HOW DO I COMBINE MY RELATIONSHIP WITH OTHER THINGS?

I have a special place in her heart that no one else shares with me. She may be friends with several people and relate with several people, but they are only sharing a little part of a meal that really belongs to me for consumption without boundaries.

Even though she’s really the Lord’s, in a great sense she is “mine” spirit, soul and body. Waooooh!!! Great is the power of relationship and marriage. How two total strangers can come together and soar so quickly into becoming the majority shareholder in each other’s lives and destinies.

Now, anytime you think about anything in your future, she is always in the picture because you’re already seeing her as your wife and the mother of your children. You’re even already picturing what those children will look like considering her beautiful looks. “So our lives will be fused together inseparably throughout life!” These are thoughts that can really titillate the heart. Make her person to loom larger and larger in that your small heart.

As you think about these thoughts more and more – and it’s normal – and as she looms larger and larger in your heart,  the next thing you want to do is pick up your phone to call her. To make matters more interesting, you both are in the same campus. So you want to be with her at all times if possible. How can you be thinking about someone maybe at least once in every thirty minutes, and the person is in the same campus with you and you won’t want to go see her? It’s difficult.

I won’t be surprised that you see yourselves everyday. And she’s probably already your reading partner. You do night classes together. Only that you probably spend most of the reading time ‘gisting’ and cuddling.  The whole time is spent and you’re wondering if you’ve assimilated anything at all.

You’re already realising that all your useful time is being consumed by this relationship. The issue is so serious that you are even considering suspending the courtship until later, since you feel you won’t be ready for marriage in the next four to five years.

Why I don’t advise you suspend the courtship is that you believe God led the two of you together. And you also believe you’ve really found a true friend and lover. What’s the assurance that in five years time when you think you’re ready for marriage, this Sister will still be available? The market is very competitive you know!!!

What you need is discipline. How do you bring your emotions under the control of   rational thinking? How do you ensure that you give the relationship the devotion it requires without eroding on the time you need to devote to your academics and pursuit of purpose?

A few thoughts will help your discipline of time management. The first thought is that you must know that one of the key factors that sustain the interest of your woman in you is growth and expansion.

Every woman loves to marry an achiever. She knows that your greatness automatically drags her into greatness. Your wealth automatically drags her into wealth. Conversely, your smallness automatically sets a limit on her own rising.

So she usually wants to maximise that one opportunity of choice that she has. Her thought is that, “why should I marry a pauper when my beauty and personality are equally attracting solid men of affluence?”

While we don’t encourage our Sisters to be materialistic and be people who judge by sight only, it is in order if they choose to only agree to marry a man who has a clear promise of success and greatness. Even if he doesn’t yet have money or greatness, by his focus and devotion to his work, he must show that promise. How can a man who fritters precious time in inanities be able to drive his vision profitably?

And so let it be clear to you that your chances of being able to keep this woman until you’re able to marry her depends on your ability to show empirical evidence of promise. And women can smell this promise from a mile away. They have that intuitive capacity. If you waste all the useful time you’re supposed to invest in your life and purpose just roaming about campus together, the day a great achiever woos her may be the day you’ll lose your girl.

By then, she won’t remember that she was the one who pressured you always into spending all your spare time with her. She would be gone with the man who appears to know where he’s going.

And so, as you begin a fresh journey into discipline, let it be clear in your mind that anytime you deny yourself of the urge to spend time meant for something else with her or anytime you reduce your meeting time for other purposeful reasons, you’re doing so in her interest. Let this be clear to her too.

Tell her you want her to be proud of you later in future. Tell her you will wish to be able to afford those vacations she has always dreamt of. And to be able to do all these, you need to succeed in your career and life’s goals. And to succeed in your career and life’s goals, you cant afford to spend four hours everyday just chatting together aimlessly.

At the beginning of my own relationship with Iyebiye, we once found ourselves here. Ours was a distant relationship though. But we had CUG. So we could afford to talk for 24 hours. In the morning we are saying, “good morning.” That good morning can sometimes be a two hour gist. In the afternoon we were saying, “how is your day going?” In the night, we are retiring to bed together, talking late into the night.

The implication was that, sometimes when I didn’t rise early to pray at 5am by some indiscipline or issues beyond my control, and I got up to pray around 7am or 8am, that’s when she’s calling to say good morning. We can talk for the next one hour or two, enjoying the talk actually. But morning devotion that day is already scuttled.

After a while, I could not bear it again. I want to be an achiever with my life. And morning is the day as that adage goes. And so I discussed with her that we should cancel that good morning culture. From that time onward, we cancelled it as a routine. We also cancelled “how is your day going” as a routine. Of course, sometimes we call in the morning or afternoon. But it was as occasion demanded. No longer a routine. The one we didn’t miss was the night talk.

For several years of our courtship, when we wake up and step into our day, we don’t even know what’s going on with each other until in the night at our usual time when we then give each other updates. And when we are saying goodbye, we know the next time of talk is tomorrow’s night – 24 hours after.

Even this night talk, when it’s 10 O’clock we are forcing ourselves to go because if we don’t sleep at that time, rising early to pray will become difficult. And prayer is so critical to everything – including how well your business performs.

You can adopt this Aquila. Meeting yourselves (or talking on the phone) once in a day for an hour or two at the most (where you can bring updates from the past 24 hours) is good enough to keep your relationship healthy. Night period after the day’s business is more advisable. Ensure your relationship never interrupts your day. The day is the time to sow seeds. Night is the time for rest from the day’s labour.

Your meeting (or phone talking) time with your fiancee is like a time of leisure and relaxation. Only do it after you’ve achieved all your goals for that day. That’s when your fellowship can be sweet knowing that you’re making progress with your life. But when you do meet, ensure that one or two hours is totally hers. She has endured the last 24 hours without you. This one or two hours must be uninterruptedly hers!!!

By the way, you don’t have to be reading partners if you know you won’t be able to concentrate on your reading when together. You can meet and thereafter go to read separately. But if reading together works, fine.

There is a second thought which should help your discipline. No matter how much time you spend together now, you can’t have enough of yourselves until you marry. So don’t waste your precious time hoping that you will have enough of yourselves. No matter how long a time you spend together, you’ll still leave yourselves at some point. When it’s holiday, everyone will still go to their parents’ place. But when you marry, it’s a different ball game.

I have only been married for five months, but sometimes it feels like five years considering that myself and my wife are always together by living in the same bedroom. I recently asked her, “you mean it’s only five months? The time is so slow. And we still have plus or minus sixty five years to go. Waooooh. Such a long time to be together with one person!!!” Good for you if it’s someone who is truly your friend.

What I’m saying is that, you will still have enough of yourselves later on. Don’t rush. Focus on growth and development for now.

When you fellowship currently, all you can do is just laugh together and enjoy each other’s friendship. As Christians, you can’t go deeper than that. If you do, you will come out with guilt and sadness.

But there’s a deeper level of fellowship that’s accessible when you marry, which doesn’t come with guilt. Such heaven on earth! And by then, you can have that deep fellowship every single day without interruption. (Somebody should shout Halleluyah ??). It is at that time that you’ll really have a sense of having enough of yourselves.

So don’t waste your time now trying to attain what you can never really attain as single people. There’s time for everything under the sun!!!

I hope this brief counsel will help you to rearrange your life and ideologically drive the new plan with spartan discipline.

May the Lord keep the two of you strong and make your marriage, which foundation you’re currently laying, a center of revival.

Your brother,

Peniela Eniayo, Akintujoye.

©️Peniela Eniayo, Akintujoye| hello@lovestraighttalks.com

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