adminFredrick Qaphelani Mabhikwa Successful Solutions
I recently was involved in the counselling of two young people who are planning to get married. The “couple” is very nice and I think they have a great future. When I was working with them (counselling) I realised that it was just the common issues and most of the blame lay with the young man, he was failing to adjust to the demands of his serious relationship.
There are things a man must lose when he enters into a new serious relationship. When a man enters a serious relationship with a woman he must drop most of his female friends, if not all of them. When a man has a new serious girl friend, it’s not proper for him to continue texting or calling his female friends he had before he moved into the new relationship. It’s not proper to be seen still going out with your female friends. Yes as men we do have good female friends from college, work, church or the neighbourhood.
The truth of the matter is no woman, and especially the one in a serious relationship would still want to see their man hanging around with their female friends. If this continues sooner or later they will be fights between the new girlfriend and the man’s girlfriends.
Recently I was involved again in a fight where the man’s old female friends where hauling insults at the new girlfriend accusing her of interfering with their old friendship with her boyfriend which they claimed she found in existence. I was shown a text which read,”wena mafikizolo usifice sizikholisela lo…usufuna ukusifakela imithetho” (Hey “newcomer” you found us enjoying ourselves with…now you want to make rules for us”). Now the sad truth is that your new girlfriend now takes the number one position, other women have to understand that she now must get most of you and they have to be satisfied with “leftovers” ,that is if there are any. It is the duty of the man to make his female fiends understand this fact. When a woman feels disrespected it’s a recipe for disaster for the relationship. Most of the time the man’s female friends will not like the girlfriend and might be a very bad influence for the man. For some, they were drinking with the man, the man was buying beer and the advent of the “new woman “means less beer for them and they won’t like her. If a man continues with his female friends after entering a new relationship that is disrespect for the girlfriend.
When you enter a new serious relationship, as a man you lose your financial freedom. All the financial independence is lost because you no longer have “your” money; money now belongs to the “couple”. If two people are committed to each other they must share their finances. Considering that in most cultures the man earns more than the woman, the hard earned cash by the man must be administered by the woman in some areas.
She doesn’t necessarily have to hold the hard cash but she must be heard when it comes to how the cash must be used in the relationship. In the case of a relationship, there could be serious preparations for the things like the wedding. With due respect to the men, our women are good in financial management in a relationship.
Of course there are one or two crazy ones, the confused, who would drink the money but most of our women will put the money to good use in preparation of the new home. Most honest men will agree with me that they started accumulating proper house hold property when they went into a relationship with a mature woman. In a new relationship, the man should say good bye to the selfish extravagant spending. Good bye to drinking till the cows come home and buying anything that comes on sale at the workplace. There must be through consultation on finances in a new relationship and the man must cooperate even if he has more money.
In a serious relationship you lose your time, space and self indulgence. When you were drinking with the boys, playing snooker till after midnight, this must stop when you enter relationship. You can’t spend more time with the boys than with the girlfriend. Educate the boys that you are now committed and you are sharing your time. Of course the “boys” will say your girlfriend sekudlisile/akudyisa (given you an aphrodisiac to control you).They will say you are very scared of your girlfriend and its time you acted like a man otherwise you are embarrassing the male folk. This is bar talk, which most men tell each other when they are drinking beer on account, just ignore this.
Remember there is now stiff competition to control you between the boys and the girlfriend. As I indicated most of our women have progressive minds. Sooner or later you find in your kitchen utensils you have never seen before and they will be feminine products in your bathroom cabinets and your bedroom will change and become more comfortable and colourful. Sooner or later you will be required once in a while to eat at home, not braai with the boys. You will soon begin to eat a balanced diet and your skin texture will begin to change.
In a serious relationship you lose part of your identity somehow. We normally fall in love with someone who we find to share a lot of values and interests with us. It is important to drop those personal attributes of character and habits the girlfriend feels they don’t like. Things like, as I have already indicated clubbing and late nights. You might find yourself going to church, something you were not doing.
All this is important to strike a level of congruency with the girlfriend. You might be made to compromise on your dress code and find yourself changing slightly to wearing some things your girlfriend likes you to wear and dropping those that she doesn’t.
However during this whole process don’t lose your individualism. Be bold enough to say NO to relationship clones and don’t be afraid to retain your sense of self. If you feel strongly about maintaining certain character traits and habit be honest to the girlfriend. I met once a certain young man who was drinking behind the girlfriend’s back. This is immaturity. If she wants you to give up drinking and you can’t, just reach a compromise. The worst thing in a relationship is keeping secrets from one another .It is these secrets that eventually surface when people are married and the marriage collapses.
Your “noble “plans for the future might be lost as well when you enter into a relationship. As a man you have your own plans about the future. Your ultimate career, where you want to stay, the family –how many children, the car you want to drive and so on.
These are made when you are alone but when you meet someone, they too have their own plans and there is need to blend these plans and have one thing. When you fail to fuse plans the family that emerges is not that compact. Agree even on issues like Church. Which church will you go to…after all we worship ONE God –the churches are just tents from which we worship our God. I
have seen families where the wife goes to her own church, the husband his own and the children their own-maybe this is freedom of worship and democracy. I however think that this is a sign of a disjointed family.
When in a serious relationship you lose your family ties to a certain extent. Before the relationship you could have the liberty of visiting your parents every day and every weekend. You could pick your mother and drop her at church, friends’ place, burial society meeting and any other such trips. Now when in a relationship this slightly changes. You cannot be available to your mother as much as you did before you went into the relationship.
This you must discuss with your mother otherwise she will blame the new girl of influencing you to “neglect” her. Yes some of our mothers like to be seen in their sons’ cars in the front seat with their “wing” on the window but this must change. Your brothers can not come to your house with their friends and spend the whole day pumping music on top volume and dancing with small girls.
They cannot now just come to your flat and open your wardrobe and pull out one of your t-shirts and wear it. Your sisters can not just come to your place help themselves to whatever is in the fridge. Your house now has a manager whose presence they must respect.
The girlfriend doesn’t separate you from your family, all your family needs to do is to appreciate her presence, respect her and adjust their freedom which they enjoyed before she came.
When a man finds a girlfriend whom wants to be serious with and maybe marry, he must also be seen to behave in a serious manner.
Online Reporter