Here are three main reasons why our marriages are failing today
Dr Margaret Kagwe, a counselling psychologist and senior consultant at Esteem Counselling Services shares three major reason marriages today are falling apart and advises couples on how to make marriage work.
Marrying for the wrong reasons
Pressure to get married from self, family or society can get a person to get into a relationship with a person they do not even identify with just to conform.
Another person may get into a relationship with a partner for financial gains or to climb the social ladder.
In such relationships, the person affected struggles to please at every stage of the relationship and once they are married, the slightest pressure triggers can result into a break up.
Love cushions relationships from storms but in this kind of marriage, love is absent.
Unpreparedness
Too much attention is given to the preparation for the wedding and little attention to the marriage.
Beginning with engagement, dowry payments and eventually the wedding day. A lot of focus is on luxury and prestige rather than celebrating love and making commitments.
Sadly when the hype is over, the two strangers find it difficult to relate in private.
Conflict resolution approaches
Marriages are not easy; not even for the happily married. Harmonising two family traditions to come up with a unique one requires, patience, compromise, love, commitment and openness.
When conflicts arise, the focus should not be to win but to learn and embrace or teach and hold your partner’s hand.