Last Friday was another learning session for us on Crux of the Matter Live Tweetchat. Our guest – Matthew ‘Femi-Adedoyin is a Family Life Coach, Addiction Recovery Therapist and Developmental Psychologist.

He is a dynamic and prolific teacher, humorist, strategist, maverick and blend of gifts. He is a certified Master Practitioner of Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) and trainer of Neurocognitive consonance. His forte lies in Family Systems, Effective Parenting, Quantum Linguistics, Sexuality and Gender Education, Sex and Addiction Recovery Therapy, Advanced neurological re-patterning, Results technologies and Ericksonian and Elman’s style hypnosis.

APOSTLE as he is fondly called is the Principal Consultant at Resurged Mind Company, a child/youth advocacy, family life and sex recovery consultancy firm with a mandate to raise sexually pure leaders, build healthy homes and heal ailing families.

His articles have been featured on many local and international magazines, newsletters, newspapers, bulletins and online media platforms. He is the publisher of www.matthewadedoyin.com, an online journal where he shares his thoughts as he sees the world.

Matthew is happily married to Oghenefogho Fidelia and they both live in Lagos, Nigeria.

Below is a compilation of his tweets from our last session:

Tonight, I have been asked to share on MARRIAGE AS IT SHOULD BE.

I am a believer in the fact that nothing in life is absolute. However, there are universal principles guiding life issues and we would be looking at marriage today.

We live in a world that does not understand the concept of a thing before jumping into it, only to go in and find out that there is more to it.

We spend years in school studying different courses. We graduate with B.Scs, M.Scs and Ph.Ds, but there is no one school that teaches one of life’s deepest subjects-MARRIAGE.

The only husbandry we learnt in school is animal husbandry. No school teaches human husbandry. No school teaches wifery 101.

It is possible to be a good man and a bad husband or be a good woman and a bad wife. This is because the words man and woman are mere identities, but being a husband or wife is a role.

Being a man or woman is who you are from the beginning of creation. Husband and wife are roles you learn in preparation for marriage and in marriage. This is why marriage is by choice. You can choose to stay single but if you choose to be married, you have to learn the dynamics of marital roles.

The truth is we all learn marriage, one way or the other. However, the problem lies in whether we learnt the empowering paradigm of marriage.

I love to define things according to perceptions because perceptions actually determine the definition and the definition determines the application.

Marriage is gotten from the old French word – marier which means union of a man and woman.

Union is gotten from the Latin word unus which means one.

Therefore, it will be right to say marriage makes two persons one.

With this in mind, any marriage that has extended beyond a man and a woman is an abuse of the sacredness of marriage. Polygamy, polyandry and any form of marriage that is beyond two heterosexual beings abuse the essence of marriage.

A marriage is like a nation with the husband as the head. In being the head, he has different ministries to which he appoints the best hands to head them.

Head does not refer to male dominance, where a man lords it over a woman and demands her total obedience to his every wish and command. Women are not second-class citizens. They are not an afterthought, but of equal value and worth as men.

The head appoints a minister to handle the ministry he/she is good at. If the wife is good with finance, why would the man head that ministry and put the family in debt?

If the man is better with homemaking, why saddle the woman with such? A marriage can be likened to a team: The goal is to help the team win, the emphasis is not on who scores the winning goal.

One of the biggest lies about marriage is that the men are the breadwinner and women, the homemaker.

See, anybody can win the bread and anybody can make the home. Why put pressure on one person.

In our home for example, I cook, make bed, I clean and sweep.

No, I am not helping my wife do that. I am only fulfilling my domestic responsibility as a member of my family.

My wife brings in money, the same way I do. As I win bread, she wins peanut butter.

No, she is not helping her husband. She is only fulfilling her financial responsibility as a member of our family.

From a marriage comes a family.

The word family is gotten from the Latin word famulus which means servant. As a member of a family, you’re called to serve the family.

With this in view, the man is the head servant. A husband should serve his wife and a wife, her husband. This is why you are a team-to help each other win.

The woman was made to be a “helpmeet” to the man. However, I must say that some people have misconstrued the word helpmeet.

If we understand the real meaning of the word helpmeet, men would begin to see their wives in a better light and wives would carry themselves the way God intended them to act.

The word helpmeet comes from two Hebrew words:

Help is gotten from the word Ezer which means saviour or deliverer while meet is gotten from Neged or K’enegdo which means mirror opposite.

Dear husband, your wife is not just intended to be your companion, she is also meant to be your saviour and deliverer. That was why Solomon David in his book -Proverbs asserted that any man who finds a wife has found a good thing and obtained favour from God.

A wife is not designed to be exactly like her husband. She is designed to be a mirror opposite of him, possessing the other half of the qualities, responsibilities, and attributes which he lacks.

Like male and female sexual organs are physically mirror opposites – one being internal and the other, external, so are the stewardship abilities of men and women designed to be opposite but compensatory.

The wife is the husband’s complete equal, endowed with an essential saving power that is opposite from his.

The Greek word used to describe the wife is parakletos which means Holy Spirit.

With this understanding, it will be right to say the wife is like the Holy Spirit to her husband. @praisefowowe once said “The Holy Spirit is not a commanding spirit, he’s a suggesting spirit”.

As a wife, you don’t command your husband, you suggest to him. Same goes to the husband. And like the Holy Spirit doesn’t desert us when we reject his suggestions, so also should a wife not abandon her husband or completely disrespect his headship when he doesn’t heed to her advice.

There’s a place of mutual submission in marriage, where both partners submit to each other. As a husband who has delegated the roles in the home to a more competent person, you have to submit to the intelligence of the minister-in-charge of that particular ministry in the home.

A couple was running into financial crisis. They were making money but in debt monthly. The wife was good at finance with two masters degree in it. The husband was just a counsellor, but was in charge of the finances.

However, when he realised the woman could handle their money better, he handed the finance ministry of the home over to the wife. Now, the wife sends him yearly budget, monthly budget and weekly budget of the home.

In fact, the wife gives him the pocket money for the month. He is allowed to do whatever he likes with the pocket money. With this plan, they were able to save in millions and have investments in many places.

Marriage as it should be, is the union of two heterosexual beings, who agree to come together as one team after understanding their individual roles as husband and wife, to work for a common goal and vision.

Join us every Friday by 7pm on twitter with the hashtag #CruxoftheMatter for interesting and insightful conversations. Also watch Crux of the Matter on R2TV (GOTV 112) every Wednesday/Thursday at 9:30pm. Do follow me on twitter – @elsieisy