I was having a discussion with a pastor’s wife recently
She was concerned about some of the marital cases they have on hand and how it seemed that ladies no longer stay clear of married men.
The discussion was intellectual and philosophical until she said to me, “Why don’t you ministers berate the men, call them out and embarrass them for not having the discipline to stick to their marital vows? It seems to me like you pastors placate and admonish the men, and then you beg the angry wives to forgive and reconcile with their husbands.”
I told her I am all for cheating partners to divorce each other. There are, however, some cheating partners who will do anything to keep their partners.
They will say “I love my husband” or “I love my wife”, and they will mean it with all their hearts, and yet they will cheat.
There are also partners who cheat and will joyfully leave the marriage without a fuss.
There are those who love their children and, for the sake of the children, will remain in the marriage, and there are those who love their children and, for the sake of the children, would leave the marriage.
Human beings are extremely complex, and a minister of the gospel who also happens to be a marriage counsellor must read the room and explore solutions appropriate for each marital issue.
Where the couple are open to mediation and dialogue, you must provide it. Where berating a partner will help the other partner to forgive and gain closure, you must berate the partner, and where begging a partner will help him or her to forgive and embrace reconciliation, that path must be taken.
It is not a pastor’s duty to tell a husband whose wife cheated that he should throw her out, and it is not a pastor’s duty to tell a wife whose husband cheated that she should leave her marriage.
She cited a particular case she and her husband are handling in which three ladies were seriously stalking a married man, and she also mentioned the case of a man who posted the video of his new house on social media and how hundreds of ladies went into his DM asking him to be their lover.
To that, I gave her a reply that has helped me in making sense of the complexity of the human nature and behaviour over the years.
I told her I wasn’t very good at Mathematics and Economics but that she should please help me solve some problems.
If you have one meat and you have four children, all of them are hungry, what do you do?
She saw the hypophora and tried to sidestep it by saying, “I will give it to the last-born and tell the older ones to work or look for an alternative for them.”
I didn’t press it.
I said, “When there is a glut of a product in the market, what happens to its price?”
When there is scarcity of a product in the market, what happens to its price?
Some feminists are aborting male pregnancies as I write this, not knowing that the more they give birth to female children, the more they create a demand and supply imbalance.
Eligible men are an endangered species. There are too many beautiful ladies who have never had a suitor in the world today.
As I write this, I know only one man in his forties who has never been married once in his life, has never had a child or is currently in a situationship. This man was supposed to have gotten married earlier this year, but the young 22-year-old lady he was to marry decided she would remain single and wait for a younger man to marry rather than marry him.
Do you know the number of single ladies between the ages of thirty and fifty that I know? They are over two hundred in Lagos alone.
All of them are praying for their marital destiny to be settled, while in the background they are doing things that biology demands, which religion would frown upon.
She said, ‘But there are men who don’t cheat.’
I said, “In mathematics, there are prime numbers and integers.”
We also have odd numbers, even numbers and fractions.
Prime numbers are men who are married but don’t cheat.
Integers are men who fell in love with only one woman throughout their lifetime, married her, and made a family with her.
Fractions are divorced men with children with their ex-wives and baby mamas and so on.
Odd numbers are men who cheat with married women.
Even numbers are men who cheat with single women.
Irrational numbers are the homosexuals.
Complex numbers are married men with a mistress they are faithful to.
Composite numbers are polygamists, polyamorists.
My mathematical classification is effective in the classification of both genders.
There is nothing men do that women do not do better.
As a minister, you are not allowed to judge others, even when they have erred and deemed it fit to invite you to help them sort out their mess.
You must, however, not be closed-minded or talk as if your religion has somehow made you blind to the reality on the ground.
You cannot start every conversation with “But if the Bible said ‘one man, one wife’, then people who go outside of this must be tarred and feathered or killed.”
That would be foolishness.
You will listen to whatever the issue is and trust the Holy Spirit to help you resolve it as best as you can.
The pastor’s wife said, “My son will be a faithful man in Jesus’ name.”
I smiled.
Actually, her son is in his first year at the University of Ibadan, and he has two girlfriends.
I, however, didn’t tell her this.
PS: My understanding of the complexities of human behaviour, evolution, mating and marital affairs, God’s position on such things and the reality of the Christian is from my study of the Bible.
You can’t read the story of Lot and his daughters, Judah and Tamar, David and Bathsheba, Solomon and his one thousand wives, Ahab and Jezebel, Mary and Joseph, Hannah, Elkannah and Penninah, Boaz and Ruth, John the Baptist and Herodias, and the deliberate silence of Jesus on polygamous marriage (which was prevalent in Israel since the days of Moses) and hold on to an idealistic mindset on the issue of marriage and relationships.
Those who seek love, sex, companionship, friendship, relationship, situationship, and whateverelseship will find it, either in Marriage or outside of it.
No one can beat nature.
– GSW-