Understanding The Place of Third Parties in Relationships

I must confess that I understand the power of third parties as relating to a potential relationship

We all think third parties don’t matter until your mother or his mother or his father or your father or your brother or her brother or his sister or your sister stands up and sternly says no to the relationship

A pastor friend of mine met a lady and they both fell in love

He took her home and his mother said he could not marry the girl

He fought tooth and nail

He didn’t end up marrying her

The lady realized the family would not be conducive for her due to all the wars he was fighting and she called off the relationship

He called me and said, “Brother Gbenga, I am a believer, I love this babe and I have been praying and making our declarations, why did she have to leave me?” Why didn’t all my family members fall in line?

I told him Sorry! This was the best I could offer

He could have defied everybody to marry the love of his life but to what end?

Nobody wants to end up a pariah because of marriage

The partner you intend to bring in especially wouldn’t want to step into a lion’s den in the name of love

Love is secondary to survival; it is the living that can love!

Why do third parties have a say in our relationship?

It is often because we are not so sure or convinced, that we are with the right person We are maybe fifty percent sure but the validation from those we truly care about us is the other fifty percent

Those who are truly sure will defy everything to marry the one they love

This is a fact!

When love is true, the two involved will be Romeo and Juliet till the end

I have seen many mocking Romeo and Juliet when they comment on relationship issues

They will say, “He is forming Romeo instead of listening to the voice of reason” Or, “She is forming Juliet instead of listening to the voice of reason”

Those who make such comments are not really in love or have never really been in love before

To be candid, those who have been truly in love in their lifetime and can truly understand what it means to love and lose all sense of reason are few

When people are in their teen years and their early twenties, they tend to fall in love and genuinely desire to keep such relationships but as people grow ‘older and wiser’ the rate of “falling in love” or “blindly falling in love reduces drastically” The individual, whether male or female may desire a companion but he or she will be more circumspect and consider many other things not remotely relating to love but absolutely relating to the kind of life they want to live.

Questions like, “What are you bringing to the table” pop up

This question originally belonged to the boardroom and is meant for business deals, mergers, and acquisitions but such a question becomes the lead in a marriage discussion

Folks in their early twenties have the prospect of a bright future to sell to their potential partners but folks in their late thirties and early forties do not have that luxury. It is either you have what it takes or not by that age

Those looking to have children among the ladies do not have the luxury of waiting around for any man to get it right If he is not ready-made, or has to struggle to bring food to the table, they might settle for him temporarily because they want to warm their bed but they will make not concrete plans to be with such guys

For the guys, the same applies

If they are looking to have children, the best prospect is with the younger females with more virile eggs

Why marry a lady who will end up complicating your life because she requires IVF to get pregnant or worse still, she may be nursing medical issues that the man does not want to be a part of

Love then becomes an issue of asset and liability!

When a man or woman takes a partner home to be introduced to his or her family officially as his or her intended, the hope is that the family will scrutinize the choice and come back to him or her with feedback

If the feedback is overwhelmingly positive, praise God!

Many a time the feedback is negative and instead of convincing the family that he or she is good with whatever the outcome of the union turns out to be, you will be shocked at how quickly he or she will begin to backtrack because they would reason, “If I am to do this late, I had better get it right”

I have seen this scenario play out too many times

Some couples are better off not married

I know some of my Christian folks will balk at this but it is the truth

Not all friends make good lovers and not all lovers make good spouses Sometimes the freedom that comes with, “You can walk away at any time” keeps a relationship from going sour

Some folks feel shackled as soon as the relationship or friendship gets to the commitment stage

Most have deep psychological issues that need to be resolved before they can feel safe within the confines of a monogamous relationship

I have met ladies who become sexually dry or develop libido issues as soon as their boyfriend or suitor proposes marriage, I have also met men who are sexually docile as soon as they find themselves facing an iron-clad marital “prison”

They simply do everything to sabotage the relationship so that they can breathe and be free again once they find themselves in such a situation

It is not a spiritual attack; it is just how they are wired!

Not everyone is wired for marriage

The wiring thing happens as a result of many factors, many of which I cannot write about here

The third party can also be a Spiritual advisor

Nigerians are very religious and consulting religious leaders is part of the process many employ to know if a relationship will work out or not

Religious leaders however are humans

I had to intervene in a case that happened in Ibadan where the pastor’s PA wanted to marry a lady who was a member of the church choir

The young man informed his boss and he was okay with the idea until a lady who was posted to Ibadan to do her NYSC joined the church and desired the same guy

As the church was approaching its annual anniversary, the new lady gave the church a gift of five hundred thousand Naira and the pastor asked her to tell him her heart’s desire

She said she desired to get married

The pastor asked her if she had seen any man in the church she would like to be married to and she told the Pastor she liked his PA

The Pastor told her it was done

The next day the pastor called his PA and told him God said the relationship he was in was not going to end well because his fiancée had a short lifespan

He said God had shown him his wife and he told him it was this other lady

The PA said, “Amen” and went ahead to break up with the lady he had been courting for over two years

The lady came crying to me

I traveled to Ibadan to resolve this issue and I was the one who eventually joined the two of them in Holy Matrimony

The marriage is now blessed with two children and the couple is doing very well with each other

To get this result, I had to find the young man another job and pull him and his lady out of the church completely!

It was a very messy affair but it had to be done I personally do not like ministers of the gospel who manipulate their members in the name of spirituality

This pastor told all the church members he is their leader and God can only reveal things about them to him and through him

This was a lie from the pit of hell!

As believers, even God does not tamper with our free will

No man must be given the right to tamper with it

We must be masters of our destiny in Christ or we will be enslaved by the whims and caprices of others

Third parties play a major role in who we love and who we marry, we are all playing the role of third parties either actively or inactively with those in our sphere of influence

If we know a union will most likely end up sour, and we love either of the parties involved, we usually won’t keep quiet

We will try to save our beloved from making a life-altering mistake so that it can be off our conscience

This is what we know as love and nobody can be wrong hurting a beloved temporarily to save such from a bigger hurt down the lane

-GSW-