Boosting libido with drugs kills – Dennis & Aity Reflect @ 35 years in marriage
Dr.Dennis and his delectable music minister wife, Aity, recently celebrated their 35th wedding anniversary with glitz, pomp and peagentry.
The amiable husband used the opportunity of the glorious celebration to address some marital issues covering sex and other marital matters that have helped his marriage to Aity flourished glowingly these past 35 years of their blissful union
Christian Benefits excerpts his article for the benefits of both the married and intending who are not social compliant to be blessed and educated by his marital teaching on Christian Benefits magazine.
In addition, Christian Benefits will bring up soon the amiable couple on our IDEAL CHRISTIAN HOME column to further share with our readers their experiences in their 35 years of beautiful marriage.
Find below Dr. Dennis Inyang’s teachings on some key marital topics excerpted from his Facebook page.
Sex is not an occupation!
If you are married, please have all the sex you can but don’t kill yourself over it. It’s not a job that you must do by all means, come rain or shine
Boosting libido with drugs to have sex has killed countless men, so relax. If you try tonight and it doesn’t work, please go to sleep and try again tomorrow.
Men don’t die on top of their wives. They die on top of their mistresses because they always want to prove a point.
Oga, if you are horny and Madam is too tired, please say the grace and adjourn the program to the following day. Let Madam breathe because she is not a sex slave. Same advice goes to Madam.
Last Sunday, someone showed me a trending video where couples were charged to ensure that their bed shakes daily. My ears popped when I heard daily.
Later that evening in our Anniversary Couples Dinner, somone dared to ask this holy man of God how he has managed to keep his bed shaking daily for 35 years.
In fact, the question began with, “According to Achebe, for a couple to have peace their bed must shake daily”.
“Please, who is Achebe?”, I asked, at the risk of looking stupid.
Was it Chinua Achebe or a less known Achebe? Could this be like the many quotes credited to an imaginary Mugabe? Whoever Achebe is, his recipe for peace is not just bed shaking but earth shaking!
My relief was that it was not Apostle Paul who said it. Though he was not married, we would have been tempted by our reverence for divine inspiration to accord that theory the authority of scripture.
If the Preacher, King Solomon, wrote that into Songs Of Solomon, it would be understandable since he mixed matters of state with consorting with a thousand women. What one man was doing with 1000 women still baffles me!
With marriage, there are many things that you cannot generalize. Achebe’s recipe for peace may be true for him and many others but it does not apply to mine.
While couples must make time to keep their bed shaking, expecting the conjugal bed to shake daily as a condition for peace is impracticable.
Please don’t buy into everything that flies on social media. If your matrimonial peace is tied to daily sex, your marriage is doomed when you get much older.
I also think that anyone who is preoccupied with shaking the bed daily would not achieve much in life. When both husband and wife are consumed by purpose, shaking the bed daily is not a priority.
The primary cause of divorce and marital separation in Africa is poverty and nothing else comes close. Does that surprise you?
I am not speculating. My conclusion is drawn from over two decades of counselling with couples and mediating between those on the path of separation.
But when I say Africa, I am generalizing. My assumption is that what happens in Nigeria may not be different from elsewhere on the African continent.
These are very difficult times and resources are scarce. That puts a lot of pressure on marriages.
When the man is not able to discharge all of his responsibilities, he becomes more difficult to manage. He wears his emotions on his sleeves and throws his weight around to compensate for his failure.
Some women do not know how to repect a man who cannot provide for his family. Worse is when the woman is the one paying the bills. The constant quarrels and nagging are simply expressions of her frustration. Even forgiveness, for most women, is easier to dispense from a place of comfort.
Isn’t that why young ladies look out for signs of financial security in their consideration of suitors? But morning does not tell the day!
I must confess, the first ten years of my marriage were ravaged by financial hardship. When I say that I could not put food on the table, my wife would jovially interject that we had no table! Thankfully, things are different now.
If you will thrive as a couple in these hard times and not be part of the grim statistics of those whose marriage was truncated by poverty, put your faith in God and trust Him to provide for you. That is what I did and He did not fail me.
Secondly, give yourselves time. Things will be alright but you may need to keep working and waiting patiently for the good times. If you quit, you will miss the glorious financial destiny that God has for you.
Embrace contentment by living your life one level at a time. Don’t allow the flashy lifestyle of your friends and colleagues to put your marriage under pressure.
Finally, be open to each other in your finances and see yourselves as joint heirs of the blessings of life. There is no better way to eliminate money quarrels than to depersonalise resources.
Divorce is not hereditary!
That is what I should have told the senior brethren in our campus fellowship but I was too young in the faith to find my voice.
“Don’t marry anyone from a broken home”, they said.
The problem with that expert counsel was that the muzzle of the gun was also pointed at me.
When Aity and I fell in love and discovered that both of us were products of the same prohibited background, it was too late. Or maybe we were too young to care. I was 20 and she was 17.
Seven years later, we were married. But before we exchanged wedding vows, we had privately pledged to each other that, come what may, we would never divorce. We would not bequeath to our children the same predicament we inherited from our parents.
So, if you asked me the one thing that a couple needs for a lasting marriage, I would tell you without equivocation that it is the sheer determination to stay married no matter the odds.
That determination, if strong enough, would impose discipline, set proper boundaries and compel you to make the sacrifice needed to keep your marriage alive and well.
When divorce is not an option, you would forgive your spouse of the most egregious offence no matter the pain and still find the courage to continue.
It was that irrevocable resolve that mitigated the pain of waiting and kept me faithful to my vows till the Lord blessed us with three wonderful children after twenty long years.
Had I walked out of my marriage for any reason, it would not be because of any genetic virus of divorce that runs in my veins. It would be because I had lost the determination to continue.
If you are both (husband and wife) equally determined to stay married, nothing in all of hell can put you asunder.
Why do successful couples find it difficult to keep their marriage?
It’s common to hear of celebrities who are filing for divorce or billionaires who are in their third marriage.
Many years ago, someone told my wife that he was surprised that we are still together as husband and wife with all her fame.
The reality is that success gives you options, whether you are a movie star, a billionaire entrepreneur or a mega church pastor. You have arrived at a place where you can choose to remain faithful to your spouse or succumb to the lure of vanity.
Men generally appear to handle success better than women. Generally! But that may also be because a lot of men do not know how to handle successful women.
If you are a successful couple, the first thing to do is to apply the Platinum Rule: treat your spouse the way he/she wants to be treated.
I treat my wife as the star she is. Everyday and everywhere! I am the leader of her fan club and celebrate all her laurels. There is nothing worse for celebrities than to enjoy the adulation of fans outside but be treated like nonentities at home.
My wife returns the gesture in kind. She does not just respect but reveres me as her husband and her pastor. She knows how to switch hats, from wife to member and protégé. She knows when to ask for a kiss and when to kneel for a blessing.
People rebel against whatever makes them feel diminished, including marriage. So successful couples who desire a lasting marriage must learn to treat each other right.
Compatibility is a scam!
That is why many are still single. They are looking for compatibility.
Physical compatibility. Emotional compatibility. Psychological compatibility. Financial compatibility. Professional compatibility. Sexual compatibility. Even spiritual compatibility.
Fred and Sylvia thought they had found it! Everyone thought so, too, including me. On campus, they were 5&6! It was as if God created them for each other, to the finest details.
Then they got married and everything changed. Less than ten years down the line, they were divorced. What!!! What happened to compatibility?
The truth is that there is no real compatibility outside of marriage. Compatibility is what you work out within your marriage. That magical compatibility that some are looking for is an illusion.
To have a lasting marriage, you must make yourself compatible with your spouse. I repeat: you must make yourself compatible!
Compatibility is becoming flexible enough to adjust to your spouse daily.
It is adjusting to change and through change. And we are faced with those changes every day.
Compatibility is understanding that you and your spouse are different and striving to accommodate that difference.
If you are looking for compatibility, you won’t find it anywhere untill you are ready to work for it.
That is what I have learned after 35 years of a blissful marriage.
