The Helpmate: For Singles and Married

I have been so focused on vlogging this month, I almost forgot to write. But writing remains my foremost passion and I have a monthly commitment to write at least one post. So, my faithful readers can expect to see that sustained no matter what. No matter how busy I get, there will always be a monthly blog post. That being said, I have been thinking about marriage lately (although it remains a constant feature in my sphere of thoughts), I am thinking about it more than ever before.

The more I think about it the more I question if truly I am ready for marriage. Yes, I have read a lot of books about marriage. I have attended many seminars and classes. I write and talk about marriage. In fact, I plan on turning my passion into a full-time career. But in spite of all these, when I truly consider the level of dependability that comes with signing that contract, I take a mental step back. Not because I don’t want to be someone’s helpmate but because I am not sure I am fully ready yet to be one.

I guess the bigger question here is, what does it take to be a helpmate? Maybe if we truly examine it, we will not demonstrate the eagerness toward marriage that many of us do. Perhaps the reason why marriages today are so turbulent is because we are signing up to help another person for the rest of our lives when we don’t have a basic understanding of what it entails.

I always emphasize that a person cannot give what he or she doesn’t have. Therefore, helping someone requires that you have what it takes to supply whatever need that person has, be it emotional, financial, spiritual, or physiological. We are consenting to helping the other person fulfill everything on Maslow’s pyramid. That is what marriage is!

What ends up happening is that the moment of realization comes for many of us after we already took the vows not before. Then we get into this agreement called marriage and it dawns on us that we have really done the most sacrificial thing we could ever do, we have signed our lives away to the other person and we can’t have it back. We are stuck for as long as we live. And as noble as that is, it is quite a responsibility.

But because we willingly decided to be with this person because of love, we don’t think of the responsibility as burdensome. However, it is not enough to just love someone! We also must have what it takes to help the person. That’s the first reason why marriage exists in the first place. God said in the garden of Eden, “I will make a helper suitable for him” and brought forth Eve. There would be no Eve, if Adam did not need a helper.

However, in this day and age, it is not enough for us women to be just women to decide that we have what it takes to help a man. Eve got away with it. But that’s no longer applicable. It takes more than being beautiful or sexually attractive and many of us fail to grasp this. It takes wisdom, it takes being industrious, it takes financial acumen, it takes spiritual soundness, it takes a good heart and a bucket full of other qualities to be a helpmate!

Please get this right singles and married, the most assured way to make your marriage a success is to never stop developing yourself! Always pursue what makes you a better person, so you can increase your value and the value you bring to your relationship.

Self-improvement is a continuous process. But please don’t get married until you have gotten to a very good place in your journey of self-betterment. That’s the only way you could help another person, if you have first and foremost helped yourself.