By Josfyn Uba
Marriage is not a destination, it is a journey that entails patience, endurance, mutual respect, forgiveness and a number of other things to get one to the desired destination.
One major determinant is for couples to achieve oneness. Once they get to a place where they no longer fight and only have conversations, dialogues, with mutual respect and understanding, boundaries that are respected and understand their love language, they have reached oneness.
These are the words of Dolly Ohanyere, a lawyer and relationship expert.
Given the unprecedented high rate of divorce, today’s generation needs a voice that speaks to them in a language they understand and drives the value points home. Talking about the dynamics and peculiarities of modern-day relationships and marriage, Ohanyere told Daily Sun how she manages people and their issues.
First, how did you become a relationship and marriage expert?
I am a lawyer, but I have always had a passion for relationship counselling. It did not start today. I went to my drawer where I had my documents two weeks ago, searching for my birth certificate and found an envelope with full sheets of marriage talks. This was like 2012 or 2011. So, I have always had that thing, right from when I was young. I have had friends and family members who trusted me and told me about their issues, but then it was more of advisory.
When I was younger, I used to ask people that were married what marriage was really all about. And I would ask them, how come they started with so much love and later a lot of frowning set in? I always asked questions.
What influenced your decision?
When I was single, I got my laptop, and I started writing a book on marriage. I called it “The Realities of Marriage.” I had written about 7,000 words when a voice came asking , “Who are you and what gives you the authority to write about marriage?”
So, I dropped it. But in 2016, I started writing again, that was about my marriage basically because I had got married. Somehow again, that same spirit: “Who are you? You have only been married for eight years. What gives you the authority to write about marriage?” I dropped it again.
But in 2020, during the lockdown, for some reasons, I listened to a church service that day. I am of the Catholic faith and, ordinarily, I am not an online person, but I just found myself there that day listening to their service for that day. It was as if God sent the pastor to me that day. It was about my purpose and at that particular moment I started crying. That was how I started writing. I wrote 10,000 words in 44 minutes. I have three books to date. My books are structured around three groups: singles, relationship and marriage.
What do you hope to achieve?
Most marriage issues are foundational, which is why I concentrate more on singles.
My vision is actually to see marriages thrive and I need to achieve this by equipping individuals and couples with the right tools and resources they require to have healthy marriages and also maximize their full potential because I think the mistake is that a lot of single people think marriage is a destination. Marriage is not the destination. It is actually the journey. People should not see it as a reward; it is not a reward, it is an assignment.
What are the main issues affecting marriage now?
First is communication. Communication is key.
Another issue is lack of patience. You know, marriage is for better for worse, for richer, for poorer. A lot of us, including myself, did not realise marriage was a covenant at the time we got married. We just went to the altar, excited. We go to the altar thinking it is a partnership or a contract. But marriage is not a contract because, in a contract, you have terms and conditions you agree to. Marriage is not a contract, marriage is a covenant. We need to build that patience in marriage and patience means loving somebody, despite anything that comes up.
What is happening to the younger generation, why is divorce on the rise?
Let me differentiate between our parents, our grandparents and our generation now. You are wondering, how come they were married for 40 years in seemingly marital bliss. People have asked me that question several times. You must realise, at the time, most of our mothers were dependent on their husbands to provide for them.
When you don’t have financial independence, it’s hard for you to walk away even when you’re going through whatever it is you are going through. Another thing is our mothers stayed back for their children. What we have now is a new breed of highly independent women.
We are all financially independent. So, right now, nobody is ready to be patient, or to endure or to go the extra mile for any man.
Another factor is this thing called partnership. Right now, people are saying, what’s the point in getting married, if I can get pregnant for a man and still be getting money from him? Another thing is that, in our mothers’ time, they were afraid of divorce. It was like a stigma. It was unheard of, a cultural thing, a taboo; but now, nobody’s afraid of divorce, nobody’s afraid of separation. The truth is, when you go and tell your story on social media, you become a celebrity. Social media is also an enabler for all these things. Science has also contributed by opening several options for the woman. A woman can decide not to get married but have children.
Another reason is Infidelity, which is on the rise. Infidelity is betrayal. Sadly, men and women cheat now.
Should infidelity be the reason a marriage ends?
In most of the cases I have handled, it sometimes ends up breaking down the marriage. The problem here is that a lot of people say they have forgiven, but they haven’t forgiven. So, infidelity is no longer the cause of the break-up, it is the lack of forgiveness. In most cases, it is not the conflict that causes separation or divorce. It is the inability to forgive. I have seen a situation whereby a woman said she hadn’t forgiven her husband’s infidelity of over 30 years ago! I have seen women who are widows but are still carrying grudges over an issue with a late husband. It is forgiveness that is the problem.
For a relationship expert who has heard so many things, what bothers you most about marriage, and what are the things that make a marriage thrive?
What bothers me most is, I would say, values; you must be with someone with whom you align in terms of values. If you miss that, you miss everything. A lot of times, people think that being compatible is just between you and the other person. For me, it goes beyond that. It cuts across family, culture, tradition, spirituality, beliefs, and values. If you marry someone whose family values do not align with yours, you will have issues in that marriage.
If you are with someone who you argue with on any and everything, there is no headway during any conversation whether in small or big issues, you do not agree on anything and fight all the time, please, it is better you walk away with pride now because you cannot change the person in marriage.
Shared values, that is one thing a lot of us did not get right before we got into marriage. That is one key thing that is causing problems. Another major one is expectations. We go into marriage with high expectations of each other. High expectation is a major problem in marriage.
How do you define a successful marriage?
Like I said earlier, it is just to achieve that oneness. You see, once you get to a place where you no longer fight, all you do is have conversations, dialogues, you have mutual respect for each other, you understand each other, you have boundaries that are being respected and understand the person’s love language. You have reached oneness.
If you have not fought, you would not know how to identify what causes the problems and reach this goal. These things do not happen overnight, but over time. When you are a team, there is no external influence that can come inside your marriage. It does not mean that you people do not disagree. You disagree to agree.