MAN & WOMAN

By Ladi Ayodeji

09059243004

Greetings to all my readers. This column, *Man & Woman*, was conceived to address the perennial problems of human relationships, especially as they pertain to men and women. No relationship is perfect because no one is perfect. Imperfections will inevitably cause offence. How we manage offences is what separates the boys from the men; the girls from the women.

Invariably, the level of a person’s maturity and understanding ultimately determines how they deal with offences in any relationship. Dr. Myles Munroe once said that what determines the success of most marriages is not just love, but maturity. I think he’s right.

What affects someone, according to the Irish wit, playwright, and essayist, George Bernard Shaw, is not what happens to them, but their opinion of it. The way you receive a remark, an attitude, or someone’s offensive behavior toward you is what determines the outcome of your reaction. This is also the core of all relationships. If you smile at an insult, it’s a reaction. If you insult in return, it’s also a reaction. If you say nothing and do nothing, it’s also a reaction. Whatever you do about something is a reaction, which will have consequences. This is exactly how it goes.

Peace and war are consequences of reactions to some kind of attitude. It then means that everything answers to relationship management. That’s what we will be discussing in this column. But, listen to this: nobody knows it all. I will teach as much as I learn from your perspectives, your feedback, or contrary opinions and unique experiences. So, I encourage you to react to the views expressed here. My opinion is not ironclad—I can learn from you as well. Iron sharpens iron, so we sharpen each other.

The immediate inspiration for this column came from a couple I counselled over the phone in Lagos recently. In-laws had come to live with them, and serious conflict began to unsettle the peace and harmony in the home. The gentleman had read one of my articles in the *Sun* newspaper about the danger of allowing third parties into a marriage. He was going through this exact problem, so he sought my counsel. After this issue was resolved, to the glory of God, I decided to start this column.

I realized that the ever-growing problems between men and women require different perspectives from different generations of people. Norms and cultures change, and in this era of social media, there has been a dramatic change in how people perceive things because of the deluge of information available through different platforms every second.

Relationship management, or what I consider to be largely the management of offences, is not a job for amateurs. I read all kinds of comments on social media from people who claim to be experts on relationships. A lot of these views are uninformed, though some are useful. However, one should not swallow hook, line, and sinker what is offered on internet platforms as solutions to all personal problems, because many opinions are subjective.

To counsel a hurting person, the counsellor must be mature, exposed, well-instructed, unemotional, and competent. Sometimes, age matters because an older person is likely to know more than a youth in matters of the heart.

I have been a well-instructed servant of God, with decades of service in ministry as an evangelist, teacher, and counsellor. Moreover, I am a father of four daughters and one son. I have been through it all, and so, I have enough experience to draw upon when dealing with difficult scenarios that people go through. The relationship between men and women will always bring offences; it takes wisdom, knowledge, and understanding to manage it successfully.

I hope you will join me as we carry on this conversation. Thanks for reading.

Ladi Ayodeji is a Speaker, Author, Pastor, and Counsellor. He can be reached via WhatsApp at 09059243004.