In this segment, we had on-the-show, marriage, and relationship counselor, Olabisi Soetan who discussed the qualifications of a good and happy marriage.
Olabisi is a certified emotional intelligence and marriage coach and the founder of “Secret Place Wife”.
Let’s start by understanding what longevity in marriage is:
Marriage longevity is a balance sheet of your mutual compounded interest in each other over time. But does longevity in marriage means a successful and happy marriage? Let’s find out.
Longevity Is Not A Sign Of A ‘Happy’ Marriage! Here’s Why [VIDEO]
Do you believe longevity equals happy marriage?
“Well, I think it goes without saying especially because we all know that couples around us, some, our parents married for 20-30 years and the testimony is that, we don’t want what they have.
Indeed they are some people who have been married for a long time and they seem happy and cute but the answer is not a blanket yes or no but obviously, longevity is not an indication that the marriage is successful or happy.
Longevity can mean there has been some form of consistency, resilience, dedication towards each other, and forgiveness, all of which are components of a happy marriage.
But the answer is that longevity itself which is the length of time a couple has been married is not really a marker of the fact that they are successful and that the relationship is happy.”
What advice do you have for people who have tensions in marriage but are just bearing it?
“Typically as a society, we are not really that accommodating to people who have failed marriages.
Now the conversation itself is like, we are talking about successful and unsuccessful marriages, failed and happy ones, now that would suggest that if you’re not in a married for a long period of time, you would have failed and that itself is a problem.
So when people come out of a relationship either because they have been abused or just because they cannot reconcile the differences, they are shamed.
There’s that idea that, oh I don’t want to be shamed, I don’t want people to feel like we failed at this.
So we typically personalize our personal success and failures on the longevity of our marriages and that’s a much bigger problem.
I think that generally as a people we need to be more accommodating of the fact that relationships sometimes don’t work out.
Sometimes, people are not as mature as they should be. Anything but still be more responsible, corporative, and collaborative.”
See the video below for more!
