“Sometimes you must tell your mate the things you’ve done wrong, and sometimes you are much better off not to. The secret of a strong and intimate marriage is knowing what to share and what to leave buried.”
That is from American, Christian marriage counsellor, Joe Beam’s book, Becoming One. Are you as surprised as I was, reading that, especially coming from a church-based counsellor?
Well, it makes a lot of sense, and many marriages would still be sailing smoothly, if only one spouse knew how to keep his/her mouth shut!
If what you want to share is not going to benefit the health of your marriage in any way or improve things but, rather, cause pain to your spouse, keep it to yourself. You will divulge a secret that starts to haunt your sex life every time you try to get intimate, until you simply throw in the towel and start divorce proceedings for a marriage that was previously perfectly healthy.
I cannot pinpoint just one case, because different marriages have different dynamics; a secret that may bring healing to one marriage when shared, may totally shatter another if it came out. So, exercise wisdom.
One wife may be totally fine with the fact her husband used to buy multiple prostitutes (of both genders) daily before he met her, but another may find it so revolting and fail to get past the graphics of his past actions. Why do you feel the need to share that?
Take this one wife; well aware that her husband wanted many children but she wanted to stop at the two they had, due to how dangerous and difficult her labour was, kept updating her husband on the subsequent abortions she had during their marriage.
Why she was not on any form of birth control, since it was her not interested in any more babies, is anyone’s guess. Long story short, her husband lost sexual interest in her because he associated making love to her with planting his seed, which would inevitably be terminated as soon as the first signs showed.
They live separate lives now. But when you ask what happened, that was the only bone of contention. Someone refused to keep her mouth shut. Of course some secrets, if discovered by other means, will still break the marriage; so, you are better off talking about those ones, but there are things, or “past sins” as Joe Beam calls them, that are best kept where they are. In the past. Don’t drag them into your present.
Stories of molestation, rape, or defilement are very sensitive. Some marriages become better as a result of sharing about those traumas, especially if that unfortunate past that was no fault of yours, is still affecting your responsiveness to sex and the general marriage.
It may actually be therapeutic to share with your spouse. However, I also know a case where a wife shared with her husband that she had been defiled as a child, and every time they had a misunderstanding in the bedroom department, or fought over anything, he would casually throw the fact that she was raped, in her face, as a weapon.
It eventually doomed the marriage, because some subjects are not a joking matter; she would have been better off not saying anything to him.
So, my friend…keep a diary. Find a therapist. Take your secrets to God in prayer. There are ways you can take things off your chest, without loading them onto your marriage and spouse, unless it is an absolute necessity.
Don’t get me started on the whole DNA mess… I don’t want you to stone me.
caronakazibwe@gmail.com
Source: The Observer
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