relationship woes

Today I was thinking about relationships between men and women (don’t ask me why but I was).I was wondering why everything has gotten so complicated. Where have we gone wrong since the days of our fore fathers where marriages lasted? Where did the rains begin beating us?(I’ve always wanted to use those words).So after a lot of research and speaking to my pals I have finally gotten a few insights into why everything is falling apart:

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The belief that the other gender has it easy: Women think its all gravy for the men in that they get to do what they want. Men on the other side feel that women have it easy what with all the gender equality stuff which happens to favour them. Instead of working with each other we are fighting each other, like the opposite sex has become the enemy.

Too high expectations: people go into relationship with impossible expectations. You want your lover to fix you, to make you happy and restore your faith in the human kind. To undo all the wrongs the opposite sex has done to you. And because they are human they sometimes fall short of these expectations, one ends up feeling hurt and make the exit.

Lack of commitment: There’s this phrase that I have an issue with.

LOVE WITH YOUR HEAD NOT YOUR HEART.
(Now how does this go again?)

We are taught how to go into relationship with one foot outside the door. As if there’s something so wrong with being in love. Its like love has become a curse word these days. I for one don’t know how to love nusu/nusu. its either I’m in 100% or out. I love wholesale (that’s how my mama describes me).And I have never regretted it ,People have become lazy with the its-never-that-serious attitude., don’t demand excellence from each other, they don’t give their best in relationships. They get away with a lot of thing they need to be accountable for. This way when challenges come they can leave easily.

There’s the distorted view of Sex and its value in relationship: Men and women have forgotten how to be friends in the first place. I personally know of a male friend (not really a friend) who has to sleep with any woman who comes into his life he doesn’t have any platonic relationship with the opposite sex in his life. According to him men and women can be platonic friends, People sleep with people whose last name they don’t even know and no one sees anything wrong with that (I could get into why its wrong but that’s a story for another day)

Immaturity: long ago when people passed through the rites of passage they knew what was expected of them. They were given responsibilities and knew what the society expected of them and there was no confusion. Nowadays we have 20somethings and 30something adolescents running around living reckless lives without any responsibilities whatsoever .Drinking and sleeping around without a care in the world. Some go into relationships expecting to find happiness and generally have a good time. Some have esteem issues and look to others to complete them. If your not happy alone sweetie you wont be happy in a relationship. Now we have miserable people hooking up then breaking up and spreading the virus of immaturity around .

Instant gratification: We live in a society where people want quick fixes. You see someone you like you don’t get to know them better. You just go ahead to hit it and quit it and if you have time go to brag about it then do it all over again. I have friend who has slept with chiqs from different ethnic groups in Kenya and is keeping a diary of the same. I can’t for the life of me understand why anyone would want to live like this.

Programmed to fail: The ideas that we have of relationship, the expectations, the roles, the values are just plain wrong. The movies we’ve watched have distorted our views. The different backgrounds of abuse, trauma, broken homes, drug abuse etc and makes people to not believe their relationships can survive coz they’ve never seen it work for anyone./

Stresses of life: high fuel prices, high cost of living, over worked-underpaid...etc. Recently I saw people sleeping in a matatu from the estate to town and I’m guessing they didn’t get enough sleep (stress perhaps).People has no way to decompress and hence they take it out on each other.

People are shallow and care more about what others think of them than what their partner thinks. They want to maintain appearances of the perfect image to their friends. They want to date the good person, from the good family so as to look good in front of people at the expense of their happiness they don’t want to appear as failures in front of their friends

Now this is a big one. People have taken God out of the equation. There are things you can never know about your partner as only God knows. You need to pray to God to give you a good person in your life. There also stuff you can’t get people to do but God can. Don’t do things alone believe in the divine provision?

-To improve relationships people should value each other, support each other and learn to speak their minds, clarify their agreements, expectations, roles and values so that no one gets things twisted. Find something in common to bond over. See the good in each other and if you find time in your busy schedule read!corinth13 and Ephesians 5:25-33 and it will put things into perspective.