Most times the continuity of abuse, negligence, deprivation and strife can sear one’s conscience and take away the sensitivity to things that matter in any given relationship.
The Apostle Paul through 1st Tim 4:1-2 explained how if we suppress the conviction of the Spirit of God and keep on sinning, after a time, the conscience is so seared or burnt that we cannot hear the Spirit speak to our conscience anymore.
It’s important you understand that inability to see, understand, hear, and have regard for your spouse doesn’t happen instantly. It builds up gradually after a series of events in your relationship. Because of this, once one gets used to marital-instability, it no longer inflicts pain to their conscience. This automatically leads to stagnation in any relationship. It is therefore important that couples remember the following;
Soak yourselves in tenderness
Life has a way of exposing us to circumstances that harden our hearts, but purpose to keep yourself tender to each other. Some of the agents of hardening could be disappointments, heart breaks, sorrow and grief. Truly, these shall try to harden or sear your heart but like chlorine is added to water to break its hardness, always add tenderness to your relationship even when the other isn’t seeing and doing much as you are doing keep yourself tend.
Stay humble and teachable in your relationship
The only person who God has empowered to affect me is my spouse. It’s important that we listen to each other, teach and build up one another. If at one point pride comes into your relationship and you stop listening, talking and caring about how you feel about each other, that will be the end of a good season in marriage. To keep pride away, one has to remain teachable.
Have compassion on your spouse
The world is tough and nobody cares about your spouse like you do. You shouldn’t team up with outsiders to harass your spouse. You should be seasoned with graciousness, and not to justify the act, but one of the reasons your spouse would walk away is due to lack of a gracious atmosphere in a home.
Generously give to each other
If you’re mean and selfish this issue will haunt you. There’s this famous phrase ‘Apana kombya’ literally meaning, “I deny him sex.” Nature should challenge us, as one famous saying goes; “You often say, ‘I would give, but only to the deserving.’ The trees in your orchard say not so, nor the flocks in your pasture. They give that they may live, for to withhold is to perish.” —Kahlil Gibran,
For us to deny ourselves laughter, kindness, tenderness and generosity is to die because that way, we’re not living to our fullest in marriage and we’re not even making it better. Imagine having a cow that neither gives birth nor milk, what would you do? Jesus cursed the vine for bearing no fruit in a season it was meant to be bearing fruit. “To withhold is to perish”
derrickibbedi@gmail.com
Derrick Kibbedi is a relationship counselor, married and blessed with four children.
