Love encompasses all that we believe we require to fortify a marriage. Love acts as the catalyst, the origin, the culmination, the framework, and the guiding principle of a marriage. Given this, how can we assert that love falls short?

In the absence of love, we are left with only self-serving ambitions and a craving for personal gratification. Love embodies sacrifice, patience, endurance, forgiveness, understanding, and all the other attributes essential for a lasting marriage.

Our misunderstanding might stem from how we define love. It’s conceivable that we’ve devalued the concept of love due to its misuse and misinterpretation. In actuality, love is encompassing and far-reaching, not something trivial. The well-known song “All You Need Is Love” captures a fundamental truth: love truly is all you need!

So, what does love entail? I prefer to define love from a potent yet simple perspective, one found in arguably the oldest written text, the Bible. In three straightforward words, the Bible encapsulates the essence of love: “God is Love.”

This phrase implies that God embodies all the attributes of love. These attributes are succinctly described in 1 Corinthians 13, verses 4 to 8. Moreover, as beings created in the image of God, we too possess the capacity to display these qualities.

Hence, it’s not a stretch to assert that you, embodying love, are all that’s necessary to cultivate a thriving marriage. By “you,” I refer to two individuals who come together in harmony, as two cannot work cohesively unless they’re in accord.

Yet, as potent as love is, it remains inert without an object for its expression. We humans lend strength to love, making it dynamic and substantial. This object of expression is none other than your spouse. After all, how else can love validate itself if not by reaching a recipient? I often assert that love is an action, consistently proving its authenticity through the manner in which it’s conveyed to the recipient – in this case, your partner. Marriage necessitates two individuals who are genuinely “in love.”

Maintaining this love involves consistently expressing your affection to your partner. And how is this achieved? Let’s refer back to 1 Corinthians 13, wherein the characteristics of love are outlined. Demonstrating patience, kindness, avoiding envy, refraining from boasting, and shunning pride, all contribute to the ongoing demonstration of love.

Continual expressions of love involve showing respect, avoiding self-centeredness, managing anger, releasing grudges, celebrating achievements, safeguarding secrets, fostering trust, nurturing hope, persevering, and above all, never ending love.

While I’ll delve into each of these characteristics in subsequent posts, for now, let’s touch upon the final point: love never ends. Failure has no place in love’s realm. If you feel you’ve faltered, remember that perseverance entails ongoing effort. Never relinquish this mindset. Successful marriages endure because their participants perceive setbacks as opportunities for growth, improvement, and reinforcement. This is the essence of love – enduring through challenges.

Thus, when two people claim to have fallen out of love, it signifies a failure to express these qualities toward one another. Love itself isn’t at fault; it is more than sufficient. The real challenge lies with the individuals involved, as it takes both to fulfill these attributes and this is the intricate aspect of it all.

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A foundation alone as important and vital as it is does not make up a house. Other essential elements are required and then some other components that we may trivialize, but without which a house will be unfinished. All these pieces are different in their role but they are all vital. In my book, I mentioned four pillars every marriage must have, which are Respect, Understanding, Forgiveness, and Sacrifice. When I wrote the book I did not realize just how crucial these four supporting structures are. I also mentioned in the book that it does not end there, every detail down to the wallpaper and carpet color is significant. These little things are what makes a difference between a beautiful house and an ugly one. But what I have also discovered is that we tend to put a lot of emphasis on love, which is good, but we do this at the detriment of these other equally important elements. We sometimes put all our focus on love while ignoring these other pieces; respect, compromise, submission, forgiveness, understanding, communication, trust, etcetera. They deserve equal attention. Without these other parts, a marriage will crumble.

Love is simply not enough. Love gives us a platform to build these other facets on, but it does not make up the whole building. So when we say I love you to someone, we need to come to the realization that it is only the beginning and it takes cooperation, time, effort, money, and willingness to go from a foundation to a fully completed livable building. The question then is, are we willing to put in the work?

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This question I pondered as a woman about to take that next step towards marriage. Recognizing the fact that as I close that Single chapter of my life, I open another one which very much connotes loss of freedom. Singleness is viewed upon as a period in one’s life when one is free. While marriage implies a surrendering of that freedom.

I have a difficult time understanding people whose best friend is someone other than their spouses. I can’t imagine why someone in a committed relationship would want anyone to be closer to their partner than they are. Particularly, if the other person is of the opposite sex. In marriage, your husband or wife should become your best friend. Any best friend outside your marriage is unseemly. If we’ve not found a best friend in our spouse, we have not found the right person. If you have more fun spending time with other people than you do your spouse, there’s a need to reexamine the relationship. This may be a very dogmatic point of view, but we have to treat our marriage like it is sacred. We are giving up our freedom for this person, why would we want to be anything less than their very best friend?

We need to place a high value on our spouses. Whatever we don’t value, we have the tendency to abuse. For a man or a woman to be in our lives, we need to create a need for them. Why would we choose to marry a person, share our lives, home, money, body and resources with that person, if we are not going to take them seriously? We might as well remain single and enjoy all the freedom that comes with it. I’m nothing short of amazed when I see how poorly some people treat their spouses. I’m sure we’ve all seen one or two examples of that.

It’s really fascinating how some of us when we are single will do anything to find the right person. Only to treat that same person with contempt during the relationship. If we are not ready for all that relationships entail, it is better to remain single than to waste another person’s time. It is sad and devastating to invest so much time and resources into a relationship that’s going nowhere. So if we choose to pour our time and resources into a relationship, we may as well give it our all.

As I emphasized in my recent book, The Colorful Path, marriage is for grown-ups. It’s for those who understands that the relationship with our spouse has to outweigh everything. Our marriage has to be our priority. I once mentioned, marriage is that decision you make and every other thing becomes secondary. I repeat, every other thing. We have to be willing to give up every other thing for our marriage if the occasion arises; friends, ambitions, career, your right, personal goals, and ego. To mention a few.

Marriage is serious business. The bible likens the union between a man and a woman to Christ and the church. It shows the level of sacrifice required. Christ sacrificed all for the church, His comfort, His throne, His Father’s presence, and His life. This demonstrates how much He values us. In like manner, we have to place a high premium on our spouses.

The disintegration of family leads to the disintegration of the society. It always starts at the family unit and it begins with two people coming together in holy matrimony. This is one of the reasons why marriage is so important. When marriages fail, the society fails.

We need to view marriage as our most important mission. “Two are better than one” the Scriptures say, “because they have a good return for their labor. If either of them falls down, one can help the other up.” There’s an unbeatable power in unity. Marriage is a powerful institution because love is the most powerful force on earth. But not just any love, but a love that sacrifices.

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As a single woman however, I am surprised that more people are not challenging my position on marriage. Instead, I have received praises and nods of agreement. I think my position on marriage is pretty clear and you can read more about that in my new book The Colorful Path. But in summary, I believe marriage is a beautiful institution created by God, it is the ultimate demonstration of love and it is not for everyone!

People usually don’t like that last part. But that is the truth of it. The bible never said thou shalt get married. While God did say be fruitful and multiply, we must apply something called wisdom as this instruction does not necessarily apply to every single person or every single circumstances or seasons of a person’s life. Marriage may not be for a person at the time most people think that they should get married. A person may have gotten married and discovered they are better of being single. Or a person may get married and end up making the life of their partner a living hell. It is clearly better for such an individual to be single, at least until they learn how to live in marriage.

I once wrote in a previous post that love is the only reason that makes marriage worth it. But of course, I am not referring to the love that is merely a feeling, it is so much more than that. It is sacrificial.

This kind of love is described in the bible as “giving yourself up”. The bible uses the relationship between Christ and the church to describe what marriage ought to be. Christ is said to love the church so much so that He “gave Himself up for her” (Ephesians 5:25). This is the level of expectation that is placed on marriage. If you haven’t found the person you are willing to give yourself up for, then please don’t get married!

 A marriage that doesn’t involve giving up one’s self is not worth it. Christ gave Himself up for the church. While no one is asking us to literally die for the person we love as Christ did, we have to imbibe this same mindset in our approach to marriage.

Unfortunately, many of us haven’t quite inculcated this idea into our thinking. Which is why many marriages are the mess they are today. Marriage is that one decision you make that every other thing becomes secondary. We must give up the I for us!

We live in a world that is all about self and ego. This presents a major challenge because marriage is not about you or me, it is about us. Me, Myself and I, is the ultimate antithesis of marriage. Yet we are trying to make marriage work under self centered ideologies. It can’t work! There’s no room for self in marriage, it’s all about us.

The arithmetic for marriage is different. In mathematics, 1 + 1 = 2. In marriage, 1 + 1 = 1. We will have more fulfilling relationships if we wrap our minds around this.

The Colorful Path was my attempt to help salvage the mess many marriages have become in this generation by equipping young single folks with knowledge before they embark on that journey. As I stated in the book, we need so much more than that. But it’s a good place to start from.

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