It is sad that people tell women that love has to hurt. Women are taught that love means how much disrespect, hurt and abuse they can take from men.

Women are raised with the mindset that they must baby their men otherwise these men will leave them for other women willing to put up with their irresponsible behaviour.

It is almost normal for people to tell women with abusive husbands and boyfriends to endure and pray for them to change. These women are told that men are scarce and that if you manage to get one who is willing to make you his wife, it is your responsibility as a woman to raise him.

This society expects women to raise men whose parents didn’t do a good job raising. If the tables were turned, these men won’t come near a woman they perceive was badly raised yet they expect women to become magicians overnight to change badly raised men.

Haven’t you heard of people telling newly married women that their husbands are their first babies? I wonder how men who are not mentally and emotionally mature can make good husbands and partners. It is a big shame that we continue to push this narrative.

Love doesn’t have to hurt for it to be real. Love doesn’t have to strip a woman of her sense of worth, self esteem and future plans. Love doesn’t have to put a woman through hell because her man has refused to be responsible and step up his game.

This is one of the reasons I get sad whenever an independent woman who has a bright future reduces who she is and what she can be just so she can have a man in her life. It makes me sad that women are willing to put up with any kind of man just to bear the Mrs. Title.

This society has done a great disservice to women by refusing to focus more on raising the boy child well. No matter how well parents of girls raise them, they are still going to meet these boys who are not raised well and later settle down with them. And this is where problems set in.

I have read many stories about women who had everything going for them and had bright futures ahead of them only for these women to give in to societal pressure of settling for irresponsible men who beat them, cheat on them, disrespect them and reduce them to nothing. This is not love.

We should stop pushing this narrative that women have to stick by the sides of men who keep humiliating them, getting them into trouble with the law and treating them like crap so that they can reward these longsuffering women with marriage.

I know you don’t want such a thing for your daughters but you keep telling other people’s daughters that if they love your irresponsible sons and brothers, they should stand by them even when they impregnate different women and beat them up for flimsy reasons. Enough is enough!

I know a young lady who had a good job, had two cars, a nice two bedroom apartment who almost went mad recently because she was trying to please society by almost marrying an irresponsible man who had two children from two other women.

When they met, he lied to her that he was a contractor with an oil company. But as their relationship progressed,. It became obvious that he was doing nothing tangible to make money.

He moved into her house and was still cheating on her with different women. He also refused to get a job but would dictate what he would eat for breakfast, lunch and dinner. He was possessive too and would demand to know who was calling her and why. He told her to stay away from some of her friends who he didn’t like and she did just to make him happy.

When she complained, people told her to manage him like that and that men will be men. She was told stories of how many women endured with their men and today they are happy because these men married them.

A year later, things didn’t change. He even impregnated another woman and was begging her to accept the child. Again, some people told her to be patient with him and mould him to her taste. Is she God?

One day, when she couldn’t take all the humiliation and pain any longer, she kicked him out of her house, broke up with him and blocked his line. She told him to go and look for a woman who would babysit him all his life and that she was done. Who wants to be raising a grown man?

Why do Nigerians like to make women look like huge jokes? Why should suffering emotionally and mentally over men who have refused to get their acts together be women’s pathway to marriage and happiness?

Why do people keep selling this suffering with a man mentality so that he can reward you with marriage narrative to women all the time? This is not right.

It is heartbreaking that many ladies keep fighting over men who are irresponsible so that they can be happy later when these men finally chooses them over their many women and married them. It is sad that many women believe that for love to be real, it has to hurt.

I feel for some women who believe that there has to be pain and real humiliation before they can finally get the ring from their men. This mentality has kept many ladies trapped in abusive and dysfunctional relationships for years because they are waiting for these men to change and marry them instead of moving on with their lives.

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Some ladies stay in relationships where men hop from one woman to another, commit crimes, impregnate other ladies, steal their money, beat them up and they still stay put because this society makes it look like suffering over a man is a virtue and the more you endure, the better your chances of being his wife. This is crap.

How many men can stay in relationships and marriages with cheating women, women who have children for other men while they were dating and jail birds because they love them? Men don’t do these things. They don’t put up with such disrespect yet they expect women to continue babying them when they are busying living reckless lives. It has to stop. We can do better as a people.

How many men stick by the sides of their women when they sleep with their brothers, friends and even neighbours just to make their women refined like people tell women to keep doing?

As a man reading this, can you stick by a woman who you know sleeps around hoping that you would make her a better woman? Can you suffer abuse and humiliation for years over a woman so that she can finally agree to marry you when she is done being irresponsible and reckless?

Nigerian parents should stop raising their daughters to hold down situations with irresponsible men that might eventually break them. They should focus more on raising good sons for their well raised daughters.

We need to balance the equation. We can’t be raising good girls for bad boys and thinking that everything will be fine in relationships and marriages.

We should stop selling the narrative that women have to suffer before they find love. This narrative is ruining the lives and dreams of women when it comes to relationships and marriages and it should stop.

Women don’t have to suffer to find love. That is not love, that’s deliberate suffering on the part of women who want to be rewarded with marriage. And marriage shouldn’t be a reward for how much crap a woman can take from a man.

 

Re: Signs your spouse doesn’t love you anymore (2)

You always look for ways to tell women to leave their marriages because you are not married. I read your piece and all the things you outlined there are normal things couples who are willing to keep their marriages go through. But because you are on a mission to destroy marriages, you claim it happens when one person doesn’t love their spouse anymore. You should be stopped so that you won’t poison the hearts of young ladies against marriage.

-Obioma Okeke, Enugu

Relationships just like all human endeavour is subject to stress, strain and failure. No two people can be perfectly matched. Partners must have this at the back of their minds. Luck whether ill or good still plays a major role in the success or failure of a relationship. Good intentions might not be all you needed.

Couples must learn how to pray together because a family that prays together stays together. Some people are just serial lovers. Nothing seems to be pleasing to them, so they work towards destroying what they helped build. They result to all manners of irresponsibility in order to frustrate their partners. It could be frustrating to hang on. Just know that it is time to move on. Say goodbye and exhale because tomorrow will surely come. You have your life to live.

-Femi Oni

Even though I may not agree with everything you write; I understand that you are an advocate for good relationships as long as it favours women. You are always on the side of women. I won’t blame you. This society has been unfair to women.

You must try to balance your writings so that people won’t continue to call you names. You may mean well but telling women to leave their marriages is not right. Marriage is for better, for worse. Teach couples to stick to each other even when the love is no longer there till they die. That is God’s idea of marriage.

-Edwin

Kate, you are redefining journalism profession with your factual and holistic presentation of pertinent issues in relationship and marriages.

You are no doubt walking where angels dread to tread. You are a liberator, a pointer and a ray of light illuminating the part of men and women being trapped in bondage marriages and relationships. Keep on firing for us.

-Pastor Stephen