Wife of Purpose

I've been waiting for the right time to post about this and today seems like a good day. A few months back, I was asked to feature on a Facebook group, Wife of Purpose which was founded by two wonderful women called Phuti Lebea and Makoma Nothana. Wife of Purpose is aimed at equipping wives to be better homemakers, better wives for their husbands and to ultimately be able to exercise all their roles fully. They fulfil this by hosting seminars, workshops, whereby speakers engage with the wives. They also ask wives, ex-wives and soon to be wives to engage in conversations that will help improve the quality of their marriages, while running the foundation side of the group, where they collect clothes and other items to give to the less fortunate. Every week a topic that pertains to the well-being of marriage and the individual is shared on their WhatsApp group and opened for discussion. There's a lot of support and knowledge that is shared by the women in that group.

I was approached along with 7 other phenomenal women, to share my opinion on marriage. Mind you, I am no expert on marriage and believe that each marriage has its own unique way of working. I have been married for 8 years and have been with my husband for 12 years now. We still have our struggles and fights, but we have made choices and agreements that have helped us to improve in how we overcome our challenges. I've also learned quite a lot on the opinions that were shared during the Wife of Purpose, Iron Sharpens Iron Virtual Talks and wanted to share some of it with you here.

Some of the points to note were as follows but please visit the Facebook page on https://www.facebook.com/wifeofpurpose to see the full interviews:

• Pre-marital counselling is imperative.
• Compromise is very important to a marriage.
• Be kind to one another. We tend to treat strangers better than we do our spouses.
• Support one another. Grow together as a couple. Pray together.
• Prioritise intimate time. Date nights are important.
• Normalise discussing finances.
• Choose wisely when picking the kind of marriage that you will legally have. (Community of Property, etc.)
• Be aware and take into account the family beliefs of the family you are marrying into.
• Treat marriage like a bank account - continual investment.
• Exhaust all options before dissolving the marriage.
• Be mindful of how you inform the children should you dissolve the marriage, do not bad mouth each other.
• Direct communication is important - be aware of how you put your points across. Identify the issues you are facing and tackle them without attacking each other.
• Make God the center of your marriage.
• Be mindful of expectations from your in-laws. 
• Don't take each other for granted. 
• Consider attending marriage seminars and events.

I do believe that the four main factors that affect a marriage and that need to be handled before entering into a marriage are:

Faith

What do you believe in?

Which faith are we going to follow?

Which faith are we going to raise our children under?

Family

How much do we involve our in-laws in our marital affairs?

What role do the in-laws play in our lives? 

Finances

Where are we financially as individuals?

How are we going to combine our finances, if at all?

How do we handle issues of helping the in-laws or friends financially?

Friends

How much do we involve our in-laws in our marital affairs?

What role do the in-laws play in our lives?

Fidelity

Set your definition of what that means in your relationship.

Some people consider cheating to be sleeping with someone, others emotional connections while others define it as the way you speak to someone. The Bible says, "But I say, anyone who even looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart." - Matthew 5:28 (NLT)

Make your definition and expectations clear.

The roles that these five factors play in your marriage, if they are not handled delicately, can break a good marriage. I’ve only stated some of the ways in which the points above may raise issues, but you would know better in your individual relationship. Like I said, no marriage is the same, the battles may be similar, but the individuals are different, so find your individual way of handling things.

Cheers.