By Seun Adeyemi

Hey! Let us start this with a question for you. When last did you both play? By play, I don’t mean sex!

So again… When last did you play as kids do? Yesterday? Last week? Last month? Or never? O well, come with me.

Perhaps you’re both too busy playing daddy & mummy that you’ve forgotten how to play diddy and missy…

Hey and before you begin to give me the “please, I don’t have that time”, “we aren’t kids now” crap, come on with me.

As an adolescent back in the day, it was always appalling for me when I hear a wife call her husband- our daddy, and the husband say mummy. I immediately dislike them.

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Some call Iya Silifa, baba Silifa…and all sorts. It was way over appalling for me.

Right then, I decided never to marry someone with too much difference with mine as I sensed the age difference was the cause but I was wrong. These days even very young people, especially those in christiandom practise it.

Before long, they turn their husbands into their father, and vise versa.

Well, I swore to marry someone in my age bracket, not above two years older.

This was because, I saw those marriages as bland, joyless, funless and loveless.

To me, the couple appear so sanctimonous, overly serious, edgy, dithery, too careful…and more disturbing was the demeanor of the women in some of those marriages. Most times, they seemed fearful, trapped and frustrated.

Oh, I wanted nothing to do with it.

Whatever happened to loving and being loved in return.

Whatever happened to partnership, companionship and friendship.

Whatever happened to pillow fights, love bites, playing hide and seek and so on? O I’ll be damned.

This reminds me of a couple I came to know years ago, they were the perfect couple outside. At least that’s what we saw.

Everyone loved their calmness, their togetherness and oddly, their reservedness.

Alas, something was off.

The husband loved to read his Bible so much so as a devout Christian. I could say he was addicted.

By now you know they were both christians? O Well, born again ones at that.

You see, it was Bible before breakfast, bible during breakfast. And right after breakfast, nothing else than going back to pick up where he left off before biting the piece of meat.

At work, well I wonder…but at home, all he sits with was his bible.

He would go on, every hour on the hour, buried in the scriptures, day and night.

Really if you didn’t know your stand, he could chide you into feeling intimidated, as though you aren’t as close to God.

His beautiful wife and son were mostly left to themselves.

Sometimes i wonder how they managed to have a child, but that’s all they have, One.

Soon, as human, who’s got the blood flowing in her veins, she began to complain, but he saw it as one nagging, trying to come in the way of his relationship with God.

Perhaps he may have told her she was sent to destroy his christian life.

He just couldn’t understand why she’d ask him to stop studying the Bible when his going to heaven depended on it and she herself should be following suit as a child of God.

But the woman wanted his attention. she needed to be with her man, she hadn’t married the bible, she married a man…why couldnt she be loved, and touched and talked to?

She would have none of it.

All interventions and attempts to counsel this man, in order for him to open his eyes, heart, mouth and mind to his responsibilities as a man, failed.

He remained adamant, blind and foolish.

Ouch! Well sorry, there is no better word. And so, one fateful day, she packed her belongings, and together with their son, left him for good. He was left alone.

Several years have passed, more than a decade has gone by, and he’s still alone. Whose loss?

Listen, don’t turn that marriage into a church or whatever… There’s time for everything. Let loose sometimes.

There’s a boy who wants to play in every man and there’s a girl who wants to be tickled and swung around in every woman. Let them out sometimes.

Don’t be uptight, busy playing daddy and mummy. Don’t be too caught up that people scare when they’re around you. Don’t be the lion of the tribe of your family, that everyone scamper to safety when they hear you’re coming. Your children are watching. They are imbibing.

What examples are you setting? What are you teaching them to take to their own homes in the future?

Also, biko stop the mummy joy and daddy joy thing. You might argue that it matters nothing, but everything in life responds to what it is called.

Daddy Ayo will not just jump up to whiz mummy Ayo up in the air, No! Because ayo and his siblings are watching and daddy shouldn’t let loose his guard.

But, isn’t it much easier for sweethearts to just eat each others lips and swing each other around, as no one is seeing himself as the other partners daddy or mummy or being careful to demean their hallowed title…

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve not said couples should loose their senses, become insensitive, disrespectful to each other, trivialising their relationship, no!

What I’m saying is, you should give room for a little fun, play in that marriage.

Trust me, you don’t act all dithery, edgy, uptight, overly serious, high and mighty, in your marriage and expect absolute bliss.
It doesnt work that way. Period!

It may work for you, if you’re from the 50s. But please look around you. Do the survey. All I am saying is play! Have fun!

Run around sometimes, sneak on them sometimes, tickle & suckle them sometime.

The benefits to your health as well as your relationship is enormous and can’t be overemphasized.

Science has a lot to say about this and more than what it has to say, think about the benefits to your marriage.

Think about the warmth, the joy, the bond, the togetherness, the intimacy and peace it brings.

It’s true child bearing and rearing can subtly take away these things but that’s the more reason we mustn’t let it. You’ve got to be intentional about it.

Children are a gift to your love, they aren’t a curse to it.

Remember someday, they’ll leave to their own homes, what becomes of you then if you have lost touch of each other? Think on these things.

More than that, act on it. Let the love bites return.

To a blissful marriage,
Cheers!!!