the moment, I'm just looking back to a lot of our "firsts". You know, like our first date, our first kiss, the first time I went to his house, the first time we both said "I love you", our first christmas together, the first time I cooked for him, and the first time he cooked for me, etc. I might talk about them in detail later, but for now, two things stick out in my mind. One is the first time we talked about setting a date for our wedding. The whole thing was a bit of a joke. It went something like this:

We had been going out for three months. One evening, I was at home reading a magazine. The TV was on, but I wasn't really paying attention to it. They were interviewing some married couples. I started paying attention when I heard some people talking about their life after marriage. One lady mentioned that she chose to get married on her husband's birthday so that he would always remember their wedding anniversary. I thought that was funny. Mr called me some time later. As we were gisting, I mentioned what I had heard on the programme. He thought it was funny too. Then he asked if it would apply to us. Perhaps we could get married on one of our birthdays? So, for a bit of fun, we checked my birthday to see if it fell on a Saturday in any of the coming years. Nope, it didn't fall on a saturday at a reasonable time. Then we checked his. His 25th birthday fell on a Saturday in 2005, three years time! We jokingly said that would be our wedding day. We prayed about it. And forgot about it for a long time. Did it happen? Time will tell.

The second thing was the first time a pastor in my church asked me about a boyfriend. It was June 2003, and I had just finished my final year exams at uni. Pastor saw me after church and was congratulating me. This time, Mr and I had been going out for nine months. The conversation went something like this:

Pastor: Congrats Favoured Girl*, I heard you've finished your degree at uni
Me: Yes sir, thank you sir
Pastor: So what's next?
Me: I'm job-hunting now sir
Pastor: That's good. How's it going?
Me: Very well sir. I've got some interviews lined up.
Pastor: Don't worry, you'll get a good job soon.
Me: Amen. Thank you sir.
Pastor: (His voice drops to a whisper) Brother nko?
Me: He's fine sir.
Pastor: (excited) Eh!! So there is a brother in the picture! Come and tell me all about him.
Me: Erm...
Pastor: What church does he attend?
Me: He goes to this church, but a different branch.
Pastor: Really? What's his name? I might know him
Me: His name is ........
Pastor: (really excited) So I even know him! His brother is one of the pastors of another branch
Me: Yes I know that sir.
Pastor: How did you meet him?
Me: Through a friend in uni, then in church.... etc
Pastor: How serious is this relationship?
Me: We are quite serious sir.
Pastor: Tell him to call me this evening! I'm going to grill him seriously.
Me: Ah!
Pastor: I have to. He cannot just come and take you away just like that
Me: (laughing) Okay sir. I'll tell him to call you.

That was really funny. I thought it was nice of him to ask though. Later that afternoon, I relayed the conversation to Mr and we pondered on how the older people in our church always wanted to know what was going on in our lives. I guess they just wanted to look after the next generation. A lot of things I know now, I learnt from my older mentors. I'm really grateful for them.

Positive Changes (2)

2007-01-15T13:45:00.000Z

To write this post, I had to reach into a deeper personal level. But I felt I should share it because it is part of who I am today, and forms a part of my journey.

When I was a teenager I had self-esteem problems. I had no self-confidence and a distorted self-image. I always felt that I was 'not good enough' and will never be, so I never bothered to try. I used to compare myself with my other mates and friends, and will always measure myself far below them. I thought I wasn't pretty enough, smart enough , friendly enough, or "cool" enough to fit in. So I usually felt like an outsider, even though I had very good friends who liked me just as I was. And I gave so much concern to what people thought about me. Usually I wouldn't believe the positive things people said about me, but I would focus on negative comments I got. This dragged in my mind all the 'growing-up' years and I thought there was no way out. Sometimes I would psyche myself up, but deep down I didn't even believe myself. Even when I had boyfriends nothing changed. Guys told me I was beautiful, sweet, special etc, but it didn't work. I actually used to wonder what they saw in me or why they liked me. I guess what I'm trying to say is that I didn't like myself no matter who liked me.

This cloud hung over my outlook in life though secondary school and college until I got to uni. I met new people and started coming out of my shell a bit more. Then I realised it just wasn't normal or natural to feel this way about myself. Other people around me had good self-esteem and confidence. I wanted to feel confident and comfortable with myself too. So I started looking for a way out. I tried changing my outward appearance by shopping endlessly for new clothes, shoes, make up, jewellery etc. But the external appearance still did nothing for my internal turmoil. I started hanging out with the 'cooler' people but I gave up because I still didn't find my identity in associations. I started going out with a guy that seemed to like me, but deep down I was still uneasy. When he disappeared, part of me wondered if he just got bored with me. So, no hope of gaining my peace of mind from there.

When I started to take my christian life seriously, I sometimes wondered if I would learn to live with my current state or if God could help me out. One day I popped into my church bookshop with nothing particularly in mind to buy. Then I saw this book: "Prayers That Avail Much for Students " and bought it on a whim. When I opened it, I found some very useful prayers in it, including one for self-esteem! I was so happy to realise that it wasn't just my struggle alone, and I could talk to God about it. I started praying those prayers in the book earnestly everyday. And I also asked God to send people my way that would encourage me, lift me up and help me on my journey.

God answered my prayers. The words in that book built my spirit up gradually. Slowly but surely, I started to realise that all the negative things I had believed about myself for so long were nothing but lies from the pit of hell! I started questioning the voices in my head. Whose opinion were those negative thoughts anyway? Not my heavenly Father's. I began to renew my mind with what God's word tells me about myself, my position in Christ, how much He loves me, how precious I am to Him, and how nothing can separate me from His love. It worked! My whole outlook changed. It was like I became a new person completely. I felt like a heavy load had been taken off my shoulders, and I was now truly free to enjoy my life. Funny enough, I had heard these things before, but I was only just beginning to realise the truth in them, and apply them into my own life. My confidence and self-esteem doesn't come from anywhere else, but from knowing who I am and whose I am.

It was while I was on this journey that I met Mr. At first I wondered how such a wonderful person could like me. I even asked him once or twice, "why do you like me?". He said he saw so much potential within me that I was hiding, and he wanted to bring it out. And ever since, he has been encouraging me, and trying to bring the best out of me. I mentioned in a previous post that he makes me feel so good about myself. As I got to know him more, his own confidence soon started rubbing off on me. And the more I discovered myself and my potential, the more he encouraged me and loved me. Three months into our relationship, I had changed completely. I was such a different person that my friends and family noticed it. That's God's work for you.

Positive Changes (1)

2007-01-06T02:21:00.000Z

I mentioned in the "Getting what I want" post, about how Mr tries to bring out the best in me. I have to admit, this is not an easy process! Why? Because it sometimes involves him pointing out my faults. Funny enough it is always easier to see the faults in other people than in ourselves. When we started going out, I thought everything was fine and I was faultless. I would never see how I was wrong whenever we had an argument. But I now know that I have my faults as well. And it is the person closest to me that should point these faults out to me, and challenge me to work on them. This process is never ending though. The first time Mr pointed out one of my faults was a bit of a shock.

One day, during a conversation with Mr, he suddenly stopped and said I had just been trying to manipulate him. I was like "What? when? how?!" and demanded an immediate explanation. He said that I sometimes try to twist his arm to get what I want. By the time he finished pointing out what I had said and done on several occassions, it was clear to me that indeed I was twisting his arm. I was so surprised. I had never thought that I was capable of manipulating somebody. So I had been doing it unconsciously! I asked him how he knew. Apparently it's something that we ladies do a lot. He explained to me that he was used to getting those emotional blackmail stuff from his aunts and friends so he had learnt to recognise and ignore it. And he told me that if I wanted something, I should just come out and say it directly, instead of twisting it and then later blaming him for not getting the hint.
(((He mentioned one occassion, when I wanted to get my hair done but I was broke. Instead of asking him directly to help me out, I had been giving him some attitude throughout that day. When he asked me what was wrong, I said "Nothing is wrong, I'm fine". Then I started sulking. Then I became angry. He had suspected that I wanted something from him, but since I was not being straightforward he wasn't going fall for my tricks. He would wait for me to come out and say it. Well, eventually I did and he helped me out))).
That was a real eye-opener for me. I realised that I did have some faults in me then. That hurt my pride a bit though. It can be really hard to take criticism from someone, even if they mean well or they are only trying to help.
I also realised that I didn't want a man that I could manipulate after all. I won't respect my man if I could control him under my thumb. I want a real man, someone who has a mind of his own. True, we may not always agree, but that means I usually get to see things from another perspective. So I told him to always point it out to me if I was beginning to manipulate him again. And since then I have been able to recognise it and stop myself.

Meeting Mums, Brotherly Advice

2006-12-31T01:21:00.000Z

Before I got too deep with Mr, I called my mum and told her about him. She said she was going to pray about it. Soon she called me back and said she felt at peace, so she was really pleased. She also told me that she would like to meet him as soon as she could. Apparently, Mr had also told his mum about me, and she was quite keen to meet me as well. Three months later, both mums came to England separately. My mum came for a brief holiday, while his parents came to attend his graduation.
Just after mum arrived, I remember telling Mr that my mum was in the country and she would like to meet him. So we arranged a time. After work, he picked me up from uni and we drove home. My mum greeted him like she knew him before. She sat him down and asked him lots of questions with a serious face. She asked him whether he was a christian, about his family, what his intentions were, how long he had been eyeing me on campus.... etc etc until the poor guy was blushing seriously and I was laughing. Eventually she was satisfied with all his answers and she let him go. Later on I asked her what she thought of him and she said he was a nice guy. So that initial meeting went well :-)
A week later, it was my turn to endure the questions. I was to spend a whole day with Mr's family including his mum! That morning I was so nervous. I got to his brother's house and met his mum and she greeted me very warmly. She asked the basic questions, and she seemed satisfied too. We spent the rest of the day together and she was already refering to me as her daughter, which I thought was really cool. So that was the mums' side of the introductions. It wasn't until much later that we got the dads involved. I think mothers carry more weight anyway. They can then do the job of informing the dads. I didn't tell my dad about Mr until a year later.

I have this uncle that takes the well-being of everybody around him so seriously. Whatever myself, my sisters or my cousins get up to, he wants to know and he usually dishes out advice. Whether we want to listen to him is another matter entirely. When he heard that I had a new boyfriend, he called me and grilled me very well about him. The he found out that he knew my boyfriend's older brother! So he must have called him and told him something like this: "I hear your younger brother is seeing my niece o. Make sure he knows what he is doing. I want you to call both of them together and advise them very well. Otherwise....!" LOL. Anyway one day Mr told me that we should visit his brother after church on sunday. I was quite pleased to, as it would give me an opportunity to get to know the family a bit more, and meet their 5-year old daughter again(she was quickly becoming my best friend).

One lovely sunday afternoon, we paid older brother a visit. We had lunch with the family and it was very interesting. Their daughter insisted that she wanted to sit beside me at the table. She ate her veggies because I ate mine and I told her veggies made me grow. Her mum was so pleased, she said I should be visiting every sunday so the girl would be eating her veggies more often! After lunch we played together until the adults called me for a chat. The chat was lovely. They asked us what our relationship plans were. We told them that we had every intention of going to the altar in the future. They asked us when that would be. We said we hadn't decided yet. They asked us if we had told our parents. We said we hadn't told them the full gist yet. They told us that if we had any questions or problems, we were free to come and ask them. They had been married about seven years at the time so that was good. They also gave us some advice. Sound advice that still rings in my head today. Amongst many other things they said: "You both have to put each other first. For you, younger brother, she becomes the most important person to you. As unfair as it may sound, even your parents become less important than your wife when it comes down to it. And to you lady, he becomes the most important person to you. No other human being (even your future kids!) should be more important to you than your husband. And your partner's opinion matters more than anyone else's. If you know that, then you will accord each other with the right amount of love, trust and respect. And no external party can come in-between you". Great stuff. That touched home for me because it was exactly what we needed to hear. It helps to prevent a lot of issues with in-laws and extended family too.

Getting What I Want

2006-12-18T00:43:00.000Z

Sometimes my friends ask me what attracted me to hubby. Did I get everything I wanted in a man? Did he meet all my expectations of "husband material"? What's important and what's not? These questions are of course dependent on individual choices. But we should have a good idea of what we want.

One day my church organised a singles meeting which I attended. We were asked to do several exercises. One of them was to write out what attributes we desired in our future partner. We all wrote our answers on paper and gave them to the woman leading the meeting. She read some of them out. There was stuff like rich, handsome, charismatic, tall, cute etc. She almost laughed at all of us. She said that we had obvoiusly not given it much thought. Where were our priorities? We were thinking of the superficial stuff, not thinking about what really brings lasting joy, peace and satisfaction in a relationship. Whatever happened to characteristics like God-fearing, disciplined, focused, reliable, honest, hardworking, caring, responsible, kind, committed, gentle, self-controlled, mature, respectful etc....? She tore up our lists and asked us to write new ones, and this time we should think before we just wrote some random things that popped into our heads. The second time we submitted our lists, our priorites seemed to have changed. LOL.

That meeting got me thinking though. I realised that I had to define what was really important to me, and what I could compromise on. Each of us at that meeting had to. Truthfully, before I met Mr I just had a very hazy picture in my head of what I wanted in a man. I had decided I wanted my husband to be like my dad - someone kind, generous and funny. He would have to be as educated as I was, because I enjoy meaningful and stimulating conversations. I wanted a God-fearing man because I knew it would have to be a man willing to wait till we got married before I slept with him. I knew I wanted someone I could trust, someone that I could rely on, and someone who would be my best friend. These were things I knew I could not compromise on. Things like the car he drove, the brand of clothes and perfume he wore, the schools he went to or the amount of money he had, I could easily compromise on. As per physical attributes, I thought I wanted someone 'tall, dark and handsome'. LOL, I guess I read too many Mills and Boon novels when I was a teenager. I put these ideas into prayers. Actually I had defined what I wanted but not what I needed. I thank God that He knew my needs and met them. I actually got a better deal than I had imagined in my mind. I am not saying hubby is perfect, none of us is. But he is God's perfect choice for me.

Now I didn't get everything on my wishlist. He is not 'tall, dark and handsome' the way I had imagined my husband would be. He is not yet as 'rich' as I would have wanted him to be. But my superficial judgement melted away as I got to know more of him. First, it was his confidence that attracted me. From the minute I met him, he exuded some natural aura about him that just draws people. Second, he made me feel good about myself. Third he was so easy to talk to. When we are talking, the conversation flows so easily even when we are not agreeing. Fourth, he didn't try to 'buy' or bribe me to like him by sending me loads of gifts, he just allowed me to get to know him for who he is. Fifth, he is a cheerful person, he knows how to cheer me up when issues are weighing on my mind. Sixth, he is driven and motivated, and he knows what he wants and he is willing to work to get it. And of course, he is a Godfearing, christian man. These initial attributes made me like him at the start. As time went on, I found out more and more about him that mirrored my deepest heart desires. One thing I realised after I had been going out with him for a few months was that he always brings out the best in me. And that is what a man is supposed to do for his woman. (Any guy that brings out the worst in me is definitely not Mr Right!)

Now the second half of this exercise at the singles meeting. After we had written our proper lists, the woman leading the meeting asked us a question. What kind of woman do you think the guy with all the attributes you have written would go for? Are you his type? If you have written that you want a guy that is hardworking, bear in mind that he is not likely to want a lazy wife. Or if you desire a man that is responsible and caring, realise that he is likely to be attracted to a responsible and caring girl as well! You as the lady, would have to step-up to meet his high standards. Then she asked us to write our own attributes that we think a guy would desire in us. (Gosh, more thinking for us to do). This time we took a lot longer to write our lists. Things like tall, sexy, cute and pretty didn't come into it. This made us realise that we had to be as good as what we desired. So when I met Mr, I asked him what attributes he desired most in his woman. He mentioned a few things. Some I could meet easily and some I am still working on. Thank God he was willing to compromise too (:-)

No Sex Please

2006-12-09T00:48:00.000Z

I was going to write this post later, but I mentioned something on my other blog that attracted interest so I decided to write it now. This is about how and why I waited till I was married before I finally had sex.

When I was just becoming a teenager, probably around 12 years old, I came across two small booklets titled "For Young Girls Only" or something like that. The booklets talked frankly about sex, the risks involved in indulging in sex before you are ready and many other things. The message in the book was clearly that abstinence was the best, fool-proof way of protecting yourself from diseases and unwanted pregnancy. So I decided that that would be the way for me to go. Of course at the time I didn't fully understand all the things involved, I just reasoned that it was a good idea, and I couldn't really go wrong with that. I didn't have brothers so I knew very little about guys. Now when I turned 13, my parents called me aside and gave me "the talk". Being a christain also helped because I was taught that God wanted me to be holy, and that sex outside of marriage was wrong.

I grew older and things started changing. I became aware of myself, feelings for guys and raging hormones. I started reading M&Bs, Jackie Collins, Hints, Hearts (hands up who read those mags in Nigeria!) etc. Started watching more movies. I became more and more aware of what sex was, but since I had made up my mind, I was not so curious. I knew when some of my friends started kissing and exploring with boys but I wasn't interested. However I knew temptation was heading my way when I started developing crushes on cute guys so I confided in some of my friends and we all made a pact to keep our virginity till we got married. If I remember correctly, we were 16 at the time and we were thinking we would have to wait about 8 years. We started making fun of the girls who had boyfriends and sexual encounters. We felt like we had something they didn't: self-control and virtue. All was well during secondary school. I even managed to leave secondary school without having kissed a guy because I didn't kiss my first boyfriend.

Things got more complex after secondary school and now I was in the big wide world. Gone was the protective cloak of my initial group of friends around me, now I had to stand on my own two feet. The pressure was now overwhelming especially in my college. I felt like all around me, my mates were exploring sex, having fun, enjoying themselves and I was the only one missing out. Sometimes when the peer pressure was getting to me, I would remind myself of the reasons why I was holding back. For me, some of the reasons were: (1) to please God (2) prevent unwanted pregnancies (3) prevent any funky diseases (4) Keep my respect and dignity (5) My business would not be the talk of the school (6) To give my future husband something really special (7) Something to look forward to when I eventually get married (8) No unhealthy soul ties to anyone (9) I won't be comparing past guys to husband (10) husband will trust me more (11) No issues with "so how many guys have you slept with?" type questions (12) No regrets about giving it up to ex-boyfriends etc ....

About the same time too, my second boyfriend was hinting that he wanted to take things further. When I told him I hadn't had sex before, he told me that I should prove it to him by sleeping with him (now how does that make sense?!!). I found that really funny. I told him that if that was the way I was "proving it" to every guy that asked, there would be nothing left of me. And I told him that if he married me, I would sleep with him. He tried to use the classic lines: "If you loved me, you would do it". Ah! I wasn't having that one. But I made sure I didn't put myself in any compromising situation. I never went to his house, he always came to mine (that way I could kick him out if things got slippery). When we went out I made sure he brought me back home early, or I had adequate transport fare on me, if I needed to escape. At every other time, we were on the phone, or hanging out with my friend and his cousin on double dates. And thankfully, before things got out of hand I told him I was leaving Nigeria. He said I should make sure I keep my virginity for him. I told him I would try.

Got to England and soon had more guys on my case. It seemed like some guys could tell I was innocent and they wanted to take that away from me. The "Sly Wolf" in my earlier post was just one of them, but there were two other guys. All I can say is, God was watching over me so they didn't succeed. Soon I started going out with the guy that disappeared and faced more temptations. I told him where I stood on sex, and he seemed to understand. After he disappeared and the relationship ended, I remember telling my friend that I'm glad I hadn't slept with him. That would have just made me feel worse.

Then I met Mr and one day the conversation strayed towards past relationships. I told him I had nothing to confess and I was proud of that. He then told me that he had slept with his ex-girlfriends, and he asked me if it would matter to me if we started going out or got married. At first I was not so sure, but later, I thought that if God had sent me this man, then it would not be a reason to throw him away. Since he had repented and recommitted himself in his walk with God, I could let it go as past tense. In essence I told him that I wasn't going to sleep with him until we were married and he agreed! So we could help each other to stay pure. I must admit it was really hard, but I will talk more about it in future posts.

Case of the Ex

2006-11-23T13:58:00.000Z

At first I wasn't so curious about Mr and his past escapades with ex-girlfriends. Like most people, we both had previous relationships and I had figured out, hey everybody has done some things they are not proud of. The important thing was to get to know each other at the early stages and the revelations would come later. But I didn't have to wait long before an incident prompted me to dig into the archives. The story goes like this:

One day Mr told me that he had been invited to a 21st birthday party at the weekend and asked me to come with him. He said he would rather not go, but he had promised the celebrant that he would be there. When I asked him why he was reluctant to go, he told me it was because he used to go out with one of the celebrant's friends, and the relationship had not been a good one and it didn't even end well. He was worried about meeting her or her group of friends there. I guess most of them knew about their turbulent relationship. I was wondering if he should go at all, or if I should go with him because I don't like going to parties where I don't know anybody. In the end, we decided to just go and "show face" for a short while. When we got there, the party was in full swing. It was a typical Nigerian gathering, with lots of people, food, loud music etc. Mr found the celebrant, we said hello to her, and then we went in to chill for a while. He started introducing me to people, and I could feel the eyes burning into me. I asked him if his ex was there and he said he couldn't see her. Soon a girl came to meet us, she said hello to me and started chatting with Mr. I didn't hear most of the gist because of the loud music. We stayed a bit sha and left the party. About 10 minutes later Mr's phone rang. He looked at me and said "that's my ex-girlfriend calling". I asked him if he knew why she was calling him, he said no. I said he should pick up the call. I listened to his side of the conversation but could not understand most of it. When he hung up I asked him what was going on. Then she called him again, this time, she sounded really upset and he sounded guilty. After she finally hung up the third time, he told me that some of his ex's friends were at the party and they had called her to tell her that 'her man' had brought another girl to this party, and was even proudly declaring that I was his girlfriend. So she had called him to confirm and spark. Apparently, him turning up at the party with me was a major disaster. He had embarrased her in front of her friends. She had hoped that they would get back together and she was already on her way to the party when she heard he was going to be there. But her friend (the girl that came to chat with us) had called her to say she should not come anymore because I was there. Mr was feeling guilty and was trying to calm her down. He told her that indeed, he had met someone else, and he confirmed that he had told her friend that I was his wife. I just felt really uncomfortable about the whole story. I guess it took a while for me to get the confidence to believe that it was over with that ex-girlfriend, and I was the one he had chosen to stick with.

After this incident, I sat down and had a talk with Mr asking him for every single detail about his past relationships. I didn't want any more surprises of that kind. What was more important though, was achieving closure with those exes, if need be, apologising and stuff.

For me, I wasn't on talking terms with any of my exes. I didn't even know where they lived or their phone numbers, so it would take a serious co-incidence for me to meet them. And anyway, I didn't think I needed to keep in touch with them. I would find it really awkward to be friends with an ex. Afterall, it didn't work out, so drop it and move on. If you are in a relationship with someone special, you don't need a cloud of past relationships hanging over your head. That said though, my second boyfriend is on my yahoo messenger list, but that's about it :-)

Introductions

2006-11-23T10:45:00.000Z

I remember the first time I told my aunt about my new bf. She smiled as she listened to me narrating how we met and proceeded to a relationship. Then she told me that she saw us the day we met in my church in April and she had known that there was something more at the time. I was like, seriously Auntie! What did you see? She said she saw the looks in our eyes and the way I smiled at him when we exchanged numbers. I thought she was kidding. But you never know! Anyways she said he seemed like a nice, decent guy and she knew his older brother, so she had no objections. She cautioned me not to get too excited, but I should take it one step at a time.

Mr on the other hand wasn't taking it easy o. Barely two weeks after we started going out, he started introducing me to his friends as his wife. Then I would get funny looks from the person. And a conversation like this: "Are you his wife?" Kind of. "How long have you two been going out?". Answer? Two weeks. "Two weeks! So how come he is already calling you his wife?". I don't know. He is excited I guess. The same thing when I introduce him to my friends. "Stop calling him your husband". Or "how are you so sure you are going to marry him?". Or "he is your boyfriend, not your husband".... etc. I would explain that our goal was not to break up, but we would be together till we got married. After a while I just stopped explaining. And I started calling him my boyfriend. I also told him to just call me his girlfriend. At least that would put an end to the awkward looks and questions from people.

About two months later, he said it was time for me to meet some of his family. He has two older brothers in England and both of them are happily married. He had told them about me and they were keen to meet this girl that their little brother was ranting about. So one day, Mr told me that he was going to pick up his brother from the airport, and I should come along. I was slightly nervous, but he told me that his brother was cool, so there was nothing to worry about. We got to the arrivals lounge and waited for his brother to come out, but the flight from Lagos was delayed. Eventually he came out, and Mr made the introductions. I greeted him nicely, and he smiled, said hello and offered a handshake. He said I should not kneel down, cos that would make him feel old. Throughout the journey to his house, brother was teasing us and making jokes. I liked him and he seemed to like me too. That went well! When we got to his house, I met his wife and the kids. His wife was very sweet and welcoming. The first thing I thought when I saw her was, she's beautiful! Then they asked the kids to "come and meet aunty". There was a 5-year old girl and a 3-year old boy. They liked me immediately and started chatting away, sitting on my laps, investigating the contents of my bag and playing with me. Even their mum was surprised that we got on so well immediately. It was getting late when we left their house. As we were leaving, I remember looking back and waving at them, thinking they were such a lovely family. On the way back, Mr said he was happy that the family liked me, and he was even jealous that the kids were all over me so soon.

Meeting his older brother was slightly different. The family had been on a summer holiday to Nigeria, where they were followed home by armed robbers. Everything they had was taken from them. They had just come back, and Mr decided to go and visit them, so I went with him. This time I was more nervous. His brother and kids were around, but his wife wasn't. They had guests and other family members around when we got there. As I got in, I greeted everyone and sat down. Everyone started talking to me at once, asking questions and stuff. It was a bit scary, but I soon relaxed as nobody was horrible to me. I remember some of the things they were talking about. His brother was saying to me, "I'm glad this my brother has finally brought a good girl to meet us, so that you would know he's got family...". One of his in-laws said to Mr, "I know it was God that gave you this girl, because left to your own devices, you won't choose a fine decent girl like this. You would have brought home one old woman singing in a pub...." LOL! I met the kids too, a 9-year old boy and 7-year old girl. They told me about their trip to Nigeria and how the robbers came into their house with guns to rob them of all their stuff. I got on well with them too. When we were leaving, they said they wanted to follow me home! I promised to come back to visit them another time, and meet their mum. (I later met her when Mr and I went to their house for his brother's birthday. She was so warm, we got on immediately. If she was my age, she's the kind of person that would be my best friend. So that went well too).
Some days later, I asked Mr about the verdict from both brothers. Thumbs up all the way. You just know that God is on your side when things go smoothly. Since both our parents lived in Lagos, it would be a while before we made the introductions. I'll continue in my next post.

It's Official

2006-11-09T00:00:00.000Z

Now we had officially started our relationship. I sent my friend EG a text some days later. She called me back at once. Screaming her head off. She was so surprised and happy. She was like "Wow!! The guy I introduced you to! How did you start a relationship with him right under my nose and I didn't suspect a thing all along!!" On and on she went, until I told her how it happened. She hung up and called our other friend, who also called me at once. More screams. We were due to resume for our final year at uni in a week, so we agreed that I would spill the beans when we met after resumption.

The next week, we went back to uni and they dragged me out. Over lunch I told them the whole story. Over the summer, "Mr" had graduated from our uni, so we wouldn't be seeing him around campus anymore. But that afternoon, he came to pick me up after lectures. EG was there and she told him, "You have just come to take my friend from me!". The guy just smiled at her and told her that he had his eye on me all along and he only used her connections to get close to me. (But till today she still takes the credit for hooking us up).

From day one, I knew this relationship was different from all my previous ones. So this called for a different approach from what I used to do in the past. For one thing, I had to define the relationship in my mind. Was this a "let's just see how it goes..." relationship or a "this is going to work out" relationship? In the past, I was involved in "let's just see how it goes" relationships.This meant that if it became inconvenient for me, then I would just end the relationship and move on. However, if I wanted this relationship to work out, I must be prepared to stick with it, even when it got inconvenient for me.

Another thing I did was, I stopped taking relationship advice from my girlfriends. Why? Not because they were bad people or I didn't trust them. But because I knew that they had the same level of knowledge and experience as me, so they could not give me better advice than I could give myself. I decided to start taking my relationship advice from people who had gone through this stage of life successfully and were now happily married. At least they could speak from experience, and their experience counts! So I appointed two married couples in my church as my mentors, and my happily married aunty as my relationship adviser. Over the years of our relationship, I gained wisdom from them, until I could learn to spot my past mistakes and avoid them. I remember one instance. At the beginning of our relationship Mr and I had a quarell. I asked my girlfriends for advice. I took their advice and things got worse. Then I asked my aunt, and took her advice. Things got sorted out! Go figure.

First Date and Next Steps

2006-10-31T00:23:00.000Z

I was writing this post two days ago, but my computer froze and I couldn't finish it. So anyways here's the continuation from where I stopped.

He invited me to a youth party organised by his youth club in church. I decided that was harmless enough so I agreed to attend. When we got there, every one was wondering who I was, and I kept on saying we were friends from school.

After the party, he asked if he could take me home and I agreed. Two other girls asked him for a lift as well. On the way, one of them was calling him "her husband", and then she suddenly stopped and started apologising to me. I found it amusing because I wasn't his girlfriend at the time, so I wondered why she was apologising to me. Anyways after he dropped them off, I asked him and he claimed he didn't know why she thought I was his girlfriend. (Later I found out that he had told them I was!)

Some days later, he invited me to see a movie with him during the week. I was working late that day, so we agreed to see an evening film. I left work later than usual and got delayed on the tube, so by the time we got to the cinema, the movie had already started. We decided there was no point going in to see the film anymore. He suggested we should get some food and go and sit in his car to talk. This was fine by me. And it was while we were sitting and talking that he told me what was going on in his mind, and asked me to be his girlfriend. I can't remember his exact words, but he made it clear that he wanted a long-term meaningful relationship. So this was not just a fling, not just a "let's see how it goes" relationship, but something that would work out. I knew that he was asking in effect if I would agree to be his wife sometime in the future. I sat in silence for a while. Then I told him I would pray about it and let him know my answer when I'm sure. That evening was lovely, we enjoyed each other's company so much that we ended up sitting in the cinema's car park talking till 3.00am in the morning! When we eventually realised the time, we laughed at ourselves. Then he dropped me off at home and I stayed on the phone with him until he got home too. Sweet eh :-)

At work the next day, I'm sure my co-workers noticed that I was smiling more than normal, and I was receiving loads of text messages. I was thinking about him all day. I had prayed about it that morning, and I told God I wanted a clear sign that I should start a relationship with this guy. I wanted to be 101% sure that I was doing the right thing. Then I remembered that I had prayed for a husband. Was God answering my prayer already? I decided to wait and see. That evening, when he called me to ask for my response, I told him I was waiting to for God to confirm something to me. He understood. So the next few days I kept my eyes and ears open to hear from God. Sure enough I got my response. And I felt so much peace.

So one fateful day in September 2002, I called "Mr" and told him I had agreed to be his girlfriend! He was really pleased (obviously). We committed ourselves to God there and then, and asked Him to guide us down the path we were taking. And that marked the start of our wonderful relationship.

(Recap: met him in January, became friends in April, grew closer over the summer, became his girlfriend in September. Pretty straight-forward eh?) LOL

One thing that strikes me, as I look back now, is that I can't think of which point I started falling in love with him. We started out as platonic friends, but somehow the love between us grew, and before I knew it, I was well and truly smitten.

One normal day

2006-10-22T13:58:00.000+01:00

The first time I met hubby was nothing special. It wasn't love at first sight, there was no initial spark, no butterflies, or anything else that romantic writers talk about. It was just a normal meeting, one normal day.
It was in uni, during those annoying January exams. A friend (let's call her EG) and I had taken a break from studying, and popped out for lunch. When we entered the restaurant, a group of guys were at the counter placing their orders. As I didn't know any of them, I took no notice. EG knew one of them, and he came over to say hi to her, and then she introduced us. We said hi to each other. EG and I chose a table to eat and left the guy to go back to his friends. Some time later, the guy come to our table to have a chat with EG. He seemed quite friendly, and he even invited us to a wedding. We both said we had to study for our exams, so we declined the invitation. After a while he left and I remember thinking he talked too much (lol). After that initial meeting, we would see each other around campus once in a while but nothing developed.
Then some months later, one sunday, my church had a service where all the branches in London came together. I saw this guy during the service. I was surprised, that he was even a christian, and that he was in the same church as me. After the service, he came up to me and I asked him if he attended the church, he said yes, just a different branch. We chatted for a while, and exchanged phone numbers, promising to keep in touch and look out for each other on campus.
The next day I told EG that I had seen her friend in my church the day before and she was surprised. Anyway from then, whenever I saw him on campus, he would come and have a chat.
Some months later, it was my birthday and I had planned to go out for a meal with my girl friends, including EG. She wanted to bring her boyfriend too, but she didn't want him to be the only guy attending. So she asked me to invite other guys. I told her I didn't have other guy friends. Then she said, "what about..... 'this guy', isn't he your friend?". So I asked him if he wanted to come along too. He said he didn't mind, so I told him where and when to meet us. On my birthday, he called me at midnight and played the birthday song to me on his guitar, which was sweet :-) . Soon we grew closer, and my sister commented that I had started spending more time on the phone chatting to him. One evening the conversation steered towards relationships and what we wanted from our future partners (typical eh?). But it was all good stuff.

Our first outing was to a party organised by the youths in his church. The plan was for us to meet up halfway and he would take me with him. On my way I was wondering what I was getting myself into. But it turned out to be nice. More gist in my next post.

Time out... to Think and Grow

2006-10-21T03:01:00.000+01:00

After I broke up with "the disappearing guy" I finally had some space to think. I realised that I had been drifting from one relationship to the other and I hadn't defined what I really wanted in a guy before jumping into relationships willy-nilly. Time for a break to discover myself and define what I wanted in a man.

At about the same time too, I knew God was calling on me to take my relationship with Him more seriously. Having been raised as a christian all my life, I had "played by the rules" and didn't indulge in sin (or so I thought), I went to church regularly, I behaved myself and so on. But I knew I had to start taking it seriously because I came to a crossroad: follow God fully or go my own way. So when I became single again, I thought it was the best time for me to get back in touch with God, get serious as a christian, become active in my church and define my relationship goals. Soon I re-dedicated myself to God and joined a ministry. I was happy and at peace with myself.

Later, as I looked back on this period in my life, I think God was actually working on me, making me a better person emotionally and spiritually, because no one who is immature in those areas should go into a marriage relationship. I think God wanted to show me that I was a woman of value to Him, and therefore I should not just give myself to any guy who would not appreciate my value. A person who does not know the value of what he has, would not take good care of it. Same thing with us ladies, the man that does not know your value will treat you like rubbish. God also showed me that I didn't need a boyfriend to validate me or make me whole or complete. My validation and completeness are only in Christ. A man in my life is supposed to complement me, not complete me. And I should trust God completely to guide me in my life, because He knew what was best for me. I learnt most of this stuff from christian books I started to read (The Lady, Her Lover, and Her Lord by T. D. Jakes, Let Me Be a Woman by E. Elliot, Not Even a Hint by J. Harris, Love, Sex, and Lasting Relationships by Chip Ingram and many others) and these books shaped my outlook on healthy relationships. I realised that I had to put the matter in prayer so that God would take care of it.

One day while I was praying, I prayed about my relationships and I told God that I wanted my next relationship to be with the guy I would marry. I didn't want to experience any more break-ups and disappointments. After I finished praying, something told me "Be careful what you wish for, because you will get it". At first I was surprised, but then I thought to myself, yeah why not? I won't mind meeting the right guy for me now, at least that would save me kissing more frogs. I soon forgot about the prayer and went about my normal activities. Little did I know that my prayer was going to answered so soon.

The Disappearing Boyfriend

2006-10-16T15:19:00.000+01:00

Moving on to the next boyfriend, number 4. This is the case of converting your best friend into your boyfriend. Myself and this guy were very close friends for years and years, through secondary school, college and uni - about 5 years. We had such a nice rapport going on. I always felt safe with him. He was the guy I used to confide in. I told him all my secrets, about the guys I had crushes on, money worries, mood swings, everything. He would always listen to me, offer help and advise and I trusted him. He also told me about his own relationships, struggles with his family, etc. All my girl friends knew him and sometimes they wondered about our friendship, but I always insisted that we were just close friends, and anyway I had 'proper' boyfriends, and he was there to help me decode what goes on in guy's minds.
He knew when I broke up with BF2, he knew about my silly escapades with other guys, and finally when there was a gap in my busy love life, he decided to make his move. The morning of Valentine's Day I was at uni when I got a call from him that he wanted us to meet up in Marble Arch for a movie after my lectures. This wasn't unusual cos we had gone to see movies together many times before so I just thought it was his way of consoling me for my lack of a boyfriend to treat me. No worries there, so after lectures, I dashed home, changed my clothes and headed to Central London.
On getting there, we saw the movie and he insisted on seeing me back home, and just as we were walking up my street, he pulled out some things from his backpack and presents them to me. I took them and was about to stuff them away, but he wanted me to open it right away. I opened the package and there was a card which he had written a poem in, a perfume and some other items I've forgotten.. lol. Then he kissed me and declared his love. I was like "What did you do that for? You have just spoilt everything!" and I stormed off into my house. I was trembling with anger, shock and confusion. When did my best friend start falling in love with me? And why? How will this change our friendship? Eventually I calmed down and called him two hours later. He apologised profusely and explained that he had loved me right from the start of our friendship, but he wasn't sure how I felt about him. So he waited and waited for me to realise that we should be together, instead I was busy with other guys. I laughed at this point and thought that maybe he had a point and since we were already good friends, a relationship would be the next logical step. Our first real "date" was a bit funny cos I was thinking, am I supposed to act differently now as a girlfriend?
Anyways after some time we settled down and the relationshp progressed. My friends were all chanting "I knew it!" when they found out he was now my boyfriend, like they had suspected all along. We had a blast, he treated me nicely, he took me shopping and bought me loads of stuff, we had long conversations, saw endless movies and had a good time. I thought we loved each other and everything was good.
Then after the spring/summer term in 2002, I went to Lagos for a four-week holiday. We were cool when I left England. I spoke to him just before my flight took off and he called me a few times from London to ask how my holiday was going. I was looking forward to coming back and seeing him after my holiday was over. But things went funny after that.
I arrived back in England and called him to tell him I was back. He didn't pick up so I left a message and asked him to call me back. Later that day I met up with a friend of mine, and I persuaded her to allow me stop at my boyfriend's place. When we got there, it looked like there was no one living there anymore. I was quite surprised since he hadn't mentioned he was moving. Anyways I kept calling his number but he wasn't picking it up. I sent him text messages and emails, all the while getting worried, then angry. After I had been back for two weeks without hearing from him, I went to a phone booth and called him from there. This time he picked it up (probably because he didn't recognise the number calling). I was so angry. What was he playing at? I asked him if he had seen my missed calls and messages and he said he had. I asked him why he hadn't bothered to respond and all he could tell me was that he was busy. Busy? For two weeks? Now I was really angry. He said we needed to talk and he promised to call me back later that evening to explain. Sure enough he didn't call me back. At this point, my friends were wondering what's up and all sorts of thoughts were running through my mind. What happened while I was in Lagos? Did we have any disagreements I was not aware of? Why would he just disappear like that? Why was he avoiding me? What is wrong?!! After another two weeks, I still hadn't seen him or heard from him, I decided to call him from my work phone so he would pick up. Of course he picked it up again, and I told him that since he had decided to ignore my messages, it was over between us. And that was it really. He didn't argue, and that was the end of everything, the friendship and the relationship.
For a while, I was upset, but mostly disappointed at how somebody could just change completely. But I didn't dwell on him for long, there was no point. Some months later I got an email from him, chatting something about "what could have been". I read it and deleted it. I changed my phone number some months later. I moved on and just took it as one more of life's experiences.

So that's that. Soon I was to make some big changes in my life..... Stay tuned.

The Sly Wolf

2006-10-15T21:07:00.000+01:00

I think one particular guy is worthy of mention, one of the guys that tried to take advantage of me. So here goes:

I was at uni one day when I saw this guy who looked really familiar. He looked like a guy that attended my secondary school but was in the set above me. I thought I should go and say hello to him, but then decided against it because I didn't want to look silly if he blanked me completely. So I ignored him and thought nothing of it. I saw him two more times after that but nothing happened. Then one day I was on the tube and an old school mate from a set above me (let's call him HB) walked into my carraige (I know, what are the odds!) and I recognised him cos I had bumped into him a couple of times at friends' get-togethers. We chatted and he asked me where I was off to, I told him I was going to uni, he asked what uni, and I told him. He then looked surprised and asked me if I had seen the familiar looking guy on campus. I said I had seen someone that looked like him but I wasn't sure. He then confirmed it was who I thought, so I decided to say hello to him when next I saw him on campus. Later that afternoon, the guy (let's call him AB) walked up to me while I was on campus and said hi and he said "Did you meet HB on the tube this morning?" and I said yes. Anyways as the story goes, we became friends, we started hanging out on campus, he would take me to lunch sometimes, we saw a few movies together etc. All was well, except for the fact that one of my close girlfriends hated him. For no apparent reason. She just told me she didn't trust him.
One day, while we were hanging out as usual, AB asked me if I could cook, and if I would be willing to help him out with cooking for him sometimes. I thought it was a bit patronising, since I wasn't his girlfriend or anything. But to be a good friend I just might help him out once in a while since he was a single guy who didn't know his way around the kitchen. Then one day he came to campus and told me that he had just moved into a new flat and had no food at home and I should come with him, to help him cook dinner. I told him I was busy with coursework and stuff, but he pestered until I agreed. When we got to his flat, lo and behold, his new flat-mate had cooked dinner for both of them. They invited me to stay and join them for dinner and a movie, but I declined thinking it was getting late and I had a paper due in that I planned to work on that evening. So I left his house.
A few days later, I was in the library frantically trying to complete my paper so that I could hand it in on time when this AB guy turned up and said I should come and cook dinner for him that very day. I was so angry, I forgot to be nice. What did he think, I have nothing to do other than wait on him to keep me busy. I told him in no uncertain terms like "Are you the one paying my school fees? Am I here to be your cook? Will I just drop my assignment and be at your beck and call? Please leave me, I have work to do!". He begged and begged but I wasn't having it. He looked so disappointed that I almost changed my mind, but I didn't. After he saw that I was not coming, he left me to continue my assignment.

I got home that evening and got a funny phone call from a friend. The guy was in a total panic, almost hysterical on the phone. I was wondering why and I told him to calm down cos he wasn't making sense. After a few minutes he finally calmed down enough to ask me "Did you go out with AB today?", I said no, he wanted me to come and cook for him, but I was busy. My friend asked me again, "Are you sure you didn't go anywhere with him today? Are you sure?". I was wondering what all the fuss was about, until he told me that AB had planned to rape me in his flat that very day! AB had told HB (the guy I met on the train) about his plans to get me to come to his house, then he would lock me in and won't let me go until he had accomplished his unholy purposes. My friend had met HB that afternoon and HB had bragged to my friend about AB's plans. Said friend had been trying to reach me all day to warn me but my phone was switched off. To say I was shocked would be an understatement. Oh my God, I was so close to going to his house that afternoon! I could not imagine what would have happened if I had followed AB home that day. I also felt foolish, because I'm usually a good judge of character, and I had been blind to AB's character flaws that my girlfriend had seen. The guy was horrible! After I hung up, I went to my room to thank God for saving me. After that I imagined the nasty things I would say to AB when I see him on campus the next day. Funny enough I never saw him. I think he found out I had heard of his plans, so he dared not show his face to me ever again. I later heard through some people that he had failed his exams (he he he) and transferred to another university in a different town. Good riddance to him.... the perv.

Tired now, so I've got to end this portion here. More stories to come....

My relationship history

2006-10-15T16:53:00.000+01:00

Looking back at my growing up years and the relationships I've had with guys, I think I have been very, very blessed. I have had my share of frogs of course, but nothing really bad. I never got into a destructive relationship where a guy would cheat on me and I will go back to him, or a guy will blatantly disrespect me, or (gasp!) hit me. There's no way I was going to let that happen to me. And God being so good, He didn't allow me to be led astray. I'm quite sure this blessing is a result of my mum praying for her daughters, so that we won't make mistakes in our relationships and marriages.

I had 4 (more like three and a half) boyfriends before I started going out with the man I got married to. Like most girls, I also had guys I had a crush on, guys that had crushes on me, guys as my best friends at some point, toasters and the guys that purely want to take advantage of you. I was a quiet girl (I still am) and sometimes, guys thought it meant I was easy to take advantage of, but thank God none of them succeeded.

I had my first 'boyfriend' when I was 16 which was kinda late as most of my friends had been in relationships since they were 13 or so. The 'relationship' was mostly over the telephone and I remember my dad grumbling at some point then because our phone bills sky-rocketed during that time. The guy was my friend's cousin and he saw my picture with her whilst visiting their house one day and he said he liked my picture and wanted to get to know me. She introduced us, and that's how we started talking. The guy was nice and the 'relationship' was short and sweet. It lasted almost a year. It ended without fuss or tears when I got bored and that was it.

Boyfriend number 2 was more interesting. I was 17 at this time. One day a girl friend of mine came to visit me and we were gisting when my phone rang, and it was a guy asking to speak to Michael. I told him there was no one called Michael and he must have the wrong number and I hung up. Two minutes later, the guy calls back and asks for Michael again. I told him again that he has the wrong number and then before I hang up he says he likes my voice. I said thank you. He stored my number and started calling me often and we became phone pals. Then one day we decide to meet up so I ask my friend to come over in case there is any scary stuff (you never know!). Thinking about it now, it was quite risky but at the time it was all fun and excitement. To cut the long story short, he came to my house with his cousin, who fell in love with my friend and all four of us started hanging out together. He was nice, tall and good looking and the relationship was progressing well. Then about 6 months later, I had to leave the country to go and read my books and things changed. The guy started pestering me to sleep with him before I leave. I told him that I wasn't going to. I asked him what would become of us when we are in separate countries. We agreed to give it a try to stay together and keep in touch as much as possible. So we said our goodbyes. I came to England and of course we didn't keep in touch properly and things went downhill. In any case, we broke up after a year and I moved on.

You guessed it, by this time, I had several other guys on my case who were only too glad to take BF2's place. There was this guy (the half) who was a former classmate from secondary school in Nigeria who was quite keen. We used to hang out, gist on the phone, go to the cinema together and stuff, so he became my unofficial boyfriend, even though I saw him as a friend not as a boyfriend. Silly me eh? One day I visited him at home and the guy came on to me so strongly that I bolted out of his house and never went back. He kept on calling me to apologise and beg but I wasn't having any of it and that was the end of that.

That will be all for now. I'm going to continue in my next post....

The point of this blog

2006-10-15T16:26:00.000+01:00

This blog is to detail the last few years of my life charting the course from the single girl to the married woman. I stopped writing in my diary in 2002 and I wish that I had continued because it would make interesting reading to me later, and it would be something to show my children in future. But it's not too late and I can still write down the important events and occurences on this blog. I will try to be as accurate as possible, and give details where I can.

These events are things that have already happened to me, so I will not be making things up or changing the pace. It is for me to look back and see how those few years have changed me and how my life will never be the same again.

Another reason why I'm starting this blog is to give my younger sisters (I know you will read this!) coming behind me, an insight into my relationship and what those first months after marriage is really like. I got married relatively early, at the ripe old age of 22, so most of my friends and cousins are not married yet. To them, I am their first mate that is married. So I keep getting questions like: what is married life really like? what do you guys now do? what has changed in the relationship? how do you now make decisions? Do you still go clubbing? how do you share the housework? etc. Most of my friends claim that married people are secretive. So I aim to tell it like it really is. Not the picture that newly-weds paint, like everything is fine and dandy and there are no adjustments to make. So I will tell my side of the story, from my point of view. Bear in mind though, that every couple is different, so what works for me, might not apply to everyone.

So here's the journey: from the single girl, to girlfriend, to fiancee, to bride, to newly-wed. Enjoy, feel free to make comments and ask questions!