PARTNERS (DR. K. N. JACOB.)

 Partners

NO! You are not partners. Everyone runs their own budget. No one updates the other where they are. You endlessly argue before kids. You’re always arguing about your in-laws. You have no joint investments. You don’t go to church together. You never walk together. No family vacations. There’s nothing you do together except quarrelling. You are cohabiting adults, not partners. 

Marriage partners are bound by a love covenant, not legal papers and change of surnames. While registering a marriage legally is critical, marriage is solemnized in the hearts of partners, not in an Attorney General’s files. Marriage partners have everything in common. In their different world views, they have found common ground. They read from the same sex, financial, parenting and spiritual script. 

Marriage is partnership. Sex partners who have no room for anyone else in their hearts. Financial partners who budget all their income together. Life partners who update their partners on their whereabouts all the time. That’s why they are called life partners. They have their family secrets but they don’t block each other through passwords in their gadgets. They’re transparent with each other.

If God has blessed them with children, they are parenting partners who agree on the values they instill on their children. kids know what mum said is exactly what dad will say. When marriage is true partnership as was originally designed by God, the partners loyalty is to each other. Not their parents. They sincerely honor their parents but they don’t allow them to run their marriage. 

In a working marriage, partners recognize power is shared, vested equally on both partners. While there’s a leader for the sake of order, there’s no boss. For the record, there’s no room for a boss anywhere in this new world. In the corporate world, the leader is a team player. In a democratic society, power is vested in the voters. In Church, the Commander in Chief is Christ. Be a team player and you’ll win. 

In partnership, parties have mutual interests. They both want happiness. They both want to feel secure on posterity. They both want to be respected, valued and loved. Marriage partnership guarantees love, care and honor. If your marriage is not an absolute partnership, you’re wasting each other’s time. Why eat a half-baked cake when you can fully bake your cake? And you don’t have to bake outside your current home. You can build a strong partnership out of your fragile relationship.  

DR. K. N. JACOB.