Killing Bile

There is a principle I learned when I was still very young

When a goat or chicken is killed, an instruction will be given by the adults who are watching as it is being butchered that care must be taken with the bile duct

 

The bile duct must be cut out intact because if it gets broken while the meat is being butchered, it will seep into the meat and cause it to become bitter

 

In rare cases that I have seen the bile duct mistakenly cut, the meat it touches is immediately thrown away

 

Even dogs waiting to have a taste of the raw meat wouldn’t touch meat that has been seeped in bile

 

The same goes for all the issues relating to unpleasant experiences in marriages or spousal relationships

 

Too many children are soaked in the bile of their parent’s marital issues and this causes the children’s understanding and processing of marriage to be skewed and unpleasant

 

A mother who reports her husband to her children is damaging the children and ruining their hopes of having a good marriage

A father who does the same is not helping the children

 

Grandparents dragging their grandchildren into their marital differences are not helping the grandchildren

 

The problem with this exposure, especially for the children is that it affects how they see both parents and debars them from honouring both parents as they ought to

 

A mother fills her children’s ears with tales of how irresponsible or uncaring the father of the child is, sooner or later it colours how the child sees her father and ultimately colours the girl’s attitude towards every member of the male gender

 

She can become defensive so that no man will ever be able to take advantage of her or treat her like the father treated the mother or begin to overcompensate thinking she just must do better to make the man love her and stay with her

 

Children can indeed observe some things in the context of their parents’ marriages when parents are unguarded or unmindful of the effect certain excessive behaviours can have on children

 

It is also true that such things can leave indelible marks on the children especially when they have to get involved in it or play an active role in it

 

I remember a couple who had a toddler

The woman was crying and her young two-year-old daughter was petting her and urging her to stop crying

 

Meanwhile, the woman was the aggressor in this matter

She was weeping but she was the one who had done her husband great harm by cheating on him

 

He brought the matter to me without lifting a finger or even raising her voice against her

We were discussing it and she began to wail

It was confusing for the baby

She thought her daddy was hurting her mother

When the toddler’s father offered to carry her so her mother could blow her nose, the girl slapped her father’s hand away

 

She was two years old and she was already processing information that could come back to haunt her several years later

She would not have the ability to process the information the right way but she felt the emotion and that matters!

 

We must do better to protect our children from emotional baggage

Children must also do better to purge themselves of whatever drama they saw or even participated in when it comes to their parent’s marriage

 

You must remember that regardless of the dynamics you met in the marriage, you are but a passenger in that vehicle

Your parents are the pilot and the copilot

All they are required to do is land you at the destination they were heading to and you will disembark and find your way from there

The pilot and copilot on a flight are kept in the cockpit for a reason

They must be able to keep their issues and differences to themselves without distracting the passengers with it

More often than not, passengers getting involved in such an issue will only make it worse

As a child, you need to purge yourself of your daddy and mummy issues before you begin to project them onto innocent potential spouses or friends

I know a guy whose mother abandoned when he was two years old

He lived his life in boarding schools from nursery school until he graduated from the university

The only thing he knew about women was that they are fickle and are attracted only to a man when he has money but will leave with a richer man if offered the right incentive

It formed the bedrock of his relationship with every woman, he only dates when he has money to spend and he will spend the money until he runs out of it

When he is broke, he will chase the lady away and begin to save up again

When he has saved enough he will date again and spend recklessly

It was the cycle in which he found himself and he has yet to break out of it

He even got married and left the marriage and his son as soon as he lost his job

At the moment he is in Dakar, Senegal with another woman, spending the proceeds of his new job until he runs out of cash again

This cycle was a product of years of conditioning received from his father who never let him forget what his mother did when she walked out of their marriage in 1983 after meeting a rich man from Edo State

Parents must protect their children from the drama of their marriages

The effects of these dramas are far-reaching and could define the generations yet unborn

Your children should never be your confidant when it comes to your marital issues

You might think you are just making them see how vile or evil their father or mother is but you are ruining the child’s future!

 

When a man or woman stays in an abusive marriage in which the children are exposed to all sorts of toxic behaviour ranging from physical abuse to emotional and psychological abuse, he or she is not doing the children any favours

It is better to be divorced and free of toxicity than to be married and expose the children to all sorts of madness

 

Growing up, I learned from many pastors that children from failed marriages are unfit for marriage and those from successful marriages are better suited for marriage

I have counselled several people on life issues and marital issues

I have come to conclude without bias that children from toxic marriages are the worst of all

If you are in a toxic marriage, it is better to get a divorce and raise your children intentionally in a toxicity-free environment than to remain married and expose your children to life-altering bile

As a child, if you have been abused by your father, step-father or an older member of the family as a child, you need to heal

You cannot sweep this under the carpet

If you have witnessed your parents physically assault each other and even found yourself playing the role of a judge between the two of them, it doesn’t make you the mature one

You need to decongest and purge yourself of every kind of knowledge that you sincerely have no business having

Finally, you must let the damage stop with you

Don’t fill your children’s ears with the tales of how wicked your father was to your mother or you

Let your children learn how to honour you from how you honour your parents

You cannot be speaking ill of your parents to your children and still claim to be honouring them

Protect your children from the drama of your grandparents too

if you know they have a habit of filling you and/or the children with victim’s tales, protect the children from them at all cost

Let them know you don’t want your children exposed to the drama for the children’s good.

It is high time we draw the line and raise a generation that will not be tainted by the bile of the past

-GSW-