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Book summary

The person you marry affects your destiny and success in a great way, hence the need to marry right. It's therefore, of paramount importance, for the individual to think through why they want to marry in order to make an informed decision pertaining to this lifetime commitment. This book, Why You Marry Wrong, encourages marriages that are intentional rather than circumstantial. Marriages that are Intentional are beautiful and fulfilling to a couple and their children. On the other hand, when a couple marries out of pressure or situations might reach a point where they end up feeling like they made the wrong decision. It is my prayer that this book will inspire people to build happy and fulfilling marriages. A good marriage can be a blessing for many years to come, equally a bad marriage can destroy a couple and their kids, for years to come. Darrell Andrews states that marriage is the most important relationship in a family. Unfortunately, people often marry for the wrong reasons, hence find themselves in difficulties they never anticipated in the first place. One of the biggest causes of a bad marriage is having unrealistic expectations of one’s spouse. Some people create an image of the perfect spouse in their minds and when their spouse does not fit into that picture or meet their expectations, they begin to see this person in a negative light. In such negativity, their communication towards their spouse becomes a pattern that brings destruction to them and unfortunately, their kids are not spared. Definitely, this brings a lot of questions to my mind: Why do people marry? Why are many marriages on a cliff and at the verge of breaking? What foundations do people lay down in preparation for the marriage life? What is the role of parenting in raising children who have emotional stability, which impacts on their ability to create successful marriages in the future? Do we have couples who are role models for the young adults intending to get into marriage? Has the church done it right in preparing singles for dating? What is the significance of marital counselling to young adults who are intending to get married? People prepare for an interview, exams, and a journey, but rarely do they prepare for marriage. The purpose of this book, is to raise such pertinent and thought-provoking questions and consequently provide an active intervention for those preparing to join the institution of marriage. Failing to address these issues and many others affecting marriages, is what leads to unprecedented crises in relationships or marriage and subsequently causes unsurmountable physical pains and emotional distress – such marriages hurt. “Marriage is not for everybody,” says Pastor Rick Netshiozwi, “telling you that today many people think marriage is for everybody, but it’s not for everybody. Many people are so self-involved, and people who are self-involved cannot live a life where they have a spouse. They are so concentrated on themselves, that when they get married, whether it’s by pressure or by force, you realize by a matter of time that the spouse is suffering because they are too self-involved, selfish in other words. They can’t raise kids; they can’t do anything like that, whether be it a man or a woman. That thing has caused so many divorces because people don’t want to come to terms with the truth of the fact that some people are too self-involved, and they become heartless in marriage when things need to get resolved. You can’t marry a person like that, just rather stay single so that the other spouse can move on with their lives.” Marryann Kibuchi, a psychologist, emphasizes that people end up marrying the wrong person because of society’s pressure to settle down, fear of ending up alone and settling down for less because one may feel they are not worthy to get married to a person who is good for them. There is also the pain of ignorance, people end up not knowing what marriage is all about and end signing up to something they have no clue whatsoever about. There is a lack of intentionality in choosing a spouse and a life mate, as well as a lack of true role model couples. Also, there is the issue of settling down before having a sense of self, and so, one ends up conforming to the image of what their partner or spouse would want and not who they really are. That causes friction later on in their marriage and lots of frustration. 4 The consequences of such a marriage are that the couple is not genuinely happy with each other, and they end up tolerating each other, instead of loving each other and unfortunately, their children suffer in the turmoil. So the children grow up in an environment that is not optimal or lacks genuine love and eventually, they end up picking negative ideas about what marriage is all about. That creates a cycle that keeps on repeating itself in the society where people are stuck in unhappy marriages, and they carry a misconception that marriage does not work or marriage is a scam – that is the reason we have many unhappy marriages in the society today. I have good news for you – there is hope for your marriage – things can change for good. But for that change to happen, a couple needs to be intentional by learning how to break the negative cycles and how to love each other genuinely. As people always say, prevention is better than cure; likewise both single people and even those in marriage, need to be intentional right now, on what they would like their marriage to be, by intentionally working on their mentalities about marriage and also working towards gaining knowledge on how to relate with their partner or future spouse.