LOVE CHALLENGE DAY 1– THE LAW OF ATTENTION 

Day 3 – The Law of Departure by Tosin Ayo

It’s been a very enriching, deeply engaging and highly illuminating challenge these past days we have been sharing on love, relationships and marriage.

“The law of departure states that every man or woman who is genuinely interested in getting married and staying married shall be willing, ready and able to forsake all others including his or her parents, friends, siblings, suitors, bad habits, selfishness and ego to ‘forbond’ with his or her spouse to be entwined as one flesh till death do them part!”

Departure precedes bonding! Until you leave, you cannot cleave! Until you dissociate with the past, you cannot associate with the present! Until you disengage, you can’t engage! Until you relocate, you cannot locate! Until you demote the place of all others prior to your wedding, you cannot elevate your spouse to his or her pride of place in your life after your wedding!

This law of departure received scriptural imprimatur from the Holy Bible (the constitution of Heaven-bound saints) in Article Genesis, section 2, verse 24 which states:

“Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.”

Leavage and Cleavage are precursors to any productive marital union, most marital accidents are predicated on couples’ desire to seal the deal of cleavage without appropriate leavage! They want to eat their cakes and have it- they desire to remain spoon-fed children to their parents, irresponsible husbands to their wives, lovers of mundane friends without focus, irredeemable bad habit addicts and at the same time be husbands to prisms of committed attention-seekers and jealous possessors- wives! Men want to be married Bachelors and wives want to be mothers without being wives- the advent of Baby mamas.

No one can serve two masters; no husband can dutifully serve two wives without absolute commitment to either’s cause at the expense of all others- this is the departure law conundrum!

When your cooking pot is still in your parent’s house, you are still flouting the Law of departure! If your friends have more access to you than your wife does or you prioritise Arsenal V Chelsea match over your wife’s romantic date, you are a defaulter of the Law of departure!

If your mummy’s delicious soup is what you always feel like eating at the expense of your wife’s impromptu sauce, my friend, you are not ready to marry. This is exactly how to break the law of departure! When your mother is your first wife and your confidant, you are disobeying the law of departure and inviting dangerous strains in your marriage!

No woman is on the side of the husband who is not on her side! Until you forsake all others and make your wife feel like she is the only woman in your life and in the world, her loyalty and dedication to you as demanded by the sacred nature of marriage cannot be total! This is exactly why everybody’s goat will die of hunger. Everyone assumes the other person has fed it. If you want to see the uncaring side of your wife, take another wife. You suddenly change position from my husband to ‘our’ husband and the father of her children. She couldn’t care less as ‘we’-men now own you, not just her.

When your favourite child is closer to you than your husband, you have broken this noble law of marriage! Some wives wake up to call their Dad in Tokyo every blessed morning before saying hello to their husbands sleeping beside them in Bedyo. No man is fully committed to making a wife a priority who doesn’t see him as being more than an option!

Marital attitude is a mirror; it reflects whatever you place before it! Some are even too scared to make their wife their next-of-kin, they don’t trust her well enough, why then did you marry her? they prefer to use their father or brother as their circumstantial ‘successor’- this is against the law of departure! There is a place for parents, but you must be wise enough to interplay with neither of them interfering with one another. It is foolish to make your mother your number one woman as she is already supposed to be number one to your father! Yes, you read and heard me right! Let no sister destroy your home, depart from them in relationship and marriage, not in shirking your responsibilities to them, they can intermingle but they must never intermeddle. Take care of them, don’t let them become your second wife. It is foolish to say confidently that your spouse is not the closest person to you. Why then did you marry her?

Forsaking your parents however is in mindset, not necessarily in eye-set! Its a psyche, not a physical abandonment! You might be with them but your spouse must be uppermost on your priority list. This seems hard but that is how marriage is structured especially considering our culture. Adam and Eve, not Adam and his mum. Marriage is not the creation of any culture or religion, it is the mandate of God himself, the chief danger of marriages these days which is the harbinger of its incessant crash is that we apply cultural principles, usages of accepted societal norm and customs to a divine institution! It won’t work. Its like using analogue solutions to solve digital problems!

Marriage like most of life’s engagements is susceptible to lifelong principles! Break them and face the consequences, no third option! Marriage has its own standards and the law of departure is an integral part of it! Marriage answers to principles, not to miracles! You must adhere to the law of departure so that your marriage can be a green pasture of bliss! Show me a man who has fully departed from everyone and cleft firmly to his wife and I will show you a man who has been divinely positioned to enjoy marital bliss devoid of any matrimonial blister. Women who are celebrated by their men find it easier to be committed wives. May God grant you understanding as you consciously learn to obey the law of departure in your respective marriages. God bless your marriages.

This is where I drop the curtain as I invite Sir. Remi Adeoye, my experienced and invaluable mentor to take the baton of the challenge and share some valid tips of marital success.

-‘Tosin Ayo,

(The ‘word bank’).