IS MARRIAGE FACING CRISIS? THE JOY, PAIN

There are both happy and unhappy marriages, although the unhappy ones are on the rise. FILE PHOTO 

By NJOKI CHEGE

Marriage experts, family lawyers and clergymen who come in frequent contact with married couples have raised the alarm over rising cases of divorce and separation among Kenyan couples.

They are worried that too many marriages are unable to stand the test of time and agree that modern-day marriages are facing numerous challenges among them unmet expectations, differences over money, pressure to strike a balance between work and life; and spousal isolation, as a result of which many marriages are operating in a vacuum, lacking adequate support.

They spoke to the Saturday Nation as Kenya prepared to host over 2,000 delegates from across the globe to discuss the state of marriage in modern times.

The one-day conference, to be held at the Bomas of Kenya in Nairobi, starts on Saturday and ends on Sunday.

“That marriage is under threat is nothing new. It has always been under attack since the days of the Garden of Eden.

"What we are seeing now is that in this age, the challenges have intensified and some threats have to do with culture changes and the fast pace of life,” Muriithi Wanjau, the Senior Pastor of Mavuno Church, told the Saturday Nation this week.

POOR PLANNING
In a world of empowered women who want to be “equal partners” in marriage, and in an era of technology with instant communication and online dating platforms, marriages in the 21 century are facing unique challenges.

Jennifer Karina, a trained psychologist and family therapist who has been married to Mr Bob Karina for 40 years, said that often, young couples enter marriages unprepared for the commitment and with a jaundiced view of what the institution really is about.

“You enter a marriage thinking how lovely it will be to wake up in the arms of your lover… You are in the dream stage, where you dream and fantasise about how you will have children and raise them. You fantasise about holidays, Valentines day…” Karina said.

COMMUNICATION
Unmet expectations is a problem facing many marriages today, leaving a trail of broken hearts and disillusioned couples.

Mr Francis Njeru, the Nairobi coordinator of Marriage Encounter, a couples’ initiative to support marriages, said that failure by many couples to communicate their expectations causes strife and conflict in marriages.

“Your partner does not know the expectations you have and because there is no proper dialogue, couples who behave as if they know each well discover they actually know very little about each other and what to expect,” he said.

When people enter marriages with such unrealistic expectations, those expectations get challenged because generally people make the choice to get married based on what they like about that person.

Such decisions are often made during romantic moments when every action is viewed through rose-tinted glasses.

“We get married because of the feeling of love, but marriage is not just about love. Marriage is a decision,” Mrs Karina said.

DIVORCE
Unfortunately some couples regret that decision months or even years after tying the knot because some get into marriage without first ironing out some fundamental questions.

What then is the current state of Kenyan marriages?

Mr John Ng’ang’a, managing consultant of Taruma Consultancy Services, said there are both happy and unhappy marriages, although the unhappy ones are on the rise.

Mr Ng’ang’a, who interacts with many married couples, is of the view that there are four reasons why some marriages are ending up in divorce.

The first is that married people are increasingly becoming “irreligious” such that their marriages are not anchored on values to hold them together in stormy times.

“The second reason is that as women continue to get more empowered, men have not been socialised to cope with a woman who is earning more than he is. Many men don’t know how to cope with an empowered woman”.

CONFLICTS
The third reason, in his view, is that the traditional (or religious) definitions of marriage are slowly thinning out, as a result of which some couples no longer understand the traditional mandate of the institution.

Finally, men and women are created so differently that there is bound to be conflict.

Unfortunately, some do not know how to deal with their conflicts and this can end up in divorce.

In her book, Marriages Built to Last, Mrs Karina has a chapter on “This is not the Man I Married”, in which she brings out an important step that many couples fail to take prior to getting hitched for life.

“The lack of preparation for marital conflict was not peculiar to me.

"Most couples enter into marriage believing that they will never fight over anything because they love each other.

"The truth is that any two people placed together for whatever reason will, at one time or another, experience conflict just because they are different from each other,” she writes in the book.

IN LOVE
In her view, some couples entering marriage fail to realise that when one is in love, it is like they are intoxicated.

This means that the chemical dopamine is in overdrive, making one to feel good, invincible and… totally in love.

“That extra dose of dopamine and that feel-good feeling lasts only up to three months and may last up to 18 months if you are lucky.

"When the dopamine is over, you are finished with the romantic stage, and the drama begins,” Mrs Karina adds.

Pastor Wanjau opined that the reality of marriage is that every single marriage goes through the “dream” stage and then the “drama” stage, during which spouses feel as if they have fallen out of love with their loved ones.

“Sparks will not always be there. The beautiful thing is that you can pull through that difficult stage. There is no good marriage without hard work,” Pastor Wanjau said.

COUNSELLING
To address the challenges that marriages face, different churches have put in place activities and initiatives to support couples.

From pre-marital counselling, to marriage mentorship, courses on marriage and peer counselling, the church has become a resourceful institution on matters marriage.

For instance, Mavuno church takes couples through 10 weeks of preparation and later pairs them up with mentor couples to mitigate isolation in marriages.

The church has targeted the issue of money and marriage within the broad context of the understanding that the role of providing for the family has been expanded to include women who are out-earning their husbands.

“There are things they did not learn from their parents because their parents never experienced them.

"We also teach them how to deal with the pressures of life such as how a man should respond if his wife is more successful than he is,” Pastor Wanjau told the Saturday Nation. 
MEDIATION
While some marriages endure, others end up in painful divorces that threaten the well-being of not only the couples involved, but also their children.

Family lawyer Judy Thongori says that while divorce rates may not have gone down, the rate of “ugly divorces” has significantly declined with more divorcing couples taking charge of their exits without necessarily washing their dirty linen in public — or the courts for that matter.

“People are asking how do we exit from this with dignity. Mediation is increasingly being encouraged where couples sit down and agree on matters of property and children. People these days are more in control,” she said.

CREDIT: NMG