Start your marriage with clearly defined rules
Jan 13, 2010
Look at me: It is 2010 and I am still the same Dr. Love, with or without clothes. <br>That is something Uganda has failed to achieve.
Look at me: It is 2010 and I am still the same Dr. Love, with or without clothes.
That is something Uganda has failed to achieve. Forty-eight years after independence, not a single neighbour can swear upon our common border! Kenyans are hiding swords behind their backs over Migingo, Sudanese already declared their extension to some areas of Moyo and Adjumani while DR Congo occasionally flexes tempers over Albert islands.
At one time we were not sure whether Rwanda was one of our districts, Tanzania has not forgotten when we annexed Kagyera.
Even within our borders, we occasionally take time off to label each other Abafuruki, Abalaalo or Abamoori, as the sectarian law gathers dust on the shelves.
Problems become a matter of course when you fail to define your borders right from the beginning.
At independence, we got to entangled in faction-based rigging of the constitution to mind boundary demarcation of individuals and institutions. Soon after, the president and the prime minister were not sure where each stopped and the two rams soon discovered that they could not drink from the same bucket at the same time.
That led to the attack on Lubiri and the false seeds that often become fruit in many of our social lives, from the riots in Kampala to the Mugabe debates in Ankole.
But if this is confusing in politics, it gets worse in marriage. This institution is as varied as there are lovers. Everyone graduates into marriage age with their unique concept of how they want it to be and we eventually sign off our vows with partners whose concepts are as different as Man U is from Arsenal. One thinks cups are everything while the other minds profits.
You grew up in a family where your dad was the Museveni of the family, talked with the Otafiire scare and acted with Kayihura’s vigour.
But your wife grew up in a family where the dad was occasionally resisted on grounds of ethics like a Kagonyera of sorts.
He talked with the tenderness of Nsaba Butuuro warnings and acted like the corruption threats, which rarely uses its sharp teeth on big thieves.
In your marriage, dad’s identity becomes an issue of contention. In harmonising your constitution, if you do not clearly set the boundaries from the start, the diverging views will keep haunting you like CHOGM funds.
In most marriages, conflicts about boundaries that are not set abound and lots of energies are diverted to fire fighting. But the solution is in immunisation.
Start your marriage with clear boundaries. I do not mean calling witnesses to sign it into law like the Land Bill was. It kind of sinks into the marriage constitution naturally.
If the lady of the house loves having fun with her OGs occasionally, it should be clear at the beginning when love is still enough motivation to make it work.
If the man is the return-home-after-midnight fellow, it should show from the start. Introducing it later may trigger off Kayunga riots of last year.
But that calls for an entire term of dating and courtship and therein, openness and adjustment. When you discover you are as irreconcilable as the DP leadership, you activate the eject parachute before your time, financial and emotional investment in the relationship gets too much to let go.
That is something Uganda has failed to achieve. Forty-eight years after independence, not a single neighbour can swear upon our common border! Kenyans are hiding swords behind their backs over Migingo, Sudanese already declared their extension to some areas of Moyo and Adjumani while DR Congo occasionally flexes tempers over Albert islands.
At one time we were not sure whether Rwanda was one of our districts, Tanzania has not forgotten when we annexed Kagyera.
Even within our borders, we occasionally take time off to label each other Abafuruki, Abalaalo or Abamoori, as the sectarian law gathers dust on the shelves.
Problems become a matter of course when you fail to define your borders right from the beginning.
At independence, we got to entangled in faction-based rigging of the constitution to mind boundary demarcation of individuals and institutions. Soon after, the president and the prime minister were not sure where each stopped and the two rams soon discovered that they could not drink from the same bucket at the same time.
That led to the attack on Lubiri and the false seeds that often become fruit in many of our social lives, from the riots in Kampala to the Mugabe debates in Ankole.
But if this is confusing in politics, it gets worse in marriage. This institution is as varied as there are lovers. Everyone graduates into marriage age with their unique concept of how they want it to be and we eventually sign off our vows with partners whose concepts are as different as Man U is from Arsenal. One thinks cups are everything while the other minds profits.
You grew up in a family where your dad was the Museveni of the family, talked with the Otafiire scare and acted with Kayihura’s vigour.
But your wife grew up in a family where the dad was occasionally resisted on grounds of ethics like a Kagonyera of sorts.
He talked with the tenderness of Nsaba Butuuro warnings and acted like the corruption threats, which rarely uses its sharp teeth on big thieves.
In your marriage, dad’s identity becomes an issue of contention. In harmonising your constitution, if you do not clearly set the boundaries from the start, the diverging views will keep haunting you like CHOGM funds.
In most marriages, conflicts about boundaries that are not set abound and lots of energies are diverted to fire fighting. But the solution is in immunisation.
Start your marriage with clear boundaries. I do not mean calling witnesses to sign it into law like the Land Bill was. It kind of sinks into the marriage constitution naturally.
If the lady of the house loves having fun with her OGs occasionally, it should be clear at the beginning when love is still enough motivation to make it work.
If the man is the return-home-after-midnight fellow, it should show from the start. Introducing it later may trigger off Kayunga riots of last year.
But that calls for an entire term of dating and courtship and therein, openness and adjustment. When you discover you are as irreconcilable as the DP leadership, you activate the eject parachute before your time, financial and emotional investment in the relationship gets too much to let go.