How the best couples keep their intimacy alive

Stanley Byera and his wife Mary have been married for 26 years. Almost three decades. Those who have been there know it’s no joke.

Despite the ups and downs of married life, Mr and Mrs Byera are happily married. They say the secret behind their blissful relationship is the fact that they consider themselves good friends.

“We have been together all these years because we treat each other as friends,” says the mother of four as her husband nodes in agreement.

“You know when you have the best friend whom you trust, you feel free to share all your secrets with them. This is how we live and treat each other,” Stanley chips in.

Mary advises couples to be open with each other and strongly advises against hiding things from your partner. Mary also says it does not hurt to respect your partner, recalling an incidence that almost cost her her marriage. One evening after she had prepared dinner for her family, she informed her husband, at around ten, that she was going out with a friend for a drink.

Her husband declined and Mary tried to force her way out of the house. He beat her with a belt after which Mary postponed her trip. That night, an angry Mary slept in the children’s bedroom. She contemplated on the matter the following day and thought her husband would not have beaten her if she had obeyed him.

“I apologised later,” she says, adding; “Marriage is not a bed of roses.”

Stanley says he had not intended to beat his wife but her disobedience had triggered his anger.

“I did not allow her to go but she insisted and so I decided to discipline her. It was not my intention to beat her but what she did was not right. In our Haya tradition, a woman shouldn’t go for an outing at night without her husband’s permission. It is a sign of disrespect! Worse enough, she wanted to go alone. There’s no way that could have happened,” says Stanley on a serious note. “But we discussed and resolved the matter and here we are,” he adds, looking at his wife lovingly.

The couple believes lack of intimacy in marriage is largely caused by couples themselves. They say external factors’ contribution is very little. To them, unhealthy intimate relationships happen because couples do not treat each other as friends.

Mary says another ingredient to keep the fire burning is to never remind each other of previous mistakes. Instead, these should make the relationship stronger.

Philbert and Winifrida

Philbert Komu, a lecturer at Dar es Salaam University and his wife Winifrida have been married for eight years and have been blessed with three children.

Komu says committing is a strong decision that requires not only the maturity of the body, mind and soul but also a strong and sustainable socio-economic establishment.

“Unfortunately, most people marry prematurely or just because everyone else does. Some certainly because of age and sometimes they have a partner they can hardly wish to lose. Sometimes people marry because of external pressure such as pregnancy, parents, friends and the quest to have children.”

Komu agrees that living perfectly peaceful throughout marriage is a rare thing. “The expected marital pleasures and happiness could so soon turn into pain and sorrow. How long marriages survive depends on how mature the couples are equipped in handling intimate crises,” he says.

Komu is of the view that one of the basic intimate problems in marriage is rooted in the choice of partners.

He says it is common for most young men to get married to the young women they call “wife material” basing on behaviour while their hearts and sexual desires lie heavily on some other women’s physiological features. Such marriages are full of betrayals, cheating, fading love, and disputes. Such a dishonest behaviour can be a source of breaking marriages, says Komu.

His wife Winnie, an English teacher at Atlas Secondary School concedes. She says intimacy in marriage gets jeopardised by couples who have had multiple relationships that they are not willing to let go.

She also blames extended family for having a share in killing intimacy in marriage. “Actually, in-laws have played a great role in disconnecting married couples and raising an unnecessary competition between common love and intimate love. Couples are given less room to think of their intimate life when relatives frequently bring in their troubles with the assumption that one or the other is blocking their long time established relationship.”

The tendency of becoming so attached to a particular lifestyle can also be a source of problems in marriage. Too much attachment to technology can reduce a couple’s time for each other and diminish their chance of warming up their intimacy.

“We have had several moments of misunderstanding and miscommunication with my wife because of social media. She was so much into Instagram that she couldn’t think of anything else. She would wake up in the middle of the night to peruse on Instagram. I eventually smashed her phone,” recalls Komu.

Winnie did not believe her eyes as she watched the phone fall into pieces. “He was very angry. I was scared. I had woken up to breastfeed the baby and I could not fall back to sleep so I decided to check my phone.”

Winnie says what her husband did was fair because she had been addicted to Instragram and he was trying to protect their marriage.

“The following day we sat and resolved the problem. I gave her a new phone after a month with conditions attached,” says Komu.

Erick and Joyce

Erick Chrispin and Joyce have been married for four years. Erick is a motivational speaker while his wife is a police officer.

Erick thinks most intimate issues germinate from disappointments in marriage. He says when couples marry, they each have a lot of expectations. Unfortunately each focuses more on receiving from their partner than giving. They forget that for one to get they must give. Going against this rule makes each of them disappointed.

“The outcome of this disappointment is a diminishing intimacy between couples. And in a marriage without intimacy, a lot of things happen that kill the love between couples. Instead of enjoying marriage they start tolerating each other.”

Erick and his wife Joyce believe that intimate issues and unmet needs are the major factors why people divorce.

“If one partner expects to find comfort in the marriage but misses it, they may choose to leave and find it somewhere else. Ultimately, divorce may be the final decision to make,” says Erick.

Joyce says couples should consider repositioning themselves to what they had been doing to each other before marriage and revive those habits in marriage.

“Most couples love each other more during courtship and they invest more in whatever will make their partners love them during this period. When they enter marriage they probably feel they have graduated from courtship and need no more of what they had been giving each other before. This is where disappointment starts leading to intimate issues.”

Wilhelm and Caroline

Wilhelm Oddo, an IT expert, says to survive, couples need good connection and understanding of each other for this creates a bond between them.

“Frankly speaking, I wouldn’t like to be with someone who has problems in communicating her emotions and I am sure many people feel the same. People with problems in communicating are cold and distant in romantic relationship. Speaking of marriage, it is a life time commitment and one has to make the right decision before doing it,” says the father of two who has been married for two years.

“We too have ups and downs but what we do is talk. We choose to communicate in each and everything. Our ups and downs are more of contradictions on ideas since we are in the same field doing the same thing every day.”

Their line of work makes them busy even at night since they work anywhere. “We do brainstorming together and sometimes as work partners we don’t agree in some things and as a result we go with that anger home which ends up affecting our children.”

Oddo loves cooking and he doesn’t mind washing the dishes, something that endears him to his wife.

“She loves it especially when I cook for her. She used to enjoy my cooking in college,” Oddo says.

He feels good participating in everything and taking care of his children and wife is his top priority and responsibility. The same applies to his wife and this brings them closer as a family.

“There is no need of having division of roles in marriage. What we need is to understand each other and help one another for better and for worse.”

Oddo’s wife, Carolyne Ekyarisiima, says the way her husband helps her with house chores makes her feel special given that in many African families, men don’t even step in the kitchen.

“My dad never cooked at home and told boys that domestic work was for women. Living with a husband who not only is loving but supportive and cares about my happiness feels awesome. It is a gift from God.”

“It is one thing I guess every wife would love to experience! It makes me feel more loved and cared. I know he has my back not only in other big things but also in the little things like kitchen, laundry and also taking care of the children,” Carolyne says.

Emmanuel Sylivester, who is a marriage counsellor in Dar es Salaam cites socio-economic problems as intimacy killers since a financially unstable couple is less likely to be happy.

He advises married couples to always be ready to accept negative surprises from the other and strongly decide to forget all when they fight. Above all, he says communication is key.

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