Hi my love birds, I’ve been away for a while due to recent developments taking place in my life. I just finished my National Youth service, and started my program at the Nigerian Law School. I also started a fashion business called ASJ Mode. While building my educational and working life, my emotional life has also been going through some remodeling.
I am 23 years old and in the Nigerian community, this means i am of age to start thinking about marriage. According to members of my family I have only a few more years to achieve this life’s important mission. I believe a lot of young Nigerian women and men can relate to the pressure. Women most especially.
In other to keep myself sane and avoid rushing into a bad relationship in the quest of finding love and emotional security, I’ve learnt a few truths about true emotional security which I am going to share with you.
In my few years of experiencing relationships, I find myself getting attracted to men for various reason. It may be:
- The way they look
- Their swag
- Their ambitions
- Their sense of culture
- They way they talk
- The way they dance
- How much fun they are to be around
- Their potential to be financially stable
- Their potential to provide emotional security
- And their look again
However my relationships have still proven to be not so productive even when he possess 2 or more of these features. Then it came to me. Everyone is made with a uniqueness and something attractive about them. When you think about it most men (or some) are slower to emotional commitment; Not because they don’t find the qualities they look for in most women, but because as logical people they ask the questions women fail to ask due to our emotional nature.
Women believe when we find a man that possesses one or more of the items on our list we can impose the rest of our ideas on them. However we find that the more we try to create our perfect man, the more we nag and drive them away. Could it be because we’ve seen relationships with our parents or older relatives we like to emulate or change, or could it be us trying to live the kind of lives we watch in our favourite romantic movies.
The question we need to ask like some men or most men do, is whether a person can be compatible for us. Having both our imperfections and theirs in mind.
Which brings me to the 1st step in knowing what you want from a man.
How well do you know your self ?:
The “Johari Window” is a technique that helps people understand their relationship with themselves and others. There are 4 windows in the Johari Window theory as illustrated in this diagram from (Mindtools.com, 2017)
1st the Open Area: These are areas in our behaviors and motivations that are open for all to see. Everyone around us and ourselves are very aware of these behavioral attributes we posses. This area is the ultimate goal in self discovery, as we intend to be more aware of ourselves and others.
2nd the Blind Area: There are the areas in our behaviors that other people are aware of and often tell us about but we refuse to accept as true because we do not know them. However when you look at the diagram, it becomes clear that receiving feedback from other people such as friends and family, on our blind areas will turn them into open areas as this enables us to discover traits that we were formerly blind to.
3rd the Hidden Area: These are areas we know but others are unaware of. we often are unwilling to share them because we don’t trust people or we are just afraid people won’t love us if they get to know of them. Telling others about these hidden traits amounts to slef disclosure as illustrated in the diagram. This could help you partner understand you better.
4th the Unknown Area: These are areas that are unknown to us or others. when the blind area and the hidden areas are converted to open areas through communication all the unknown areas are resolved through shared discovery.
To illustrate;
OPEN AREA- MR X; A 25 year old good looking man who enjoys the company of women.
BLIND AREA- While he is with these women he tends to be unintentionally flirtatious and this leads his partner to think that he is a womanizer.
HIDDEN AREA- He enjoys the company of women because growing up as a teenager, girls never gave him any attention and he ended up being a shadow among his fellow boys in school. Now he tends to overcompensate for his lost timid years.
UKNOWN AREA – When Mr X shares his hidden areas with a partner, and his partner tells him about his blind areas, this results in shared discovery and creates and understanding of the unknown area which is Mr X’s insecurity. Mr X can then find various ways of dealing with the issue of Mr X’s insecurity. For Example; Mr X now knows that he needs the sort of partner that builds his confidence.
It is important that you are honest with yourself about who you are and what your characteristics are. This is to enable you ensure what your priorities are and what you need to balance yourself in a relationship.
Having this knowledge allows you look for deeper and more personal features in a man before you fall head over heels for him.
It also cuts down on the number of men your willing to allow into a personal and intimate relationship with you.
It gives you a sense of self worth
Step 2: Take things slow
In the African society young women face a lot of pressure to get married and as such we find our selves taking a lot of things that we cannot happily deal with in the long term. Most women of older generations stayed in marriages they rushed into, where they find they where on happy, just so they do not loose their respect as married women.
When you know what you want and understand that even you are not perfect, you should take time to get to know your partner and grow a mindset of love and patience. When you find yourself working through though times with a particular person and you tend to grow positively together; that might just be the signal to take that relationship with the right level of seriousness and commitment.
Last but most definitely not the least GOD!!!:
Human beings are the most difficult creatures to cohabit with. Simply because they talk,walk, act like us and we can’t put them in cages and tie a leash round their necks ?
Living with ourselves can be struggle enough how much more adding another individual with a different background, opinion and view of life into the mix. Have you ever heard of the saying “you need Jesus”?
This saying is truer than we can imagine. Only God knows the heart of man and only He can give us the grace to understand others.
Many times people do things that hurt others without the intention to. Most relationships have the typical misunderstanding and miscommunication syndrome. Nobody walks around with their talking hearts in their hand and a mic to its mouth. Only by the grace of God can we experience a deeper understanding of showing love to one another.
So it is therefore important we learn to love God, establish a committed relationship with him and we will find so many deep secrets to being in a healthy relationship. For example
- When we realise how often we do things we tell God we won’t do, but He still loves us the same
- When God sometimes is silent to the things we ask so He teaches us to be better people.
- When God allows certain things happen to us so we learn from them, because He loves us.
- When He doesn’t give us somethings we ask for cause he knows they’ll be bad for us
- When He surprises us and give us more than we ask
- And many more.
To be a great lover it is important that we fall In love with God 1st and then ourselves, so we know how to love our neighbour like we love ourselves.
The greatest commandment.
REFERENCE: MINDTOOLS.COM. (2017). THE JOHARI WINDOW: USING SELF-DISCOVERY AND COMMUNICATION TO BUILD TRUST.
Thank you very much as you walk this journey with me.
With Love, ASJ.
email address: anari_jaja@hotmail.com
Feel free to comment also.