Pastor Jerry Eze Opens Up About The Difficult Early Years Of His Marriage

“When I got married, marriage was hèll. If there is anything called “hèllièr than hèll”, that was exactly how my marriage felt.

In the first week of our marriage, I asked my wife a simple question, and she got upset. I was coming from a background where we did not know too much anger, but I had married a woman who knew anger very well.

We were in the kitchen. She was arranging tea cups, saucers and other things when, suddenly, she moved all the cups and plates with one hand, and they fell to the ground. Bam, bam, bam, bam. She turned around and gave me a stare. I was shocked. I had never seen anything like that before. I went into the room, packed my things and left the house because I genuinely thought the next thing she would do was be@t me.

This continued for a while because she had a fundamental problem with anger. I could not talk to my wife freely without worrying about how she would react. Every now and then, she acted as though she was the man of the house.

Let me cut the long story short. One day, I told God, “I am done. I have done everything right in this life. The only thing I got wrong was my marriage. You know me, I have tried. Let us go our separate ways. She is successful, I am successful, and everybody will be fine.”

But before I get to what God told me, let me share one story. My wife and I were once in London. She went into a shop while I remained outside. Later, I went into another shop to pick up something. When she returned and found out I had gone to another shop, she became upset.

I said, “Ah, you should have told me you were going to the other shop. We would have gone together. I am not used to the cold here.” She looked at me and said, “What did you say? What did you say?” I told her, “That is what I said. Do you want me to be afraid of you?” That was a statement I often made because I felt she was always trying to intimidate me.

She left me in that shop and went home. I did not even realise she had left until much later. I called her friend and asked, “Please, where is my wife? I am here, and I do not know where to go.” Her friend called my wife and asked where she was. She said she was already at home. Her response was, “Let him find his way back.” I eventually found my way back, packed my things again, changed my ticket and left that night. That was how difficult our marriage had become.

At some point, when she returned to Nigeria so that we could live together, things became even worse. Then one day, while I was praying, I told God, “This is the end. Let her go her way and let me go mine.” And God said something to me that changed my entire perspective.

He said, “This marriage is not a destination. It is an assignment. And the extent to which you solve this assignment will determine your promotion in destiny.”

That changed everything for me. My mindset shifted from coming into marriage to receive love, to making sure my wife always said the right things, to expecting her to behave the way I wanted. I began to see marriage as a place where I also had an assignment: to give love, to say the right things, to control my reactions and not respond to every expression of anger with anger. I am not saying it suddenly became a bed of roses. It did not.

But today, I can stand and say that my wife is one of the sweetest people you will ever meet. She was not always like this, but God had to bring me to the place where I began to see my marriage as an assignment. Our assignments are different.

Some people have short essays, some have objective questions, some have difficult subjects, and some have different challenges altogether. We all have our assignments.

But first, change your mindset and understand that your marriage is an assignment. When your mindset changes, your approach to your marital problems will change too”

Credit: Gistreel

Email: elora.akpotosevbe@yahoo.com