Did you read last week's life lounge dubbed FIX IT?

Quite a number of people asked me how do they keep fixing it even if it is not working?

My answer is simple. Fix it but don't die fixing it

These days many people are quick to throw their hands in despair.

Letting it go and walking away has become so fashionable that, working at our relationships and fixing the challenges is now seen as a weakness.

Hold on, but whoever said being in a relationship and juggling everything else was a perpetual party ground?

Whoever said being in a relationship or being married is child's play?

Whoever told you it was a field of "I love yous" kisses, date nights, hugs, lovemaking, endearment, tenderness, care, gifting and only beauty and fun stuff?

Well, let me announce to you, especially those of you who are yet to marry, that MARRIAGE IS LIFE. And life is not a smooth sailing ride. Life is like travelling on any road; stops, bumps, potholes, by-passes, diversions, puddles, congestions, accidents, road rages etc. That is what marriage is. You will always have issues to deal with. The best of couples you see and admire have had to keep working through all sorts of challenges to get to what you are admiring and calling "perfect couple." It is hard work and commitment.

I know you have a lot running through your mind like the many wondering calls I received last week. Edem but, people have ended up dying trying to fix it. People have become insane and living hopeless lives because they are trying to fix it. People are just existing because they are trying to fix it. People are enduring perpetual abuse all in a bid to fix it.

Is that how to fix it?
Should we fix it till we die trying?
What if it is simply not working?
Can't we just say at some point that we have had enough and can't do it anymore? Of course you can and you should say it when you have had enough. Don't die fixing it.

I understand you and I know where you are. Juggling life and enduring tortuous relationships or marriage in whatever form is crude and I do not subscribe to it.

Indeed, people have had to endure the worst forms of abuse just trying to fix it… She wanted to keep her marriage so she went to the extent of begging her husband's concubine to plead on her behalf so her husband can at least have sex with her just once in a while. It had been well over a year since he touched her. The concubine made her clean her toilet, iron and mop her floor in order to grant her request. Why? All in a bid to fix it.

In another instance, a wife agreed for her husband to hang a huge portrait of his girlfriend in their bedroom just to fix it. She literally died every day from that mental torture until her aunty realised she was losing her mind and got her support.

She was laid off her job due to depression which made her make grave mistakes that cost the reputation of the bank she worked for. Why? Just to fix it.

This man watches a man pick up and drop off his beautiful wife whenever he wills because he had lost his job and for three years and counting, he has been unable to provide for his wife and their two children.

He is ashamed and humiliated and dies a bit every day from his situation. He feels he is not man enough and has been considering suicide until we got him help. All of it in a bid to fix it.

This lady will do just anything but the right thing to fix a toxic marriage. She went to the extent of granting her husband his wish of getting him three prostitutes on his birthday to give him a treat in bed as his birthday gift from his lovely wife. So, she gets the girls, screens them, books a hotel and she sits to watch her husband have the time of his life. She says while he was at it, he kept screaming "thank you baby, I will love you forever." He was a psycho who damaged her psychologically and took her self-worth and esteem away. She has been a focused, high achieving woman who fell prey to this psycho. She would have died trying to avoid any form of confrontation. All in a bid to fix it. Her mother visited because she became suspicious and forcefully saved her daughter and grandchildren from this death trap.

People are living-dead just in a bid to fix it.

People have had to quit good paying jobs just to please their partners in a bid to fix it.

People have had to forsake their own parents and siblings trying to fix it.

People have disrespected and disregarded their very own existence, just in a bid to fix it. And yes! People have died trying to fix it.

Is that how to fix it? At the detriment of your own life?

You may have seen all the red flags before permanently committing but you ignored them for whatever reason. We won't go into those details now, we are here already. The red flags you ignored have now metamorphosed into red hurdles and mountains to be surmounted and we have to deal with them. What do we do?

My answer remains the same. Don't die fixing it.

By all means fix it. Give it a chance, find help if need be but don't die fixing it.

When fixing it questions your very existence…
When fixing it makes you lose your own self-worth…
When fixing it begins to make you wonder if life is worth living …
When fixing it becomes toxic…
When fixing it becomes slavery…
When fixing it becomes enduring abuse of all forms…
When fixing it becomes life threatening…

When fixing it becomes all the above and worse, simply know that at that point you are no longer fixing it. You are failing yourself.

You are telling yourself, you are nothing without your partner so they can do with you as they please. Nobody should ever allow anyone to do with them as they please.

No human being should ever have such power over another human being.

Don't die fixing it.

Seek help on how to find proper closure to situations that cannot be fixed.

Spiritual, psychological, medical, legal and all forms of help exist and are available and closer than you ever imagined.

There is help and support to make you see beyond the challenge and appreciate life for all what God created it to be and for all it is worth.

Don't die fixing it.

Edem Knight-Tay is Programmes Director and host of Home Affairs at Joy 99.7 FM.

She is strong-willed, confident, empathetic, results-oriented and a strong advocate for thriving families. She has been married for 19 years with 4 adorable children.

Edem has been a media practitioner for about 2 decades working in various capacities.

She lives by the Biblical principles “love your neighbour as yourself” and “do unto others what you would like them to do unto you.”