By Pastor Okokon Ating

Selfishness is a cankerworm in marriage. Its dict-ionary meaning says: “act-ing or done according to one’s interest without re-gard to those of others; keeping good things for oneself’.

Philippians 2:3- 4 has this to say: “Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves. Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others.”

Marriage thrives with and develops by love through commitment to one another. Where this is lacking, there is bound to be a crack on the wall. It is this spirit of love that makes partners to be appreciating each other better. It is this same love that will make partners to consider each other first. Selfishness in marriage dwindles love while it brings the spirit of superiority into play.

Tim LaHaye says: “Love kills selfishness just as selfishness kills love.”

In I Corinthians 13:5, we have a clear word written for us, saying: “Love does not behalf itself unseemly, seeketh not her own…”

In a marriage where any of the couple exercises or have a selfish spirit operat-ing in him/her is bound to be a division of interest and opinion.

This is because one will feel his/her opinion should be considered and carried out first. A selfish spouse in marriage tends to hide his/her feelings from the other. Any marriage where selfish-ness rules, one sees some un-wanted characteristics ema-nating. Such as impatience, unkindness, pride, stingi-ness, suspicious, self-seek-ing, hostility, etc,. In this kind of atmosphere, dem-ands become one-sided, and they become inconsiderate in nature.

Therefore, selfishness in marriage is anti-success which couples must be care-ful about and openly put off.

In every marriage where there are elements of selfish-ness, there is bound to be some laws which ought not to be seen. Such laws like, “Honey, don’t enter my room when I’m not around,” “don’t give that neighbour, (friend, parent, or relative) this money or cloth unless I permit you to do so,” “that food, don’t cook it when we have not unanimously agreed to eat such.”

Of course, I am not saying one should be wasteful. But why placing laws on the kind of food to cook and who to give the food? If there is liberty among couples with good understanding, there is nothing wrong with one telling the other what he/her feels like cooking or eating at a particular time. Let me critically say this, selfishness in marriage en-tails the “I”, “me” or own”. It is because of these un-necessary laws in marriage that we have the idea of:

“I am the head of this house of family.”

“I want to do it my own way.”

“I am the bread winner of course.”

“My word in this house must be final.”

“It is only I that can do this or that.”

“I spent my money, not yours”, “I eat alone”, “I travel alone.”

Where there is the “I” or me” syndrome in marriage, the danger or breaking or mismanagement is being smelled. Why? The reason is that, If the other Partner is tired of it, he/she will like to develop a certain attitude too. When this is done, no one will be able to cope with another, and then a dead-lock will ensure.

A writer said, “The ‘I’ or ‘Me’ prob-lem creates a myopic ma-rriage partner.” There is rigidity and intolerant in selfish people. Selfish peo-ple are also greedy in na-ture. They like having their partner’s bread or whatever but when it comes to theirs, they find it very difficult to share with others. Tim La-Kaye says, “Selfish is the main destroyer of marria-ge”. When you see a selfish person, his/her thought on general issues is on self, from the onset to the end. What do I mean by this?

The individual attitude appears mostly in their discussion, conversation and contact, especially in the home. Permit me to say that many contribution factors to mat-rimonial acrimony, ranging from sexual different, lack of communication, finan-cial scarcity, to emotional conflict (emanating from anger and fear) can be used said to be rooted in selfish-ness.

Selfishness can easily destroy matrimonial harm-ony than conflict in taste, negative attitude, and habit. I have discovered that it is not possible for the public to love or admire a selfish person. This is a serious matter which married couples and would-be-back should take into considerat-ion. Should such be found in a partner, how can the cope with the situation? Every partner should try to be generous to one another in all aspects of their ma-rriage. I once heard a hus-band in one of my stations as a minister telling his spouse that, “Any day you touch my mobile phone, to check on my received calls; that day will be your last day in the marriage.

“Due to that both of them handle their mobile phones without showing concern to each other’s own. I asked: “For how long will such condition continue in the same house without engend-ering conflict knowingly or unknowingly?” Conclusive-ly, for marriages to exper-ience peace and joy couples must remove selfishness from each other and embra-ce love and unity.