Category: People & Politics

• Says there’s no such thing as irredeemable marriage

Marriage counsellor and thespian, Bisi Adewale, spoke with Online Editor SUNDAY OGUNTOLA on the impact of Japa syndrome on marriages and how to make the institution work. Excerpts:  

Many couples are living apart on account of migration. Is that something you recommend?

Migration has been a natural phenomenon all over the world from the days of the Bible. Even Abraham migrated. People have always moved when there is famine.  When there is war, you see people moving.  But lately,  it  has become more pronounced, maybe because  of  the nation’s economy  or the  mentality  of  the  people.

So  the  issue  of  japa  has  been  there, but  it  has  become  something  of  an  epidemic  in  Nigeria now.  And it is affecting marriage and families. It affects families in several ways.  The  first  one  is  what  I  call  the  proceed  spouses  syndrome.  The  Proceed  Spouses  Syndrome  is  a  situation  whereby  only  one  of  them Japa.  The  husband  is  in  UK,  France,  US,  Germany  or  somewhere,  and  the  wife  is  here  in  Nigeria  or the  other  way round. And that can be for many years. 

I counselled a woman some time ago.  She  said  the  last  time  she  saw  her  husband  was seven  years  ago.  The husband is in France.  I  met  another  woman,  who  said  the  husband was  in  the UK.  So I began to talk to the man.  The  day  I  landed  in  the UK,  the  man  stopped  picking  my  calls. I understand the reason for  that, because  when  you have  been  somewhere  for  nine or  10  years,  you  must  have  started  a  new  family.  The wife is still here now. It has been around 13 years. He even stopped picking calls. He stopped calling the woman. And I think they have two children.  The children have never seen their father as adults. They were little when he left. 

There’s another woman who was trusting God.  They were together for two years, then the husband  travelled. He is still there now, almost 50  without  a  child,  and  the  husband  is  nowhere  to  be  found. So,  she  was  asking,  ‘Am  I  a  Miss  or  a  Mrs?’  I said that is  a  big  question,  and it was not  for  me  to  answer. 

So, staying apart encourages infidelity.  It encourages rumours, crisis and conflicts.  It encourages raising children in a delinquent way.  You turn a wife into a baby mama. Or should I  call  it  single  mother  that  they  didn’t  plan or   bargain  for? It is also affecting the upbringing of the children and by extension the society.  And  the  problem we  are  starting  now, we  may  not  really  appreciate  it  until  the  next  five,  10  years.

But when Christians migrate, they are supposed not to have anything  to  do  with anyone else while trusting their spouses to  join  them…

It is expected that when a Christian migrates, he or she should abstain.  They should be faithful while apart. But we  need  to quickly  remember  that  the  Bible  says  it  is  not  good  for a man  to  be  alone. In  fact,  one  of  the  reasons  God  said  we  should  get  married  is  to  avoid  sexual  sins. 

So now when you are away  from  your  wife,  from  your  husband  for  one,  two,  three,  four  years,  it  will  be  very  difficult to  stay  faithful. It will be very, very difficult.

I was in a church in France.  Some  guys  that  were  coming  to  me,  I  asked if they could vouch they had never slept with anybody else since they arrived. Many of them said Pastor, please let leave that side. Some were crying while others who were sincere confessed.  They  said when  they  realise  that  there  is  no  woman  beside  you,  some  women  would deliberately  come and  get  at  you.

So, Christians are expected  to  be  faithful. But  faithfulness  is  not  something  you  can  do  by  strength. It  is  something  you  need  to  do  with  carefulness,  by  boundary.  Even  we  that  are  with  our  wives,  we  are  still  running  away  from  girls, let alone people who would not see their wives. They are not animals; they are humans.  That  is  why  it  is  never  encouraging  for  you  to  be far from your spouse. I always  tell  people  that  a  great  marriage  is  one in which both husband  and  wife  are  in  the  same  country,  in  the  same  city,  in  the  same  house,  in  the  same  room,  on  the  same  bed, under  the  same  duvet.  That’s what marriage is all about.  Anything short of that is something else. We call it damage, because it will damage that marriage.

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Even  people  that  are  in  Abuja  and  their  wife  is  in  Lagos,  it  leads  to  a  lot  of  infidelity. And these  are  the  people  that  come  back  home  every  fortnight, some  people  every  weekend, talk  less  of  somebody  that they  may  not  see  each  other  in  the  next  six  years. So there is  no  Christian  that  will  be  able  to  sustain  you  when  you  disobey  the  order  of  God. If they will migrate, they should migrate together.

But some people will say they didn’t plan to stay for that long. They just thought they’ll go for six months or one year and ask their spouses to join them.

If  you  are  truthful  to  yourself, you will discover that it  is  not  one  plus  one.  You know what it means to get a visa.  If  you  are  really  truthful  to  yourself,  it  is  not like  you  are  migrating  from  Lagos  to  Ibadan.  And  you  now  say I  want  to  be  at Ibadan to look for a house, settle down and bring my wife.

I  have  a  particular  pastor  years  ago  even  before  the japa  syndrome.  He went for about 17 years.  The wife couldn’t join him.  He is back now in Ibadan.  The  wife  came  to  our  office,  shouted,  prayed,  did  a  lot  of  things.  Eventually he came back home after 17 years of separation.

So,  when  people  say  they  didn’t  plan  it that  way,  they  should  plan  it  very  well  and  go  together from  day  one.  Otherwise, they may scatter that marriage and destroy their homes.  So, I say if you must japa, please japa together.

Is it realistic considering the economic difficulties and strain? Is it out of place for someone to go and the other joins later?

It  depends  on  the  value  you  place  on  your  family  life.  It  depends  on  the  value  you  place  on  your  future,  your  family  life and   your  children.  If  you  place  great  value  upon  them,  I  can  see  a  lot  of  people  that  decided  to  stay  for  one,  two,  three  years  and  refuse  to  go  until  they  can  get  enough  resources  to  go together. Those are wise people.

I remember a man came to my office. He is in the UK, the wife is in Lagos here.  He  came  around  and  said,  ‘Pastor,  they  told  me  the  escapade  of  my  wife.  How can I stop her from sleeping around?’  I said take her with you. Even  a  woman  that  is  with  you,  if  she  wants  to  sleep  around, she will  sleep  around.  Talk less when she is not with you  at  all.  You  will  come every  December and you  think that  woman  will  not  sleep  with  somebody  else?

I ministered for a pastor in the UK years ago.  We were in his house.  When  I  stepped  out  of  his  house,  in the  opposite  flat,  there  were  two  white  women  there.  They were in pants.  They  lay  down  on  the  lawn in  the  front  of  their  house.  They said they were sunbathing. And they were like almost 95 per cent naked.  My  pastor  friend  now  said  can  you  see  them? I said yes.  He  said that is  why  it  is  difficult  to  stay  in  this  town  without  your  spouse; that many  of  our  people staying  here  without  their  spouses and claim they  are  spiritually  strong, these  are  the  people  that  destroy  them.

Can  you  iimagine seeing that every  morning  you  before  you  go  to  work?  If  they  just  walk  up  to  you  one  day,  which  many  of  them  do…  Many  of  them don’t  value  any  morals; they  just  believe  that   having  sex  with  anybody  is  like  drinking  water. That is  how  many  of  our  men  hang  in  the  hands  of these  strange  women.

We are talking about the value on the family now.  The  thing  is when  you  make  the  money,  our  own  teaching  about  family  life,  when  you  make  the  money,  it’s  about  you  and  your  family.  It’s about the future. 

We’ve  seen  a  lot  of  people  that  went there.  I know a particular man who was there.  We were neighbours before. He was there and made all the money.  The  wife  got  to  know  that  he  was  sleeping  around  and doing all manner of things.  By the time he got back home, he was old.  He had bought houses in Lagos and everything. Then the wife turned against him.  It was serious.  He was over 80 when he came back.  He  was  coming  to  my  house  to  beg  for  food and water.  At  times,  he  would say  ah,  they  didn’t  give  me  water. Because  they  would  shut  down  the  water at  the  back, knowing  that  he  could not  climb  the  tank.  They would not cook for him. The wife and the daughter left in the house dealt with him.

When I  talked  to  the  younger  brother, he  said  the  mistake  was from the man because he abandoned  the  family  for  a  long  time. Eventually, the wife joined him but couldn’t even fit in.  She discovered he had girlfriends and baby mamas everywhere. The  man  had  a  lot  of child  support money  to  pay  to  so  many.  So  the  wife  returned  to  Nigeria to  take  care  of  her  children.  And the man stayed for another almost 20 years. 

Eventually, he  got  old. He  couldn’t  stay  alone  again,  so he  came  back  to  Nigeria and the  whole  family turned  against  him. He lived a miserable life before he eventually died. 

When he died,  I approached the  family for the burial  arrangements.  They asked who we were arranging burial for.  He  died,  we  have  removed  him  from  LUTH  and  took  him  to  Matori  to  bury  him. Just  like  that;  just  the  way  you  would  do  to  a  chicken.

We said okay, we are neighbours, what can we do? Maybe, we can have at least a wake.  Because  at  a  stage, the man was the  chairman of our landlords’  association.  At least we should honour him.  They  said  we  will  give  you  the  frontage  of  our  house free  of  charge.  We will not collect money.  But we won’t attend.

So we should always think of old age.  We should only think of the future.  We  should  only  think  of  the  time  we  are  going  to  have  billions and even  one  plate  of  rice  will  be  like  a  mountain  before  us.  That is  why  every  decision  we  want  to  take  now,  think  of  the  old  age,  think  of  the  future.

I  always  tell  people  to  add  30  years  to  their  ages.  You will always behave better if you do.  If  you  are  50  now,  add  30  years, you will  be  80.  If you are 40 now, you will be 70.  Many  of  the  things  you  value  now,  will  be  valueless  then.

As  much  as  King  David loved  women,  a  time  came  that  they  gave  him  the  best  woman  in  Israel and the  man  couldn’t do  anything.  We will all get to that level. That  woman  that  wants  all  the  trinkets,  all  the  bags,  all  the  shoes, the  time  is  coming  you  have  all  the  shoes,  you  have  all  the  bags and  there would be  no  event  to  attend.

Many  of the jobs we  are  pursuing  now, even if we have 100,000  degrees,  they  won’t  take  us  in  2055. They won’t take us.  Many  of  the  things  that  you  are seeing that  are  glistering now,  technology  must  have  changed.  The  best  of  all  our  cars  will  look  like the old  cars  of  those  days.

Some say parenting is the toughest job on earth. Do you agree?

I don’t always agree with that.  The  reason  why  people  normally  say  parenting is the  toughest job is  because people were never  trained  for  it. For  example,  I’m  a  trained  accountant. If  you  say  I  should  come  and  work  as  a  journalist,  it  will  be  the  toughest  job.  You  are  a  journalist,  if  I  say  you  should  come  and  work  as  an engineer,  it will be  the  toughest job. That is some of the things we are saying.  They  will  say  parenting  is  the  toughest  job,  marriage  is  the  toughest  relationship. Why?  Nobody is taught to do it.

The  job  somebody  is  doing  the  person  will  use  about  35  years  to  pursue  the  certificates.  About  25 years to pursue  the  certificates and work for 35 years before  retirement.  But  for  parenting,  we  have  so  many  people who are  raising  children  who  have  never  read one book about it. They have never attended any training. They have never listened to anybody to train them. That is  why  the  thing  looks  so  difficult,  so  tedious. 

So,  every  job  looks tedious  until  you  have  the  skills to  do  it. If they give you and I N100 million or N200 million and  they  give us all  the  materials  to  build  this  house  where we are seated, in 20, 30  years, you and I will never  succeed  on  doing  something  like  this. Despite  all  the  resources,  despite  all  the  money,  ordinary  wall,  we  may  not  succeed  in  building, because we don’t have the skills to do so.

So  when  somebody  now  asks  us,  is building a house  the  toughest  job  in  the world? We’ll  say yes, because  we  were  never  trained  to do it. But  when  you  are  well trained,  you will discover that parenting has principles, styles and modes. When  the  parent  is  well equipped, we’ll be ready. 

For example,  when your  child is  four years old,  what that child will  do is quite different from when  that child is 14 years old.  When  you  look  at  the  child  and  say,  at  the  age  of  four,  you  just  say,  oh,  Juliet, go  and  put  on  your  slippers  and  follow  me. Juliet, at  the  age  of  four,  will  run  after  you and say, ‘Daddy, I  want  to  follow  you.’  The  same  Juliet  at  the  age  of  14,  when  you  say put  on  your  clothes  and  follow  me, will say ‘Daddy  where  are  we  going  to? Now  you say are  you  talking  to  me  like  that?  I’m  your  dad.  She will say, ‘Daddy  where  are  we  going  to?’

And  when  you  say  okay  we  are  going  to  a  certain  place, she will ask what  are  we doing there?  Why  must I follow you?  What’s  my  role  there? Then you will think  the girl is stubborn, the girl is  difficult. But the girl is not  stubborn or difficult. She is just being a  teenager. 

So, parenting is not  difficult. It is only difficult for the unskillful. Acquiring skills simply means you attend training or read books. Thank  God for  modern day,  if you go on many of  these websites, even YouTube, if  you consume the right YouTube  content,  you  are  going  to  learn  so much about parenting. But books are the best. 

And we have a lot of organisations  who  are  giving  very  good  training  to  parents  who  are  ready.  But  how  many  parents  will say  I  want  to  let  go  N100,000  to  learn  about  parenting?  Everybody seems to know it and everybody  seems  to  be  making  mistakes.  That  is  why  we need to become intentional in our  parental  works.

So  what’s  your view on people  who say spare the rod and spoil the child? What  does  the  rod  mean  and how do you use the rod according to the Bible?

There  are  two  things  to  the  issue  of  the  rod  and  the  child.  Now, the Bible says train up a  child  in the way he should go. It also  says  we  should  correct  our  child  when there’s hope. That is to say the bible supports the rod – discipline.  But  the  Bible  says  rod  of discipline because  foolishness abide in  the  heart of the child. But  the kind of rod we use in Africa is not rod of discipline. It’s rod of affliction.

When  you  hit  the  head  of  the  girl or the  boy  with  a heavy  rod, you are afflicting. Some will use  blades to cut the child.  Some  will  hit  the  head  of  a  child. Some  will  kick the  child and he will  land  on the floor, and they will sit on the  child and begin to say I’m the one  that gave birth to you; I can kill  you. Those are not the rod of discipline or correction. That is the rod of  affliction.

And there  are  two  ways  to  it.  The  first  one is  the African  way,  which leads to  child  abuse. Where  you kick your child the way you  like. The second one is the  European  and  American  style.  The  first one is child abuse, the  second one is child indulgence, whereby  you  dare  not  touch,  you  dare  not  correct  or  the  child  will  call the police. So, the European  side is not the best; it is not  balanced.  The African side is also not balanced. But the Bible  standard is  balanced.

You  wrote  a  book  some  years  ago,  Fight  for  That  Marriage.  In  the  light  of  what  we  see  these  days, to what extent should  people  fight  for  their  marriage?

I think I’ve been hearing that question for  some  time  now,  especially in the case of this lady  that  was  killed in Abuja, Osinachi. I will say the way to fight for  marriage is not the way people  are  thinking  about  it. Fighting for  your  marriage  starts  even  before  you  choose  a  life  partner.  When  we  decide  to  wait  for  the  right  time,  to  be  mentored,  to  be  led,  to  be  corrected,  you  are  already  fighting  for  your  marriage.

When  you  are  in  the  marriage,  you  are  faithful  to  your  wife  or  to your spouse. You have effective communication. You spend time together.  You honour your  spouse.  You are  fighting  for  your  marriage.  And when there is  misunderstanding,  you  decide  to  seek professional help. Maybe  marriage  clinic.  Because  most  of  the  time  nowadays,  marriage  counselling  is  not  even  working. So  what  we  do  nowadays  is  marriage  clinic. So,  when  you support the  development  of  your  marriage,  when  you  apologise,  when  you  forgive,  you  are  fighting  for  your  marriage.  When you  know  what  to  say  but  you  don’t  say  it,  when  you  cherish  your  relationship  more  than  your  ego,  and  because  of  that  you  decided  to  call  for  reconciliation,  you  are  fighting  for  your  marriage.

But fighting for your marriage  does  not  mean  that when  you’re in an abusive relationship, you don’t  talk,  you don’t  say  anything,  you die  there.  No.  That  is  not  how  to  fight  for  your  marriage.  Because  I  usually  tell  women  that L  comes  before  W.  Life  comes  before  wife.  Your  life  comes  before  wife.  But  you  know  that  when  you  are  truly  fighting  for  your  marriage,  your  marriage  will  not  get  to  the  state  of  beating  each  other.

There  is  a  trail  to  violence,  chain  of  violence  in  marriage.  It normally starts from irritation.  If you don’t address it, irritation will turn into offence.  Offence will turn into conflict. If you don’t resolve the conflict, conflict will turn into bitterness.  Bitterness will turn into resentment and resentment will  turn  into  violence.

When  you  are  at  the  level  of  bitterness  and  resentment,  only  very  few  things  can  lead to  violence.  For  example,  I  see  toilet  rolls  on  the  table, then I begin to say lots of awful things. The issue is not with the toilet roll on the table but the bitterness that has piled up for many years. And some people can be like that for 5, 10, 20 years before they burst out. So, people that fight for their marriages always sit to talk about their issues.

We normally have chains of reconciliation. You move from forgiveness to reconciliation,  from  reconciliation  to  normalisation,  from  normalisation,  you  go  to  repeat. That’s  marriage.

In every marriage, there will be forgiveness, reconciliation,  normalisation,  repeat.  Because there’s  no  way  you  can  be  together  with  somebody  and  you  will  not  offend  each  other.  You will,  no  matter  whom  you  ask.  That is  why  when  some  pastor  preach  that  we  have  never  had  the  first  misunderstanding,   I  say  in  my  marriage  I  have  misunderstanding.  Those pastors can be Angel Gabriel that got  married  to  Angel Michael.  So  I  can’t  speak  for  them.

We teach conflict management in marriage.  It’s not conflict cancellation but management.  You have to manage it till  you  breathe  your  last.  Because why  do  we  fight  in  marriage?  We fight ecause we are different.  Why  do  we  fight  in  marriage?  We fight because  we  are  humans.  Why  do  we  fight  in  marriage?  We fight because  we  are  close.

So,  when  people  want  to  get  married,  one  of  the  strongest  keys they must develop  is  conflict  management skill. And they  should  come  out  of  illusion  where  they  think that  we  are  compatible.  Many people got married based on  that  illusion; that  I’m  getting  married  to  my  soul mate.  Nobody is  your  soulmate.  But  you  can  find  soulmate  by  creating  one. But you didn’t marry a soul mate.  That you are just physically compatible, mentally compatible, spiritually compatible, socially compatible, vocationally compatible; the Bible does not talk about compatibility. The  Bible talks about agreement. Can two walk together except they agree? And marriage is just a union of two people that are agreeable  people.  So,  fighting for  your  marriage  is  a  very  good  thing.  We  keep  on  fighting.”

Some marriages have deteriorated so badly that divorce becomes the best for all parties. At what point should divorce become the best option?

I am a marriage clinician.  It  is  like  you  are  talking  to  a  medical  doctor.  Can  you  imagine  sitting  down  before  your  doctor  and  you  now  say,  ‘Doctor,  when  is  death  the  best  option  in  the  medical  life?’

The doctor  will  say  there  is  no  time  even  when  the  doctor  knows  that  somebody  will  die, they  will  still  manage  as long as the  person  is  still  breathing.  That’s my attitude to marriage.  And there’s something I always say that there’s no marriage that is  irredeemable  in  the  workshop  of  God. Now, at what stage will a marriage become irredeemable? When people decide not to work on it.  Every marriage must work.  But  most  of  the  time,  people  cherish  their  ego more  than  their  marriage.  So  there  is  no  time  I  will  suggest  go  and  divorce.  This  year  will  make  it  26  years  I’ve  been  practising. I’ve  never  had  a  situation  whereby  I  say  oh  you  people  deserve  to  go  and  divorce or  suggest  it.  And  by  the  time  we  begin  to  work  on  them, you  just  discover  that  it  works.  Amazing turnaround.  We  even  worked  with  a  couple  that  had been  divorced  and  separated  for  17  years, and two  of  their  children  have  now  grown  up.  They brought  them and  we were  able  to  bring  them  together.  They asked themselves why is it  that  we  divorced  then?  What  was  wrong  with  us? And today  they  are  together.

Now,  that  said,  if  a  marriage  will  work,  we  must  create  an atmosphere  that  will  make  it  work.  Now,  what  is  the  atmosphere  that  makes  marriage  work? People  marry  because  of  love.  But  when  you  enter  into  marriage, love is  the  least  thing  you  really  need. Because love  is  not  enough  for  marriage. 

One  of  the  strongest  things  that  makes  marriage  work  is  called  intentionality. In  fact,  I  wrote a  series  of  books  recently  about  it.  I  called  it  Wonders  of  Intentional  Marriage Volume  1,  2,  3.  Because  I  discovered  that  number  one  thing  that  destroys  marriage  is  not  violence. Number  one  thing  that  destroys  marriage  is not  infidelity.  It’s  not  violence.  People  can  mention  so  many  things but they  won’t  mention  the  real thing  that’s  number  one  cause  of  divorce in marriage.  What  is  it?  Carelessness.

Somebody may say,  well,  how  can  carelessness  be?  Okay,  somebody  that sleeps with  somebody’s  ex-wife  is  because  he’s  careless  morally.  Somebody  that  beats  his  wife,  they  didn’t  just  get  into  the  room  one  day  and  begin  to  beat  each  other.  They  will  start  by  being  careless  in  their  words,  careless  in  their  attitude.

The first carelessness  is with  our  intimacy.  When  you  see  a  boyfriend  and  girlfriend,  they  pay  attention  to  each  other,  they  talk  to  each  other and they  stay  late  in  the  night.  But  immediately  they  get  married,  they  become  careless  in  their  union.  The  man  is  not  ready.  Can  your  girlfriend  be  calling  you  and  you  will not  pick  her call? A  girl  you  are  still  toasting  to  marry  you,  you  pick  it  seven  times.  Most  of  the  time  they  flash  you,  you  call  back.  But  the average  married  man,  the  wife  will  be  calling,  they  will  not  pick.  And  then  when  they  will  pick,  they  will  say ‘don’t  waste  your  credit.  I’m  coming  back  home  now.  I’ll  call  you  back or  I’m  in  the  middle  of  something.  So,  we’ve  lost  this. 

Then  we  become  careless  towards each  other.  So,  one  thing  that  makes  marriage  work is  intentionality.  If  every  husband  and  wife  can  become  intentional  in  their  attitude,  every  marriage  can  work.  Can  you  imagine  if  you  go  back  to  the  time  of  dating  each  other,  like  the  old  days. The  time  you  called  each  other  and  do  extra  cool in  the MTN  of  those  days.  The  time  you  decided  to,  in  fact,  as  at  that  period,  they  didn’t  have money to go to the eatery.

Oh,  I  was  in  one  particular  eatry  years  ago  and  I  saw  a  guy. He  came  around,  the  only  thing  he  could  buy  was ice  cream.  And  very soon,  the girl came. He  didn’t  even  share  it. He  got  the  ice  cream for the  girl.  And  he  dipped  his  hand into his pocket and  brought out pure water for  himself.  I  said,  that  is  a  boyfriend,  not  a  husband.  A husband  will  not  do  that.  He  is  the  one  that  will  drink  the  ice  cream. 

Another  carelessness  we  normally  have,  if  marriage  is  having  a problem,  we  carelessly  go  to  the  wrong  people  for  help. Who are the people we  normally  go  to?  ‘FFF’.  Who  are  the  ‘FFF?’  Our  friends,  our  families and  our  fans  on  Facebook,  our  followers  on  Facebook.  Now,  when  you  take  your  marriage  to  those  kind  of  people,  they  will  bring  their  selfishness  on the  table.  They will bring their  ignorance  on  the  table.  So that is one of the  major  problems.