REDEFINING SUCCESSFUL RELATIONSHIPS

Hey guys, welcome to my blog. How is your week going? Happy New Month to you! It’s the month of love, so happiness should be our default setting throughout this February and beyond. Plus, it’s my birthday month too. Whoop! Whoop!

It's a no-brainer that I enjoy writing. Why else would this blog exist in the first place? One of the things I enjoy doing is writing about conversations I have with people or issues I stumble upon on the cyberspace or in random places. I get the best blog post ideas through this means. That brings me to the issue I want to talk about today: successful and unsuccessful relationships. Take a good look at the meme below.

Chances are you have seen this image before, probably on social media. The first time I saw this meme on Facebook, it caught my attention and held it for a while. What caught my attention about this meme wasn’t the beautiful couple in it. It was the message in it and the fact that it got me thinking about what constitutes successful dating and courtship.

Most importantly, it got me asking what I consider some very critical questions such as: must every relationship end up in marriage? What makes a relationship successful? Is a relationship successful only when it ends in marriage? Does it mean that any relationship that doesn’t end in marriage was unsuccessful?

The meme above suggests that the goal of every relationship must be marriage and if that goal isn’t attained, then the relationship failed. I don’t believe that the ultimate goal of a relationship should be marriage. Rather, I believe that the goal of a relationship is to figure out if marriage is the right step and to pull the plugs if it isn’t. To do this, we must, first of all, redefine what we call successful relationship.

On several occasions, I have seen two completely unfit people head to the altar after dating for a period of time. These people were celebrated for having successful courtships that culminated into marriage. Few years after, the couples start looking for a way out because they took a step that should never have been taken.

The sad reality is that our often overly romanticised view about love and relationship means that we see successful relationships from the point of view of glistening engagement rings and Bella Naija weddings.

Have you stopped to think for a second that a breakup could as well be a sign of a successful relationship?

Wikipedia.org defines courtship as the period in a couple's relationship which precedes their engagement and marriage, or establishment of an agreed relationship of a more enduring kind. During courtship, a couple gets to know each other and decide if there will be an engagement or other such agreement.

Courtship is a period of finding out if you and your partner are compatible in key areas. It is a period for soul searching and deciding if getting married is the next logical step to take. What this invariably means is that, if during courtship, a couple discovers that getting married would be the wrong step, putting an end to the relationship means it achieved its purpose.

Someone I know dated her boyfriend for five years. The first three years were long distance but they coped quite well. During the fourth year, she relocated to Germany where the guy was based. A few months to their wedding, they announced their break-up. What happened? Well, she discovered that her fiancé had a fiery temper and he even hit her on two separate occasions. She eventually called off wedding plans and returned her engagement ring. Many couldn’t understand how she could allow a five-year relation ‘fail’. In my opinion, her relationship didn’t fail. On the contrary, it was a huge success. Discovering her fiancé had abusive traits before she committed to him in marriage, and having the boldness to walk out of the relationship meant that the relationship achieved its purpose of letting her know that getting married wasn't the right next step.

The essence of courtship isn't to get married. The essence of courtship is to know whether you SHOULD get married.  If during courtship you discover you shouldn't get married, that to me, is a successful courtship. That courtship has delivered on its mandate.

The question, then becomes, how long should it take the people in a dating relationship to figure out that they are in a dead-end? To be honest, I don't have an answer to this. Some people say six months. Some others say one year. I think that it shouldn't take two serious people in a relationship more than one year to figure out whether or not they should get married, all things being equal. Long courtship, which comes with serious emotional investments, is often one of the reasons unfit couples refuse to pull out of a relationship that shouldn't be. How are they expected to start over, they ask? So they trudge on and hope that the odds somehow, will be in their favour.

The fact is not every relationship you get into will end in marriage. I know we are very romantic people and will want our first love to be our one and only. Sorry folks. Life isn't a perfectly scripted romantic comedy. There are people who should never get married and courtship is the time for finding that out. Like Bishop David Oyedepo said, “a broken engagement is better than a broken marriage”.

My view is that successful dating or courtship doesn’t necessarily have to end in marriage. I think that a relationship that ends in marriage is not necessarily successful. In the same vein, the one that didn’t culminate in an emotional exchange of marital vows at some picturesque altar isn’t necessarily unsuccessful.

So before you go wallowing in a pity party, remember that a successful courtship can also lead to a breakup. For all you know, you may have just dodged a bullet.

Anyways, the above are my thoughts on the issue. I would like to know what your own view is. Should every relationship lead to marriage? Share your thoughts with me in the comment section.