My co-host on SARFM radio (I get tickled silly that I can say that), Pammy, sent me an email asking me to check out a video.
The Topic of the Video: Should You Move in with Him?
It was 3 African women discussing whether or not they should move in with a man while living in the disapora. Check out the Youtube video right here:
What’s Very Cool About the Video?
Is its something that’s relevant to me and that I can relate to: I have many friends and acquaintances who have moved in with their romantic and sexual partners.
Sure its very common for Westerners to do it, actually here in Oz de facto couples have almost equal rights to marriage couples depending on the duration of their union, but very rarely is it discussed by us for us.
So Check Out the Video
Leave some Youtube comments and let them know what you think. If you have anything to add to the topic area, you are free to leave a comment below.
Have an awesome day,
Mwangi
Tags: African immigrant relationships, African relationships, come we stay, de facto relationships
Thanks for putting this up. Really appreciate it.
@pammy: No problem, any time 🙂
It’s been long since I visited. Thanks to slow connection, You Tube videos take forever to load so I can’t watch the ladies views.
Different strokes, different folks. I would never move in with a partner. If I had a choice, I’d get married and live in a separate house. The main reason I fear marriage is the familiarity. I don’t like familiarity.
@Pink M: I was recently told that apparently there are places in Kenya where the Internet is quite fast and that came as quite a surprise to me after hearing you guys talk about the Internet and reading posts about it.
You know, to be quite honest with you, I have never thought about this question. But now that I think about it, I probably wouldn’t. If I thought I was going to marry someone, as odd as it might sound, I wouldn’t really be interested in sex until we were married and I am working to ensure that I am never in a situation where “I am forced” to move in with someone because of financial constraints.
As for people using “moving in together” as a measure of how they’ll be when they are married, are there any other better ways to measure it? I dunno.
As for familiarity? Are there any ways to get all the security of a life long marriage while maintaining the passion and juice that only comes from differences and uncertainty? I dunno.
Just a couple of questions worth asking.
SILLY ME
Why I never posted this url up I’ll never know. You MUST read this blog if the whole topic are of transitioning from single to marriage interests you. I love this blog, very deliberate, very practical, very useful blog:
http://journeydowntheaisle.blogspot.com/
Are you serious about waiting till marriage??? All the best.
Now, about the spontaneity Vs security, I sincerely would rather have spontainety, since I am working very hard right now to have that security, both financially and otherwise. When I hear married people brag about how good their marriage is, they’re like best friends I shudder. It may look and sound odd, but sincerely, I don’t want to be sleeping with my best friend for the rest of my life…. At about 50 years, then I can do that, but not now.
I hate familiarity in everything, so even in relationships, as soon as it becomes a routine, I want to run. I will read that blog lakini I’m not transitioning to anything any time soon!
BTW, internet is really fast these days, but I changed offices and the comp I’m on right now has it’s own issues.
@Pink M: I really am. Somewhere in my teenage years, my brain formed this very weird discrimination system between marriage material women and women I am sexually attracted to. It is quite possible for me to be sexually attracted to marriage material women but its not my natural tendency, so this actually wouldn’t be as hard as it might sound once I have found someone to settle with. Plus, what difference does the marriage night make if you have done it so many times in the past. This is far from a principle set in stone, but its where am at right now.
Yup, it looks like you might want yourself a Hugh Hefner-esque type of life where you have a constant rotation of boy toys and exciting lovers who are only useful for “That Thing” as far as I can tell.
As a btw, I was talking to a friend of mine recently and I do find odd if when people say they want something, like her strongest desire is to be married and have kids, but don’t want everything that comes with it.
I told her, if she wants to get married and have a great marriage, an important component of it is sex. She must learn to love sex, even more than her husband does and be ready to give it up on a consistent basis and be willing to go places to please him. This…..made her shudder.
Now I am thinking, if this woman wants a long lasting strong marriage but isn’t willing to work with that, which is one of man’s strongest motivating factors, isn’t she setting herself up for a huge fall………
Mwangi, with such a mindset, aren’t you afraid of having the Madonna/whore complex, where after some time you won’t find your wife sexually attractive because you’ve placed her on some sort of pedestal?
No!!!!! I don’t want to be like that play boy dude!! I just don’t want to live with the guy I’m sleeping with. It could even be one dude for 10 years, but I don’t want to live with him. That way, the excitement is still there. You get me?? I may sound like I’m the classic cheater, multiple partners kind of girl, but as a matter of fact, I’ve had fewer partners than most of my peers, have never cheated, I just happen to like sex (sorry, TMI right there)
I wish I could sit my sisters down and talk to them about sex and men. No, infact about sex. I don’t understand why women view this as a chore to be done for men, while it’s supposed to be for mutual pleasure. May be I’m abnormal, but for me, that is a REALLY important component of a loving relationship, hence the reason I don’t do CFAs.
@Pink M: Yeah, I do have that fear of developing the complex. Lol, I remember I tried talking about the complex with a few peers of mine and they had no clue what I was on about. Am so pleased you know of the madonna/whore complex. So, so pleased.
So I guess the question would be asked, is that the best way of maintaining excitement?
Seriously, talk to your sisters. I don’t like to give advice on relationships or marriage and in fact I wanna do it less and less over time but if there is one thing I would say to a woman is that she should become the master of pleasing her partner sexually.
That will solve so many, not all, problems that might exist otherwise. I really think as far as women pleasing men go, trying to go for romantic gestures like candelight and all of that is like a drop, the ocean is a once in a lifetime sexual extravaganza every time he has the pleasure of sharing your bed. He’ll quickly forget the dinner, but never what came (double entedre) after.
You know Mwangi, the saddest thing and the one thing that leads to my fear of familiarity is when my men friends use phrases like ‘she just lies there’ or ‘the children take away her attention so much I doubt she’d even notice if I cheated’ or worse still ‘ we share the bed with our child’ (Ok, I hang out with guys too much and they tend to forget I’m there).
When I hear this, and I sit with married women and listen to their side of the story, I just fear that this is just the natural cycle when 2 people start living together. After a couple of years, there are greater concerns than the ‘spark’. My cousin’s wife says ‘the day to day concerns kill romance and no matter how hard you try, you lose it. Between bearing and raising kids, romance dies’. That is so so scary.
About women and liking sex, I think it stems from the way we have been brought up thinking it’s dirty etc? Halafu, most people don’t look at it like a skill to be developed, which again is wrong. The sooner women realise that this mentality needs to change esp in marriage the happier their marriages will be. I’m the last person to give relationship advice, but this is one thing I know.
That candles thing is just out for an African man. Cook him good Ugali (or whatever he likes), then make him happy. Period! Even lingerie is kinda overrated IMO.
@Pink M: Me thinks the lingerie is more for the woman to feel beautiful than anything else.
That problem of she lies there, even for my peers is a big problem. Except for the women who sleep around as though its been banned tomorrow, I have heard of that problem that Kenyans “just lie there” and that makes me very scared for our future, especially when you combine that with the fact that we are so boring and routine driven (just being honest). I think your problem isn’t necessarily bound to happen because of the concerns of life but because of the people, the character, the habits and the upbringing of the people behind those concerns.
So I guess I would ask you the question, are there examples to the contrary. People who are excited to this day to be married. And what are they doing day to day that other folks aren’t doing.
A few days ago I went to the supermarket. As I was walking cueing up in a daze at the register, I saw something that pulled me right out of my haze.
There was this clearly elderly couple. My guess is they were in their 70s. They were holding hands on the bench and……..they were giggling. The woman was whispering something in the man’s ear and he was giggling and they clearly were having such a great time and enjoying each other’s company and if they had been married a while, looked so much like newlyweds.
I just stared at them and thought to myself, “You guys have given me hope on this day. There actually are couples that still have a spark even at such an old age.”
So me thinks let’s find the exceptions, find out what they do and ignore the rest. I think there is no area where we have as much ignorant, useless opinions to share with each other as romantic relationships (hence why I want to completely stop giving advice on it).
Me thinks this is one area we should look only for the outstanding, exceptional role models, follow their advice and ignore the rest.
I bet your old couple has had their own rough parts and have made it through, but the question is, how many people in this generation have the will to fight it through? You (Mwangi) have it, but what are the chances of finding someone who has the same will power?
As warped as this sounds, I wish it was possible to date till you’re both in the 50s and are settling down, then get married. Unfortunately, the journey has to begin when you’re so young and unstable, thats why so many fall.
People who are dating also ‘just lie there’?. That is sad, although I disagree with the implication that only ‘women who sleep around like it’s been banned tomorrow’ enjoy sex.
@Pink M: Those were just the ones who got the most raving reviews. I have a friend who is quite young and has slept with so many people am surprised she can still walk (it really is that many). The reviews that have come through for her though. A few have said she is the best they have ever had by a landslide.
You get skills through experience so unless there is something wrong with you, over time you’ve got to get better.
You see the fact that you are willing to share weird warped thoughts like that, and then focus on just how we will achieve happiness in spite of our weird thoughts or maybe even because of them. These are the types of talks we need to be having, but we also need to get some role models to copy so we know what direction we are heading in.
Because I am willing to bet that ideas like yours and mine only begin to scrape the surface if folks came out and talked about their “intellectual relationship rules” that they have in their head.
Yeah I wonder if there really are folks who are willing to stick it out too. God grant me the strength to live up to that committment……