by John Ajani
Through it all: your confusions at puberty, fumbles in sex, porn-induced sexuality horrors, serial abortions, woes in relationships and the depressions thereof, your parents were not much help. Heck, they were too conservative for you to even breathe around them.
You stumbled through it all alone. The pattern while growing up was about new discoveries of pleasure, meeting angels some days, demons on others.
And then, as if by magic, you found the person you want to live with until you die. You have finally climbed out of the valley of trials and errors and your parents are suddenly interested in your love life.
Stupefied, you sit there, across them, in the upholstery chair which now feels like a rock smitten by the scorching afternoon sun, as they announce to you that your choice is unacceptable. They tell you to reconsider your choice, while hinting what the punishment will be for disobedience. You will not have their blessings for such a union marriage plus loss of your sonship or daughtership.
You try to wrap your head around what they have said. You ask yourself, do they think your love life has just begun? Don’t they know how many people you have dated before settling on the one? The heartbreaks and hells you survived? You cannot take it anymore and indignant you walk out of the door.
Yes, you should go vent your anger in an activity that is not self-destructive. This is important because in the coming days you will need a clear head to think about what your parents have said and what they have not said but ought to have said. But if you go drunk-driving and crashed, what head will you use to think or marry? Be warned!
You need to calmly consider their objections. Chances are you did not hear any reason they gave as you were wrapped up in the word, NO. There is a 50 per cent chance that you have made yet another mistake; forget fact that you have forged through a series of bad relationships.
On the subject of marriage, your parents know more than you do. They have been in matrimony for how many years now? Two decades? Three? Four?
Except their marriage is not particularly healthy, they are obviously worth listening to. They know what marriage entails; that ‘beds of thorns’ is a better description of the whole experience, but also, that compatibility, extreme patience, unconditional forgiveness, and whatnot are required to turn it to a bed of roses.
Let their experiences inform you. They might have interacted with your fiancé or fiancée and seen that he or she is a lagoon. You really don’t want to jump into a lagoon. Don’t!
Even if they have lived as cat and mouse and their marriage is just unhealthy and embarrassing, they are still worth listening to. In this case, they might be desperately asking you to look at them and not make their grave mistakes. You really need to stop being indignant and listen.
Second reason you should listen to your parents is that they might be diabolical. Most parents are chiefs of religion but they are also very obsessed about the future. They might have sought a magician who might have professed doom for the marriage you are bent on getting into. Pause. Consider. If your parents have gone down that road, shouldn’t you save yourself from calamities?
Now, that was extreme. But really, you need your parents’ blessings for your marriage because you wouldn’t want to go insane with sorrows. You shouldn’t get the kind of blessings that come only from the tongue. You need blessings from the heart.
Of course, you might have good reasons to object to your parents’ decisions. Say their objections are just plain irrational. Say they object to things that should not impede the course of love: because your fiancé or fiancée is from another ethnic group, not of the right educational level, not doing the right job etc.
Should you ignore them and go ahead into the marriage? No. Never do that. Go around their objections instead.
For instance, if your fiancé and fiancée is from a negatively stereotyped ethnic group, why not assimilate him or her into your culture such that your parents lose grip of their staunch views? If he or she is yet to attain the right education, why not enroll him or her in a school, and then re-present to your parents after some time?
Of course, if he or she will not bend so your parents can give a nod to your marriage, say he or she will never back to school, your parents may be right after all!
And if these tips fail, what you need do is cry, walk away and mandate your parents to get you the right person.
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