Our Marriage Community Story:

My Lover is Mine, and I am His

Our Marriage community, Marriage Ideals, is an open, learning, and growing community with the intent of strengthening the core of marriages and stimulating its growth. We do this in an environment of respect for one another. This community is not a place to show off or gain popularity. The spirit of the house is a heart seeking to be blessed and be a blessing. None of us knows it all, or will ever know it all. We are all ever learning and growing, seeking to qualify, and standing to count.

Started this page on September 14, 2014, and it has grown at an approximate rate of 30,000 likes/followers per year from inception to 2017. Not that the growth is our primary focus, we are proud to be relevant and be a difference to a great many. If there is any topic on your mind, there is the likelihood we already treated it. You will find a wealth of materials here. Feel free to scroll through. Feel free to comment and join in the discussions.

Some of the materials on the community page are also available, here, on my blog, It might be easier to search for topics here than on Facebook. A blog search button is in the top right corner. Facebook also has a search button, if you know how to maneuver around it. Your pick. We are here to serve in any and every way we can in achieving our above-stated objective. If it is a topic we have not treated or can find and is vital to you, let us know. And, we will work to close the gap.

Even though you can always send me a personal message via my blog, the best place for individual and private counseling remains the chat room on this page. Feel free to come chat, if there is an issue you’ll instead want to address in a private, one-on-one environment. You can enter the chat room using the message icon on the page (top right-hand corner, I believe). Facebook secures the chat room. What happens in the chat room stays in the chat room except you want otherwise, or there is a criminal intent involved.

The community is yours for as long as you see yourself as a member. Where is communion without the people that make it up? My place is to moderate. Having been married for more than 22 years and been counseling for close to thirty (30) years, I believe I have quite a bit to share. However, what I get to share or not is not a function of what I know or not.

It is a function of what you want. You are the driving force of this community. I can only be in sync with where you are and try to take you to where we want to go. Don’t forget it is a dance. And, there is no dance without harmony; without synchronization of the different moves. Yes, some things are unchangeable. These include the sanctity of our communion, our vision, our values, and our beliefs. Every other thing is flexible.

Never forget it is a dance. Let us make it a good dance. So, as members, you make this community what it is and has been. Its power and strength are in the participation and openness of everyone. What I have noticed is as we grew numerically, the open discussions and engagement have gone down, almost to none existence. A none participatory attitude does not have to be so.

Or, is there something I am not doing right? Please, feel free to let me know. We can only get the best from this community by asking questions. You need to squeeze every juice out of me if only it will make your life and marriage better. There is a spiritual principle that limits me from being able to bless you otherwise. So, please help me. We don’t just want to carry a name. We want to do the work.

The number is excellent and makes me proud and a thing to boast about, but that is not our reason for existence. Changed and impacted lives are our lifeblood, and bread and butter. That is the ONLY REASON WHY we are. IT IS OUR “WHY.” So, please connect and let us hand in hand, grow together.

Yes, I did mention we grew at the rate of 30,000 per year from inception till 2017. So, what has happened since 2017? One, life happened to me. So, I was pretty much off the community, in a genuinely productive capacity, from 2018 till 2020. Life happens to us all. We are all human. I guess with all I had written earlier, some probably think me a spirit.

Yes, you are not far from the truth, either. We are all spirits having a human experience. We thereby also are fallible, at least, for the time of this experience. Life does not happen to keep us down. Life happens to re-fire us. How far back you pull the string of the bow is dependent on the arrow travel you want. Life happens to sharpen our focus.

Life happens to shake away the things that can be shaken, and establish the things that cannot shake. And, if it does not kill us, it only makes you stronger. So, welcome to the second half of our journey of life. I know beyond the shadow of a doubt, it is going to be great. So, let us join hands in hands and do life together. Let us do marriage together. Let us do relationships together.

Here is a toast to your better self, our better people, a better, growing, vibrant, life-giving, and changing community.

“It takes a community to sustain a marriage.” (Dr. Juli Slattery) May we be to you that community that makes a difference in your marriage. May we help define what normal is to you. May we provide accountability for you, a pricking of the conscience, and a pointer to what is true, right, and equitable. May we provide for you encouragement on your pilgrimage.

So, help us, God.

© 2020 Akin Akinbodunse