Elements of Good & Happy Marriages

Mvelo Tabeni

Description

“Elements of Good and Happy Marriages” is an excellent and practical tool to help with the “working out” of marriage. It is like a mirror to look into, it will help to reveal the true condition of your marriage, but at the same time it will encourage you and guide you to a Good and Happy Marriage.
The quizzes after each chapter are very helpful and they encourage transparency and honesty. It also encourages the couples to read and work through this book together.

Informations

• Publié par: Digital On Demand
• Date de parution: 10 octobre 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780639740317
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

ELEMENTS OF GOOD & HAPPY MARRIAGES
MVELO TABENI


E lements of Good & Happy Marriages
P ublished by Mvelo Tabeni
P .O. Box 21387, Gqeberha, 6000, Nelson Mandela Bay, South Africa.
M [e-mail]
C opyright © 2022 by Mvelo Tabeni
F irst edition 2022
I SBN 978-0-6397-2947-3
e ISBN: EISBN 978-0-6397-4031-7
A ll rights reserved
N o part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, photographic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording on record, tape or laser disk, on microfilm, via the Internet, by e-mail, or by any other information storage or retrieval system, without prior written permission from the copyright owner.
T he author (and/or publisher) have made every effort to obtain permission for and acknowledge the use of copyrighted material. Refer all enquiries to the author (and/or publisher).
V iews reflected in this publication are not necessarily those of the printer.
C over design and typesetting by Wade Hunkin ([e-mail])
S et in Garamond 14/17
P roduced / Printed and bound in South Africa by Print on Demand PTY (Ltd)
5 Koets str, Parow Industria, 7493


Contents
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
FOREWORD
PREFACE
INTRODUCTION LOVE TRUST COMMITMENT MAKING TIME, PAYING ATTENTION & HAVING FUN GOOD COMMUNICATION & LISTENING PARTNERSHIP & DOING THINGS TOGETHER TOLERANCE, HONESTY & PATIENCE RESPECT CONSIDERATION & OPENNESS SHARING AND GENEROSITY MONEY MATTERS WILLINGNESS TO COMPROMISE EMBRACING CONSTRUCTIVE CRITICISM GOOD MANAGEMENT OF ARGUMENTS WILLINGNESS TO HEAR YOUR PARTNER’S VIEWPOINT ABILITY AND WILLINGNESS TO FORGIVE WILLINGNESS TO APOLOGIZE PRAYING TOGETHER THE PARAMOUNT CHALLENGE WHAT THE FUTURE HOLDS?


IS YOUR MARRIAGE GOOD AND HAPPY ?
IF NOT, IT’S TIME TO EMBRACE CHANGE.


ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I am extremely grateful to Pastor Marius Gradwell, Pastor Khaya Maphinda and Mr Mbulelo Maxwell Ngewu (Marriage Counsellor), for not giving up on this project and on me. Many thanks for their unwavering support into this project and for their hard work to make it a reality. I am also grateful to Mr Lwando Bantom for all of his support and encouragement. Special thanks to my wife Thuli and my three sons Monwabisi, Apiwe and Vuyo for believing in my project and supporting me during my season of writing. The dream of this book would not have been possible without this special family surrounding me with their love and support.


FOREWORD

M arriage is God’s idea, therefore He blessed it. He said, “Be fruitful, multiply and fill the earth”. Marriage is a gift from God. Husband and wife are a gift to one another to enjoy. A good and happy marriage is a gift to their children, and they are beneficiaries because their parents follow God’s plan. A good marriage brings heaven to earth, God’s gift to the world.
M arriages were made in heaven, but they must be worked out here on earth. Marriage has enemies, one is the devil who hates what God loves and always opposes God’s plan and design. The other is the unredeemed nature of man. Selfishness amongst couples has destroyed many marriages, and it remains a major challenge for present day marriages.
“ Elements of Good and Happy Marriages” is an excellent and practical tool to help with the “working out” of marriage. It is like a mirror to look into, it will help to reveal the true condition of your marriage, but at the same time it will encourage you and guide you to a Good and Happy Marriage.
T he quizzes after each chapter are very helpful and they encourage transparency and honesty. I would encourage married couples to read and work through this book together.
F urthermore, I would suggest that mature married couples make use of “Elements of Good and Happy Marriages” , as they disciple younger married couples and soon to be married couples as well.
I am delighted that Mvelo has heeded the unction of God to help, save and strengthen marriages by writing this book. I thank God for his courage!
M ARIUS GRADWELL, Pastor


PREFACE

G od has a plan for our marriages. It is our duty to seek it, find it, embrace it and live it. The intention of this book is to encourage married couples to internalize the elements of good and happy marriages in their own marital relationships. Such internalization will advance or step-up the couples’ abilities to confront everyday marriage challenges with confidence. This could be done through the power of a meaningful dialogue and commitment to improve on the elements of good and happy marriages. The world-wide statistics on marriage sustenance is not good and favorable, hence I felt the need to play this important part of encouraging the married couples to be the best that they can be in their relationships. I have made a strong mitigation for marriage sustenance in the discussion of the “Elements of Good and Happy Marriages” , in the interest of married couples.
T he secret of spouses is in finding solutions through significant conversation, having understood the context of marriage; and the fact that the human being is the most sophisticated and complicated element of that context. I am of the opinion that it would be very difficult to take best and appropriate decisions for situations which we do not know and understand. The better understanding of the context of marriage, will assist the couples to know exactly what they are dealing with in their relationships. I articulate in part the context of marriage by discussing the elements of good and happy marriages. The undeniable reality is that these elements unpack the intricate marriage context especially to the married people.
T his context is full of toxins that bring toxicity into the relationship, that is one of the reasons why married couples have to constantly work on their marriages in order to deal with the toxins. In actual fact, to put it correctly I should say that, the couples should constantly work on themselves in order to deal with the toxicity that troubles their marriages. It is the married couples who should understand, internalize and put into practice the elements of good and happy marriages in their own relationships.
T he reality is that the challenges are not in the air, they emanate from the marriage partners themselves. The elements in discussion form part of what the married couples need to positively address, with the aim of keeping peace and tranquility prevalent in the relationship. Frequent improvement on these elements will also ensure the sustainability of happiness and peace in the relationship. I hope that would also be the benefit of your own marriage relationship as well.
T he elements of good and happy marriages are the bedrock of the entire discussion in this book. These elements allude to the context of marriage throughout all the ensuing chapters. Elements refer to fundamentals, features, ingredients, parts or components of a bigger thing; and the bigger thing in the context of this book is the marriage. In actual fact, these elements are bits and pieces or the odds and ends that make up our marriages.
I n the detailed discussion within “Elements of Good & Happy Marriages” I talk about how to work towards having resilient, healthy and happy marriages in such a time as this. The write-up also emphasizes problem confrontation through the power of dialogue. Hence I mention a researched fact which states that, couples who are living healthy and happy marriages are the ones who are the masters of dialogue. Happiness and sustenance of your marriage is in your hands and not even in a marriage counselors’ hands, but in your own hands as a married couple. You have to ask God to give you wisdom and help your hands to handle your marriage relationship with care. The elements are being discussed in such a way that they will also be assisting you to handle your relationship with maximum care.
A nother purpose of writing “Elements of Good & Happy Marriages” is to encourage resilience in marriage relationships; where the word “resilient” means the ability to recover quickly from difficult conditions. When our marriage relationships happen to fall apart, God is not to blame but we are. It is my hope that the book will encourage you and positively influence the way you think about your marriage relationship. This should also boost the contribution of dialogue to you as a couple in a very meaningful way. In other words, I aim to minimize the “withdrawal syndrome” of avoiding one another as married partners during time of difficulty, and at the same time maximize reasoning together when time and situations demand that amongst couples. The focus should be on finding quality solutions to marital challenges through conversation among the couples themselves.
T he quizzes after each chapter are meant to encourage the readers to reflect, and also trigger a useful dialogue amongst the couples; because the quizzes have a potential to reveal the strong points and also indicate areas of weakness in the relationships for the couples’ attention. The dialogue should make the couples to come up with their own solutions to the problem areas of their marriages, as identified in each of the elements in discussion. It is limitless what the couples can do to make their marriage relationships good and happy. There’s a myriad of positive things that they can do for their marriages during their life time. That’s one reason why couples get tired along the way. However, it is better to be doing something no matter how small, than being found doing nothing about our marriage relationships. Sometimes doing nothing is even worse that failing.
T he entire discussion is