Love spelled as acceptance
My name is Peace Akan Sebastian. I am a healing family life educator. In case you are wondering what’s the purpose of this column, let me just say I am concerned about the building of our society from behind the curtains of our homes. My articles seek to help make family life thrive, not just survive or be in a struggling mode.
As Fawn Weaver says, “The difference between an ordinary marriage and an extraordinary marriage is in giving just a little extra every day, as often as possible for as long as we both shall live.”
Acceptance is one of the bedrocks for a thriving intimate marriage relationship. Acceptance in marriage is recognizing your spouse’s failing and making the choice to walk side by side with your spouse intentionally separating your spouse from their failure. In marriage, if care is not taken, it very easy to focus on each other’s mistakes and become less appreciative of your spouse. Acceptance is a big sacrifice to remain calm and persistent even in difficult situations and make the decision to bring out the best from your spouse so that you can both find fulfilment.
Have a big enough heart to love unconditionally and a broad enough mind to embrace the difference that makes each of you unique.
The following story is about a German couple, Moses and Frumtje. Moses was a young, short and grotesque hunchback while Frumtje was a very lovely-looking lady. During a visit to her father, who was a merchant in Tambirg, Moses fell hopelessly in love with her. As to be expected, Frumtje was totally repulsed by his misshapen appearance and refused to grant him audience.
When it was time to for him to leave the merchant’s house, Moses gathered his courage and climbed the stairs to her room to speak to her one more time. She was a vision of heavenly beauty and he was depressed because of her refusal to look at him. After several attempts at conversation, he shyly asked: ‘Do you believe marriages are made in heaven?’ She answered, ‘Yes. Do you?’ But she still refused to look at him. ‘Yes, I do,’ he replied. ‘You see, in heaven at the birth of each boy the Lord announces which girl he will marry. When I was born my future bride was pointed out to me and the Lord told me my wife will be humpbacked. A humpback beautiful woman would be a great tragedy. Give me the hump and let her have the beauty.’
When she heard this, Frumtje lifted up her eyes and looked into his eyes for the first time and something deep stirred in her soul. She reached out and gave Moses her hand and later became his devoted wife.
As we can see, in spite of Moses’ ugliness he ended up marrying a very beautiful lady who was able to accept him and see beyond his external feature.
Another way of spelling love is accepting your spouse with their strengths and weaknesses.
What exactly is acceptance? Acceptance doesn’t mean resignation; it means understanding that something is what it is and that there’s got to be a way through it. Acceptance is when you know that your spouse may never change but you learn to change the way you relate with your spouse. In the story above, Moses didn’t change but Frumtje’s perspective of him changed. The change in perspective and acceptance changed everything. Love spelled as acceptance is accepting your spouse with their strengths, weaknesses and struggles and still loving them and wanting to stay committed to them and looking for opportunities to create a middle ground through which you both can better each other.
Love spelled as acceptance is expressing in words and action firm commitment to your spouse in spite of their shortcomings.
Love spelled as acceptance is staying with what you can’t change in your spouse and getting coping skills to relate positively with your spouse.
Love is spelled acceptance when you accept your spouse to be the best choice in every condition of your life.
