BY GOD’S DESIGN, MEN GET THEIR IDENTITY FROM WORK WHILE WOMEN GET THEIR IDENTITY FROM MARRIAGE
CONFLICT IS ONE OF THOSE THINGS THAT MUST HAPPEN
CONFLICTS HAPPEN BECAUSE OF DIFFERENCES
THERE’S LITERALLY NOTHING THE SAME ABOUT A MAN AND A WOMAN
ONE THING I’VE DISCOVERED WITH WOMEN ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD IS THAT THEY LOVE MARRIAGE
MEN ARE RUGGED BY NATURE, WOMEN ARE REFINED BY NATURE
WHEN THE BIBLE SAID, “LET THE MAN BE THE HEAD”, IT WAS NOT TALKING ABOUT AUTHORITY IT WAS TALKING ABOUT RESPONSIBILITY
CONFLICT HAPPENS BECAUSE EVERYTHING ABOUT A MAN AND A WOMAN IS DIFFERENT.
A WOMAN WOULD TALK TO YOU BECAUSE YOU ARE SOMEBODY IMPORTANT TO HER, A MAN WOULD TALK TO YOU BECAUSE THERE IS SOMETHING IMPORTANT TO SAY.
WHEN I FIRST STARTED DATING MY WIFE, IF I SAW HER ON MONDAY, I WOULDN’T TALK TO HER THROUGHOUT THE WEEK TILL NEXT MONDAY.
WHEN YOU ARE COMING TO MARRIAGE, YOU MUST COME WITH FLEXIBILITY.
WOMEN PERSONALIZE EVERYTHING, MEN DEFLECT EVERYTHING.
WOMEN THINK FASTER, MEN THINK SLOWER AND DEEPER.
IF YOU COUNSEL WOMEN, YOU’LL BE VERY HAPPY. AS THEY ARE TELLING YOU THE PROBLEM, THEY WILL TELL YOU THE SOLUTION, YOUR OWN IS JUST TO AGREE.
CONFLICTS GET TOUGH BECAUSE PEOPLE ARE TRYING TO CHANGE OTHERS.
YOU WON’T SEE THE BEST OF A WOMAN EXCEPT YOU APPEAL TO HER EMOTIONALLY.
WOMEN TALK BASED ON THEIR FEELINGS. MEN ON THE OTHER HAND TALK BASED ON FACTS.
WE RESPECT PEOPLE THAT ARE MEETING NEEDS IN OUR LIVES.
AS BUSY AS THE PRESIDENT IS, IF HE NEEDS TO BARB HIS HAIR, HE NEEDS TO BE IN TOUCH WITH HIS BARBER.
MEN WORLDWIDE HATE THE PHRASE, “WE NEED TO TALK”. TALKING TERRIFIES MEN. DON’T BOOK AN APPOINTMENT, JUST TALK.
AS A YOUNG MAN, YOU NEED VISION MORE THAN YOU NEED PROVISION.
– Pastor Kingsley Okonkwo on “BEST WAYS TO HANDLE CONFLICT IN A RELATIONSHIP” at Love, Dating and Marriage Tour 2023 || 4th November 2023 ||
I want to appreciate all the leaders and all the organizers. Like I said, I know they’ve been trying to make this happen…and I appreciate you for the great work you are doing. I was given a topic, so I’m going to try to stick with that topic. Praise God! So I was asked to address ‘Conflict’…and I don’t know if this is okay with the organizers. We are thinking because, from the program I saw, I was supposed to speak, then do Q and A (Questions and Answers session) and then my wife speaks and does her own Q and A (Questions and Answers Session). Church Gist. So I was wondering if I speak then my wife speaks and then we do a combined Q and A (Questions and Answers session). The reason is because I’m not as smart as people think I am so I would like to do Q and A with her so that when the hard questions come, I can just tell you, “Pastor Mildred will answer this question”. Praise God!
Some people don’t know that’s part of the purpose of marriage. It’s to marry somebody smarter than you so that we’ll know who would do homework with the children. Yes! Because there are some homework, it’s not the children that failed it. When they mark it, they say “Junior, you failed your homework”…and he says, “It’s my daddy that did it”. (Laughing) So you know, you marry appropriately, to save yourself. Praise God! But interestingly that’s not the purpose of marriage, so let me not go into that. Church Gist. Today I was asked to talk about “How to manage Conflicts” and one of the things you must be prepared for is that conflicts would come. That’s one of the things you have to be prepared for. You would be amazed at how much knowledge you will impact the success of your marriage…and when I mean knowledge, I don’t just mean academic or theoretical knowledge. I mean actually knowing the real stuff. So, something like knowing that conflict is going to happen will totally change how you will react.
Let me use a practical example, we all know that right now, we’ve not handled the power issue in Nigeria, hope everybody knows that, we still deal with outages and all that. I hope you know that in some developed parts of the world when there is an outage, people panic. There are people that have to be rushed to the Hospital, you say what happened, “There was darkness”. You know, there was an outage for one hour and they had anxiety. What’s the difference between those people and us? We are even anxious when there is 24-hour power. That’s when we have anxiety, “What’s happening? They didn’t off the light since, they should not spoil something in my house”. You are bothered when there is unnecessary light. Church Gist. What’s the difference and why are people leaving those countries where there is 24-hour power and they are coming into Nigeria where there’s no 24-hour power? What’s the difference? They have first dealt with the information that in the country you are going to, there might not be power. They have dealt with the information that the country you are going to, there might not be security. So, because they have to come here, they have psychologically adjusted, so they are not shocked. So that’s why we have white people living in Nigeria. Now we have a lot of Nigerians that want to go and live abroad which is not bad if that’s what you want to do. But what I’m saying is there are people coming from abroad to come and live here that is very different from their own country. The thing they must do before they come is that they must be mentally prepared. That’s what I’m trying to show you.
So, a lot of the situations you think you can’t cope with, you have not just embraced the reality of that situation that’s why. So, conflict is one of those things. It’s going to happen. Conflict is going to happen. Conflict is one of those things that must happen and why must conflict happen? Now please take note, there is a difference between conflicts and quarrels. So, what people think when we talk about conflict…and conflicts must happen is that they assume that in every marriage, in every relationship, you must fight. I don’t subscribe to that. Church Gist. You don’t have to quarrel or fight, however you will have conflict. If you are walking about thinking you must fight, then you will actually start to behave in certain ways. No, you don’t have to fight each other, you are on the same team. So you can have conflicts without it being a full-blown quarrel where you start insulting each other and say, “Bastard, idiot, (you know) bloody fool”. As a counselor, there are things I hear couples say to each other and I’m wondering how did they arrive there? How did they get to that point of using that kind of language on each other? So conflicts must happen. The second question is why must it happen? Can’t we live without conflicts? I’ll tell you why it usually has to happen.
Conflicts usually have to happen because of the differences. In fact, another word for ‘conflict’ is ‘differences’. They say, “We want to settle our differences”. Is somebody getting what I’m saying? I don’t even know why God thought or felt that a man and a woman can live together. We are so different. Literally two different species of human beings or creatures. Ordinarily, we are not meant to be on the same planet. We are not the same thing at all. So that is why conflict happens because we are two different beings…and because we are different, we would always see things differently. That’s part of the reason why God in His wisdom, put a structure in the family. That’s why He said, “Oh let the man be the head”. Now! Of course when we use things like, “Let the man be the head”, in places like Africa where we are not strong on leadership, the men will think that means I’m the supreme being and the woman will feel, I’m an inferior person if I’m not the head. Church Gist. Ordinarily, when the Bible said, “Let the man be the head”, it was not talking about authority. It was talking about responsibility…and what God is trying to say is that because you guys will have different views about so many things, we have to create some form of order in that home. That’s the only way it’s going to work. If you say, “Everybody, just debate and do what you like”, every time, we will have almost different opinions, almost every time. It creates order, that’s why with all the technological advancement in the world, most of you know that there are cars that drive themselves these days, we have Teslas and co. that you just type your address, or type your office and you’ll just sit in the car and the car will literally just drive you there. With all that technological advancement, I’m yet to see a car with two steering wheels. That means with all that advancement, everybody knows that these cars can have 5 seats, 6 seats and 20 seats but there has to be only one driver. The day they make cars with two or three steering wheels, that car won’t go anywhere because one person wants to turn right another person would want to turn left. They put only one steering wheel. That’s the same thing God did in a marriage. In a home, He put one head, one leader. Not because that person has to know it all or be a supreme being but that’s the only way we can create order.
Anything that has more than one head is a monster. It’s not a normal creature. So, we are two different species of beings and we will always have conflict because we see things from different lights all the time. There’s literally nothing the same about a man and a woman, nothing. Nothing is even the same, practically nothing. Let’s start with Genesis, when God created man, He made man from the dust. When God created the woman, He made her from the rib, two different materials. Dust, dirt, that’s why till tomorrow, men are not afraid of dirt, we came from dirt. Women came from bone, it is one of the most polished bones in the human being’s body, they came from the rib. Church Gist. So men are rugged and women are refined by nature. Even if you see a mad woman, there’s still some…sometimes they still have make-up. They are just refined by nature. Men are rugged by nature. A man can live in the dirt, everywhere can be scattered but he will still have a good night’s sleep. Most times a woman cannot. A man can wear his boxers for five days and still be smelling it to know if he can wear it one more day (men don’t laugh too much). Women literally have to change their underwear and their clothes every day, sometimes more than once a day. They are naturally refined. It’s not that they are cleaner than us, they are just refined. When a man says he doesn’t have what to wear, it means he doesn’t have anything clean to wear. When a woman says I don’t have what to wear, she means, she doesn’t have anything new to wear. She’s refined, men are rugged. That’s why everything about the woman is delicate, the way she makes her nails, makes her hair, makes everything. Even the material that was used, even the process for the creation of a man. The word, “God made man” is different from the word, ‘made’ that he used for the woman. Two different words. The one for men is like when you are playing with mud outside and you just join it but the one for women is when you are making synthetic or polished furniture, skilled work. So women have generally better shape, men are just straight, no shape (laughing). Is somebody getting what I’m saying? I’m just trying to show you that there is nothing the same about us and because we are wired this way, we would always see things differently.
Men are generally work-oriented. Women are generally family-oriented. It’s not a bad thing, but that’s how it is. The first thing God gave Adam was work. Women don’t understand that. The first thing a man ever saw, ever had in his life was work. A man had a job before he had a wife. He had a work before he had a wife. So his first love is always his work. Oh, women don’t understand that. A man will gladly leave his family to travel to another country for work. A woman will gladly leave her work to travel to another country to stay with her family. The first thing God gave a woman was family. The first thing Eve ever had was a husband. That’s why women love marriage programs, (they) love marriage. Women love ‘love’. I tell men sometimes, “The woman is not even marrying you, she’s marrying marriage”. You are just the only willing participant, it’s not about you. She’s interested in this marriage more than you. Is somebody getting what I’m saying? Church Gist. Because the first thing God gave Eve was a husband, that was the first thing she ever saw in her life. The first thing Adam saw was work. So he gets his identity from work and women get their identity from marriage. When you meet your classmates 10 years, 20 years after school, what guys ask each other is what do you do now? That determines whether they will shake you again or collect your number. What do you do? Now, you say “Oh I’m M.D (managing director) of…, I’m commissioner for this” and they say, “Oh my guy”…and they shake you the second shake and say, let me get your number. If they say what do you do now and you say, “I’m looking for work”, they’ll say, “Oh God bless you, it is well”. We get our identity from work. When women meet 10 or 20 years after school, the question is, “Are you married now?” What they exchange is not business card, it’s pictures of their children, “Come and see my third born, she’s in so and so school”. That’s why I’ve preached, like the speaker said, I travel a lot, I’ve preached in different countries of the world and I’ve ministered to different races and one thing I’ve discovered with women anywhere in the world is that they love marriage, anywhere. That’s why when you propose to a woman anywhere in the world, the reaction is the same. You say, “Marry me” and she’s (excited)…she can’t breathe, “Ohhh, uh, it’s a lie, it’s”. It’s like something she has been waiting for all her life…and when she’s doing “uh huh”, even women that don’t know her would join. You don’t even know her. She’ll do, “uh huh”, they’ll do “uh huh”. Have you ever seen men shouting when they propose? Other guys would say, “Are you okay, are you ready for marriage, do you have money?” You don’t rejoice but women everywhere rejoice, the same reaction no matter the race. When you propose to them, it’s like you have offered them something they’ve been waiting for all their life.
They love marriage because that is the first thing they ever saw. and guess what? When Adam and Eve sinned and the curse was about to come on the earth, it came in the area that mattered to them most. For the man He said, “Now, you will struggle” because you can’t curse somebody where it doesn’t matter. If you want to punish me and say, “From now on, you will always stay in your air-conditioned car, that’s the punishment”. That’s not a punishment, especially if I’m somebody that likes air conditioner. Church Gist. The moment they sinned, He said, “You now (man) because you like work a lot, you’ll always now sweat to make it in work”…and I thought He was going to say the same thing to women, not at all, He said, “You, you are going to have issues with family, your desire is going to be to your husband, he’s going to have the rule over you and you’ll have difficulty in childbirth”. He spoke to men regarding work and spoke to women concerning marriage. In fact, there is nowhere in the scriptures that God speaks to men and women the same way, especially regarding marriage. Nowhere, everywhere, He addresses them differently because they are wired differently.
I’m laying this foundation because if you know, you’ll react better next time some things happen, you’ll literally see some certain trends and understand them. The way we say it is that “Men are selfish, women are selfless”. But really, it’s not that men are selfish, the way they are wired psychologically, they must take care of themselves first before they can help another person. A man feels he is useless to other people if he has not helped himself. If he is very hungry, he’s too hungry to think about what other people would eat. Church Gist. He has to first eat and then he will have energy…but if a woman gets to a house and there’s only one plate of food, she will keep it for the people coming that, “Ah, my children have not eaten and other people”…but if a man gets to the house and sees one plate of food, he will first eat and say, “How are we going to help other people, now that we have energy?” He feels useless if he has not solved his own problems. So he is very self-centered first. A woman on the other hand is wired to please. So she will first think of other people first. Is somebody getting what I’m saying?
I’m just trying to say, this is why conflict happens because everything about us is different. Let’s use communication, for instance, the reason why women talk is different from the reason why men talk. Women talk first because everything that goes on in a woman’s life activates her vocal nerves, everything. If she’s happy she needs to talk about it. If she’s sad, she needs to talk about it. If she doesn’t know how she feels, she needs to talk about it. Men only talk for important reasons. So, women talk because they love you. Men talk because they want to solve the problem. Church Gist. So, we say it this way, women talk for affection and men talk for information. So, a woman would talk to you because you are somebody important to her and a man would talk to you because there is something important to say. So, women don’t understand why men don’t want to talk all the time. There’s no need to say, “Shebi we left home together today, why am I calling you in the afternoon? There’s no problem”. But for a woman, calling me is not about information, it’s about affection. If you love me, let’s just talk. We don’t have to have an important topic, you’re an important person. But for a man, no matter how important you are, you need to have an important topic.
When I first started dating my wife, if I saw her on Monday, I wouldn’t talk to her throughout the week till next Monday, our next appointment…and she’d say, “You are not going to talk to me”, I’ll say, “All my gist, I’m keeping it, if I call you during the week and gist the gist, what will I gist when you come?” Because men have very limited words per day, unlike women. Women have unlimited data for words, it doesn’t finish. So, she had to tell me, you have to call me and check up on me. So I had to start learning how to call for no reason. Ah, it was weird. Church Gist. Men don’t know how to call for no reason, you just call a guy, “How you dey, I just dey call you”. Guys don’t understand that, why? If a guy is calling you he says, “You get John number, give me this guy’s number, you know somebody for Federal Ministry of…”. Guys call for important things but women just call, “How are you, (fine) I’m just thinking about you (wow)”. Men don’t do that. Is somebody getting what I’m saying? I’m saying this to say, almost every conflict you are facing is because two of you are different and you are seeing things differently and if you have the background information you will understand.
Let me give you another common one, women personalize everything, men deflect everything. That’s why when Adam sinned, the first thing Adam did was blame somebody else. Men deflect but women personalize. What women are guilty of and what they are not guilty of, they blame themselves. If a woman enters a room and her husband is frowning, she’ll first think she has done something wrong. That’s how she’ll see it. That’s why women don’t like when men just sit down and think. She says, “What are you thinking about?” He says, “Nothing”…and she’ll say, “It’s not true, now tell me what you’re thinking about”. He’ll say, “Now I’m thinking about what to tell you I’m thinking about”. Because women don’t understand that men can sit down and do nothing but women’s brain is so active. Church Gist. Pastor, a woman’s brain is like a 7 lane highway, that you must use. That’s why women can be having one conversation and jump to another conversation. They have a lane, if you’re talking to a woman, at the end of the day you don’t even know what we’re arguing about. So which one are we arguing about? Because she has 7 lanes, she can jump. Man is just one way, so he likes to stay on topic. So, a woman’s brain is so versatile, so developed, so active. Most people don’t know, that most women wake up tired, their brain is too active. Even when they are sleeping, the brain is walking about. They did an experiment, they put a man on a chair, with no activity, nothing, his brain activity reduced to almost zero, men blank out. They put a woman in the same chair doing nothing and her brain activity increased. She was thinking and wondering, “What am I doing here sitting down with all the things I have to do?” Her brain uses more than one side of her brain at the same time. That’s why you can be making love to your wife and she’s asking you, “Is the door locked, are the children asleep?” Because one part of the brain is with you in the bed, the other part is walking about, checking whether they’ve put food back in the freezer. Her brain is restless a lot of times. Women think faster, men think slower and deeper. Women think fast, that’s why a woman doesn’t understand when a man says, “I want to go and think about it”. She’s saying, “So as you are here, you are not thinking”. Because for her, she talks and thinks at the same time, she’s fast. So she’s impatient most times when she’s communicating. If she’s asking you something, she wants you to answer now.
But a man’s brain is slow, it’s analog. You ask him something simple, he’ll say, “I have to go and think about it”. Because, number one, he can’t do more than one thing at the same time. Secondly, he needs time to process the thought but women think on their feet. As they are talking, they are thinking. I like counseling women (Pastor). If you counsel women, you’ll be very happy. As they are telling you the problem, they will tell you the solution, your own is just to be agreeing. They will tell you the problem, tell you the solution, then now pay you, and they’ll say, “Thank you very much”. (This is the kind of job I like to do). Women think on their feet, the more women talk, the more they think but men, if men are talking, they are not thinking and if they are thinking, they are not talking. Men need an appointment. Sir, I want to go and think. Women don’t understand it because they think on their feet. Church Gist. I’m giving all these many examples to say that if you look well, most of the things that are bringing the main conflict in your home are things that are natural, that won’t change. You are the one that needs to change how you see those issues. Women personalize everything. If something goes wrong, a woman just blames herself. No matter who causes it, she first blames herself. She personalizes it. She just sees it as “I must have done something wrong”. Something must be wrong with me. It must be my fault.
So, I mentioned that we are different. In what ways are we different? I’ve mentioned the fact that we are different in terms of gender, male and female. We are also different in terms of personalities. Generally, in relationships and marriage, we find out that opposites attract. When we mean opposite, we don’t mean opposite in value. Your values must be the same. But generally, opposite in personality. You would hardly see two talkers marry. You’ll always see, one talker would marry a good listener. Two talkers don’t like themselves too much. When they go on their first date, they’ll say, “I didn’t enjoy the date, the guy was doing all the talk, he didn’t even allow me to talk”. When you go out with a real talker, he will ask you a question and he will still answer it. He talks too much. So generally, talkers are attracted to listeners. Listeners are attracted to talkers. Listeners talk in her mind, she doesn’t have the power to talk with her lips so she’s happy when she sees someone who can talk. So when you go on a date, the person does all the talking. Two quiet people too don’t like to go on a date. Have you seen two quiet people go on a date before? Very annoying. Just sit down, “How are you”, he says, “I am fine”. “How are we”, she says, “I am fine”. “You like your juice”. Nothing to say. Two quiet people, horrible. Church Gist. So generally, listeners marry talkers. Spenders marry savers. Opposites generally attract. The outgoing person usually marries the very reserved person. In fact, they researched and found out that, very few times will you see two jovial people marry. Most times, you’ll see a jovial person marry a moody person, but you would never or almost never see two moody people marry themselves. So they said moody people are not stupid, they are just unhappy, meaning that as moody as they are, they know they can’t marry each other. I’m moody, I’ll now marry you too that you are moody? So moody people, they know and they look out for jovial people. In other words, we look for something different from what we are. So, the second area of difference is in our personalities.
The third area of difference is in our upbringing. What are the things that sometimes cause conflicts? I like this arrangement, I like the other arrangement. Sometimes, there is no wrong or right arrangement. It’s that you think that the way you have known it is the right way. You know the way they cook beans in your house is the official way. You know this is the only way beans is cooked nationwide because that’s what you grew up seeing. Some people grew up in homes where they don’t fry meat or chicken. As they kill the chicken, they boil it like that and serve it in the soup. Other people grew up in homes where you must fry the meat. If those people marry and they are not ready to adjust, they’ll say, “Ahh, you gave me meat that’s fried”. The other one will say, “You gave me meat that is not fried”. Your upbringings are different. So when you are coming to marriage, you must come with flexibility. Church Gist. I’ll get into how to resolve conflicts in a bit. I’m just laying the foundations. So all these differences is why we conflict when we talk. You know in some homes they greet with shouting. I don’t know if you’ve been to those homes where it seems everybody has a hearing problem. Everything is (about) shouting…and they are not angry. “Where are you going (shouting) ah”. When they are talking, neighbors think they are having a serious quarrel. No! They are happy. But there are some other people, in their homes, everybody speaks very gently. They are very polite. You know in some homes, when they wake up, everybody greets each other. “Good morning daddy, good morning uncle this”. Some people they don’t greet, they continue from wherever they continue last week. They just wake, “Ehen, where’s that? Give me that”. Now if you come from a home where they greet, you’ll say, “Why are they so rude in this family”. They are not rude, they have greeted themselves at the beginning of life, when they met. That greeting is still valid. That’s what they are using 20 years into the marriage. A lot of things you are fighting about, go and check it, it’s just a matter of knowing that your way is not the only way it is done. Alright, there are loads and loads of things. So how do we start to resolve conflicts? Now that we’ve known these so many differences, how do we start to deal with it.
1. Awareness.
Be aware that, “Oh okay, this is why she does this, this is why he does this”. Men are physical, women are first emotional. By the way, I have a book here, “How to make love to a woman without touching her”. All men whether you are single or not, get the book. Every human being is made up of four parts. Biblical and essentially, we are three parts, Spirit, soul and body but for the purpose of this teaching, I had to break it down. So we are made up of four parts. For women, women are first emotional, secondly, they are spiritual, thirdly they are mental lastly, they are physical. That’s how a woman’s order of arrangement is, her composition. That means she’ll first react to things emotionally. You get the best out of a woman when she’s emotionally taken care of, or spoken to, or dealt with. Church Gist. When you are aware of her emotions. In fact, one of the most common things young couples complain about, wives, they will say, “Their husbands are emotionally unavailable”. See men’s arrangement, men are first physical, secondly mental, thirdly spiritual and lastly emotional. That’s why if you notice if you have boys and girls as children, you’ll notice that the boys are generally more physically active. If there are boys here and there’s a stair here, they don’t come down from here (the stairs) they’ll jump. They are physical beings. This is why women don’t understand why 80000 people would gather in one stadium to watch 22 people play football. Sometimes, women don’t understand, “What are you people enjoying in this thing”. Women will rather sit down, watch a soap opera, watch reality TV (television), watch people fighting, watch people settling matters. Women enjoy that. Do you know Pastor that women watch other women doing makeup? What are you watching somebody doing her makeup? Some of the busiest pages on YouTube are women watching other women doing their makeup. Makes no sense to men, we would rather watch wrestling, watch some physical activities and I think our schools should even learn this because sometimes we put boys and girls together in a seat. Women can sit still and listen, men like to do. If you are going to teach men, you must teach them differently from how you teach women.
Men are physical beings. So if those two beings come together to marry, they will have conflict. She is coming with her emotional expectations, he is coming with his physical expectations. That’s why a man can have sex at any time. I mean, rent can be due, the landlord just wrote us yesterday and the man wants to have sex today. The woman is wondering, “How can you be thinking about sex? We have a problem”. Because those two things are not related in any way. I don’t know if you understand what I’m saying? Men are physical. When you understand this, you will never deprive your husband of sex. To use sex deprivation as a weapon in marriage means you don’t understand. Men are physical. Church Gist. Women say, is this all you think about? Yes! Is it food? Yes! Women struggle with that because, in their own minds, they are first emotional, they believe there are other more important things than sex all the time. In the world of men, there are not more important things. This is very important. Is somebody getting what I’m saying? That’s why the prostitute business is still one of the biggest spinners globally because men will any day, anytime, pay any price for this need to be met, no matter how ugly you are.
Every time you follow money, it’s a need you see. Money doesn’t follow shouting, it follows felt need. If you know how much goes into prostitution both full-time and part-time, you’ll be amazed. What am I saying? Women are first emotional. So if you want to make love to a woman. You start emotionally. You start with how you treat her. You start with how you talk to her. I counselled a couple some months ago. The husband was very angry. The issue happened a month ago but he was still angry after. He said they were about to make love and in the midst of it, things actually started and the woman said, “We need to talk”. He was angry. I had to now explain to him, she wasn’t trying to spoil the mood. She was trying to get in the mood. Church Gist. Because if something is upsetting a woman, she’s not free emotionally to enjoy the moment. She has to get that thing off her mind, off her chest and she does that by talking. So talking for women is foreplay. Men think foreplay is only when I touch. So, talk is part of foreplay for women. You talk first but because men are physical, this makes no sense to them. What I’m trying to tell you is that sometimes the need of your partner would not make any sense to you. You learn it. To you, you don’t see the point why you need to talk. A man doesn’t see the point why when you want to make love, you talk. How does talk help the matter? It doesn’t make sense to you but you need to learn that how I talk to her in the morning, affects how she performs in the night. Women are very emotionally induced. You won’t see the best of a woman except you appeal to her emotionally. Women can be anything to you. They can be a great danger, they can be a great blessing but you must know how to talk to them emotionally. When I see men and they say, “My wife never agrees to anything,” I say, “You are the one that doesn’t know how to talk to her.” You would need to talk to her, you’re a man here, you want to buy a sports car, you go and tell a woman, “Baby, I saw this car, 16 valves, 8000 horsepower, it makes no sense to a woman”. So, she’s not going to agree. What you’ll tell her is, “Baby as we are getting to this stage of our life, I want to be spending more time with you. So there’s this car I saw, only two seats, me and you, we’ll drop the top, evening like this, we’ll take a stroll and we’ll talk”. You’ll buy that car. So don’t go and be saying 16 valves, 8000 horsepower. That’s what you tell guys, you don’t tell women that. That makes no sense to them. That makes no meaning to them, where are we running to? Appeal to her emotionally.
Secondly, she is spiritual. A woman has such an incredible spiritual need. Please understand, that this thing it is not that your partner is going to be difficult. They are all chasing a felt need. Except you married a psychopath or someone who is not mentally stable. If you marry a normal human being, every time there is conflict, the person is looking for something good. They are not trying to hurt you or harm themselves. If it’s a normal human being, most times what is causing conflicts, the person wants something good and you must train yourself to listen to what they are actually asking for. If you don’t listen to it, you’ll just be fighting. Awareness! Women have a very powerful spiritual need. They have spiritual needs and that’s why women are involved in all kinds of prayer online, all kinds of services, they are involved. Everywhere in the world, they’ll join. After this Sunday’s service, this one is not enough for them. They must join one online prayer, one online service and one online pastor because they have a spiritual need. Church Gist. One man told me that he doesn’t see his wife all week long and that every week she goes for one Church program, not her own Church, any Church. Because she has a spiritual need. Men don’t have that kind of need but women do. That’s why men tell you, “How come my wife respects Pastor, she doesn’t respect me”. Very simple because the Pastor is meeting a very important need in her life that you don’t want to meet, because you don’t want to read the Bible, you don’t want to go to Church, you don’t want to pray with her. So she’ll always respect…all of us respect somebody meeting a need in our lives. As busy as the President is, if he needs to barb his hair, he needs to be in touch with his barber. I don’t know if you understand what I’m saying. There are big people trying to meet the President but there are small people the President needs to meet. I don’t know if you’re getting what I’m saying.
Everybody respects who meets their needs. So respect is not by how big your shoulder is, it’s that you are meeting a felt need. The President might be so busy, “Oh, your schedule is so tight. “Mr. President, you need to barb your hair”. (The President might say) “Oh I need to meet the Commissioner, I need to meet the President of France”. You can’t go with this hair to meet the President of France. Are you getting what I’m saying? So, he cannot see the Governor, he cannot see a billionaire but he needs to see his barber. Because everybody respects who meets their needs. You are worried that, “My wife doesn’t respect me.” Are you meeting her spiritual needs? Are you meeting her emotional needs? That’s why we all respect our bosses. You don’t have to like your boss but if you want to collect your salary, you’ll respect your boss whether you like them or not. By the way, if you are a guy in the house, I have two books I want to recommend, by the way, I think it’s important. It’s titled, “Praying for your wives”. Guys, this book will get you results. This one (the other one) is praying for your husband, so it’s some basic scriptures you can pray for your wife or your husband and basic prayer points attached to those scriptures. Church Gist. My wife wrote the book because these are the scriptures she prays for me, very impactful and I had to do my own scriptures, I pray over her with the prayer point. Now if you don’t like your wife and you don’t like prayer, if you like me and Pastor Mildred, our picture is on it, so you can buy it for that reason…and don’t forget the one I mentioned earlier on (about how to make love to your wife without touching her). Women are spiritual, then physical is last for women. On the other hand for men, physical is first. So, most times a man is trying to make love to a woman, he is touching her because he is physical, you see, he’s trying to love her like a man. Sometimes, he goes straight to the point. Some men think that’s very sexy. They want to be flavored in the night to their wife and they just (touch their wives). Men don’t know that thing irritates women. How do you just come from nowhere and just (touch)? “What’s wrong with you?” She’s very irritated. Most men don’t know that women don’t even see their bodies as sexual objects at all. Some women don’t see it like that. That thing exciting you is not exciting her at all.
If you want to make love to her, you start by talking. That’s how she gets in the mood. But I also teach women, women too try to make moves with men the same way. You say, “I want to talk to you”. No! It scares men, don’t talk to me. All men worldwide hate the phrase, “We need to talk”. Ah, what has happened again? Because talking terrifies us, don’t book an appointment with us, just talk. Don’t say, “We need to talk”. He’ll be worried, he won’t sleep. What has happened? So, I tell men every part of a woman’s body is sensitive to touch. So when you are trying to make love to a woman, you don’t have to go straight to the main organs. You can touch her hair, it’s part of her. You can touch her back, her shoulders. All part of her body is soft. A woman’s body is like 10 times softer than a man’s own. A man only has feelings in one part of his body, the rest, has no feelings. Church Gist. So, a man is working on his laptop, the woman wants to make a move and she is touching his hair, he says, “Any problem, you can see I’m working, I’m busy now”. Because she is touching him like a woman. No! Don’t touch my hair, it’s only one place that has feeling, go straight to the point…so, number one awareness, that’s what we’ve done already. You’ll realize that every time you see a conflict, except the person has mental issues. If he is a normal human being, they are looking for a felt need, they are trying to meet a need.
2. Acceptance.
Once you are aware of this need, the second thing is to accept the need, it’s to accept the need. Now that I’m aware that my wife needs to talk, I’ve accepted it and I’m not fighting it, In fact, I’m developing my communication skills. Women like as many details as possible. Unfortunately for men, men’s brains are not wired for details, again this is very important. That’s why if you ask a man, how did the day go? What did your friend say? He doesn’t tell you everything that was said, he tells you what he has summarized the statement to. “What did your friend say?” He’s going abroad. That’s not what he said, he has explained why, he has explained why, he has explained the situation, he has explained what is happening in his office, he has explained what’s happening in the Country, but the man just summarized it in one sentence. If you ask a woman, What did your friend say? She’ll say, “Hmm sit down” She’s going to tell you what was said and what was not said and what she assumes because her mind picks details. Her mind is wired for details. A man’s mind is not wired for details at all. A man’s mind is wired for vision. Church Gist. That’s why if you are here as a man, one of the major things you must provide in a family is vision. You are wired for it. Everything about a man is for vision. Especially the young men that are single here, you even need vision more than you need provision. A man is wired for vision. Scientifically, they found out, by the way, most times when I teach I give both science and scriptures and statistics. Scientifically, they found out that men see better on a straight line than women can. Men can look straight because the ancient men were largely hunters. They must be able to see the prey from a very far distance. Men see better on a straight line, they are wired for vision. They also found out that women don’t see very strongly on a straight line, but they see with the side of their eyes because most times, those women were gatherers or they were family-oriented women, they had 5 or 6 children. A woman must be able to sit in one spot and be able to see all her children playing around at the same time. So she could see from the corner of her eyes. Most men don’t know that women can see from the side of their eyes. Women can.
Every time you are with your wife and you are on your phone chatting, she’s reading your chat. Sorry ladies, I’m revealing your secret. Every time you are sitting beside your wife and you are on your phone chatting, she’s looking straight but she’s reading your chat. She’s saying, “Ehen, you are going out by 4 p.m. today, where are you going”? She’s looking straight but it’s your chat she’s seeing. That’s why all women that have gossiped to their husbands before, your husband frustrates the gossip because most times a woman can check people out without turning. She’s looking straight but she’s checking the guy out. You see that guy there, he’s looking at us, she’s looking straight. Two girls are talking, the guy is here (the other way). “Hope he doesn’t want to come here”. The moment they want to join a man into that gossip, you say look at that man, he’s by the right, the man (would turn), “Where is he”, he’s going to turn his full head and women don’t understand. They say, “Don’t look, don’t look”. Church Gist. We can’t see from the corner of our eyes. Every time I go to a store, maybe when I’m even abroad and I go to a Walmart or something and a couple is together, usually, women recognize me first and the woman is saying, “Is that Pastor Kingsley”…and she’s talking to her husband, I know that the husband would soon spoil this gossip because she is able to keep a straight face. Look at what she’s looking at but she’s talking about me, “Is that Pastor Kingsley”. The moment she tells her husband, I know her husband is going to turn. Because he can’t see from the side of his eyes. I’m looking at them and he would turn and check, I’ll now wave to them, it’s me. He’ll spoil the gossip because he can’t look from the corner of his eyes. A lot of times, men think they are the ones who see the woman first. She saw you first. She’s the one that made you see her because she can see from the corner of her eyes. So acceptance makes you begin to adjust.
3. Appreciate.
Once you are ‘aware’, the second one is ‘accept it’ you are no more trying to change this person because that’s where conflict gets tough because you are trying to change people. They found out that about 80 percent of the differences or behavior of your partner is not going to change. Church Gist. So it’s you that will change, they won’t change. So you accept it then you begin to appreciate it. You begin to appreciate that this man acts this way. He’s so work oriented but that also means he is a good provider. You don’t want a lazy guy. You begin to look for the good sides, for the good sides of her behavior. There’s always a positive side. You begin to appreciate it.
4. You begin to adjust.
So you adjust for the person.
5. You alternate.
Part of what the differences are for is that it actually strengthens us, not weakens us. The fact that we are seeing from two different perspectives actually strengthens us and after a while what happens is that you rub off on each other. So, that guy that talks a lot that marries a woman that does not talk, after a while, they rub off. The woman starts to talk more, the man begins to learn to listen more. If a saver marries a spender, like in my own marriage, I was the spender, my wife was the saver. My wife can save, how many people have…if you have married a saver, you know savers. They price everything, they don’t buy. Savers never spend anything. Spenders spend what they don’t have. They say anything they like, they say, “Give me two, I’ll be paying small small.” Spenders are owing many people. People spenders are owing, they should form an association. (Association of people being owed by Brother John). Spenders marry savers and after a while, they will start rubbing off on each other. The saver will start to spend a bit after living with the spender for a while because she’ll be saying, “I’m saving everything, he’s just enjoying life, let me kuku enjoy small”. She’ll start spending small. After a while too, the spender will start seeing the benefit of saving. That’s what helped me in my own marriage. I was a spender, I had no problem making money, it’s just that I spent it faster than I made it. Church Gist. Every once in a while I’ll say, “I need money”. My wife will say, “How much?” I’ll say, “I need 500K (thousand)”. She would say, “I’ll give you”. I’ll say, “Aha, there’s money in this house”. “I need money”. She will say, “How much?” I’ll say, “300K (thousand)”. She would say, “I’ll give you”. I’ll say, “I thought this is all that is”. When we have finished talking, I discovered that there is a benefit of having money. I’ve told Nigeria, to stop borrowing from China and borrow from my wife. She has money. She saves. No matter what’s going on, if this world is ending, everybody is dying, go and meet savers because savers have something because they don’t spend all their money. After rubbing off with her, now I’m a better saver after many years of marriage and she, too now, she’s a better spender. So, the perspective, what this thing is supposed to do for you is next time there’s a serious conflict before you start arguing, you will listen to what the felt need is. What’s the person really saying?
A lot of times, men don’t know that even the argument is not about the topic. It’s another thing. I didn’t have time to go into that today on communication. I tell men all the time when women talk to you, women are not always talking about the facts. Women are actually talking about their feelings. So women talk based on their feelings. Men on the other hand talk based on facts. I have 7 D’s, I teach men for communication with women. I have 7 C’s I teach women for communication with men. So if a woman says for instance, you don’t love me, one of the D’s is don’t debate, a woman is never calling you to debate. But fortunately for men because we are fact-based. When you tell a man, “You don’t love me”, he will just enter a debate mood, he’ll say, “Good afternoon fellow debaters, panel of judges, my exciting audience and the ever-accurate time keeper, I’m here to defend the motion that I don’t love this woman. In 1982, with all the women in our school, I picked only you and you say I don’t love you. Last month, your sister was getting married and I bought Aso-ebi and you say I don’t love you.” You’ll enter debate mode and after finishing, you’ll say, “With this few points of mine”. He doesn’t know that she doesn’t need a debate. What she’s saying is I don’t feel loved and what you need to do is not to debate her but to assure her, “Baby you know I love you, you are the most important thing to me. Even this job, if you say I should not go again, I won’t even go”. She knows that’s not the truth. You see because men don’t understand. Church Gist. When women tell men to be honest, men don’t understand what that honesty means, it’s not that type. She’s okay for you to tell her that kind of lie. She doesn’t mind when you tell her, “look, I’ll ditch this job for you”. That’s what she wants she’ll say, “Be telling me”. She’ll still kick you out to go to work because you have to pay bills. She needs to know that she’s very important or the most important thing to you at the time. So she’s not saying factually that you don’t love her, she’s saying, “I don’t feel loved”. So it is not a call for debate. Never debate a woman. If you debate a woman, you’ll never win because it’s not even on the same topic. She’s talking about feelings, you’re talking about facts. That’s why most times, when a man has finished arguing with a woman, he doesn’t even know what the argument was. “What topic were we even in?” Why because she has 7 lanes. She can move from this one to this one. When you are talking to a woman, you have to be very careful because you don’t even know where we started or where we are ending because she has a lane, she changes lane. Among women, it is common because they just gist and they enter different topics. Men are not like that if they are talking about a topic, “Let’s finish this topic”. Praise God!
I’ll say this story in closing, I traveled to Dubai one time, I and my wife. I’m a football person, so I went to watch Champions League on TV, Dubai is about 3 hours ahead of Nigeria in terms of time. So normal time, the match ends by 10 p.m. so in Dubai time it was ending by 1 a.m. So after the match in my viewing center, I was going back to my hotel, I like sitting in front of cars, so I sat in front with the taxi driver. So as we were going, this guy was chewing gum in the car, this is the most irritating gum chewing you’ve ever seen. It was loud and annoying and he was shaking his head. What kind of irritating nonsense is this one and I thought he would soon stop, maybe because I just entered. He continued, shaking his head, I said what kind of behavior is this one, I began to give him customer service coaching, “You can’t do this in front of your client, this is not professional”. I began to give him all my life coaching knowledge. After talking, he interrupted me at some point and said, “He’s normally on night shift” which means he starts from 12 midnight to 6 a.m. and this means he sleeps during the day but on this particular day he didn’t sleep. So as he’s driving me now, he’s sleepy, that’s why he’s chewing the gum and shaking his head. You see, the moment I heard perspective. I thought I couldn’t take it but when I knew this gum is what is saving our lives, I said “Be chewing, I want to be hearing you louder, be chewing, if you have give me I’ll chew with you. We must stay alive till we get to where we are going to”. So there are many things your partner is doing that you think you can’t cope with. The moment you have perspective, you say, “He’s not a husband,” but has he ever seen a good husband? If his father beats his mum and he is only shouting at you, it’s an improvement. Men learn more from what they see than what they hear. If his father had 3 wives and he has only you, it is an improvement. You don’t expect him to know how to treat a woman. He may never have attended a seminar like this before. He has no good experience. If your wife was molested when she was young, it will affect her behavior. If in your wife or husband’s first relationship, somebody took all her money, it’s going to affect how she relates with money, when she doesn’t get some figures, when some things don’t line up. If they were betrayed and then you say you were going to be around by 2 and you come by 2:30, they’ll wonder where you went for the 30 minutes. If you have perspective, some things you think you can’t take, you’ll be more tolerant, you’ll be more understanding, knowing that this person doesn’t hate me, they are just trying to meet felt need.
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