When Fela Durotoye speaks, wise men listen. When he writes a book, intelligent folks go out of their way to get it. Fela Durotoye is one man you know loves this country and that he has shown in the quality of his thoughts for our growth and development, in the frequency of his words to ensure we are all listening and in his persistent actions to bring about change in Nigeria. In his usual holistic style, he goes beyond the obvious rhetoric to identify Marriage as the problem even with our national development. If the excerpt below is anything to go by, then I’d stake everything to say we have in our hands one of the best books ever written on the subject and probably the best by a Nigerian. It comes with numbers, statistics, facts and essentially the truth. I love numbers because even if men and women lie, you’ll always trust numbers to stay real. Here is where Fela Durotoye has kept me salivating for more. Can September 11 come soon enough please?
Take a bite off the book below…
Fela Durotoye... For the cause of a better people and a greater nation
MR. FANTASTIC
Many marriages have crashed after successful weddings.
This is because the wedding is not the marriage. The best that anybody can do for you is to come to your wedding but it is your responsibility to deal with your marriage.
You are better off not getting married than getting divorced.
The purpose of this book (Mr Fantastic) is to ensure that fewer marriages are dissolved because the link between strong marriages and strong nations is so critical. For me, this book is an important tool in ensuring that fewer marriages break up because the family unit is the smallest unit in a nation.
Many people are in a ‘manage,’ not a marriage. They are only tolerating each other not celebrating each other. A successful marriage is where you can’t wait to get home; an unsuccessful marriage is where you can’t wait to get out.
In a successful marriage, home is your favourite place to be. Please note that ‘home’ here is not the same thing as ‘house.’ House is where you live; home is what you live in. A house is built by sand, cement and water while a home is built by Love, peace and joy.
So, how do we go from having ‘manages’ to have ‘marriages?’ It is not just the capacity to get people to stay together that is the important thing but also the capacity to get people to love being together. And so, if we can build strong marriages, we will build strong families; if we build strong families, we will have strong generations.
It is sad that some people tend to take their careers more seriously than their marriage, but the truth be told; there can hardly be any true career success if your marriage has failed. Marital challenges have been known to ruin the best career opportunities.
As you read this book, it is one thing for you to know how to assess this guy; it is another thing not only to be able to assess yourself but also to be able to ask yourself if he finds you intolerable or compatible?
I think that in the course of marriage, there is nothing that cannot change. But to bet that something will change may be asking for much. Always ask yourself, what if it doesn’t change? If the situation remains the same, what are you going to do? One of the most interesting things people say after marriage is, “He saw me the way I was and he married me that way, now he is demanding that I change.”
Divorce rate in America (according to Gulnar Nugman of the Heritage Foundation) is 54.8%. They say that 50% of the marriages end in divorce in the first five years.
It is amazing that even in the Christendom, 51% of the marriages end up in divorce. In 64% of all the marriages that end up in divorce, the partners were from broken homes. So there is a very strong chance that if your marriage breaks up your children’s marriage will break up.
Interestingly, it has also been shown that 80% of the young people who are in prison, come from broken homes. So, the chances that if your marriage breaks up, your children will go to prison or not be successful in life is very high.
It is unthinkable how strong the link between successful marriages and national development is, yet more people still go into marriage thinking, “I think he loves me,” “He is just so fine,” and all those superficial things. And then when its ‘crying time’ as they say, they begin to talk about the things that they knew were there but they didn’t think were important enough.
A broken marriage does not just hurt the persons involved, it hurts everyone; their children (if they do have children), their parents, their siblings and even their friends. This is the reason why parents need to buy this book for their children; it is the reason why friends need to give this book as a gift to a friend who is dating or considering a serious relationship – this is the guide.
This book is basically to get you to shine-your-eye now! So that you can see clearly.
This is the most critical time to stand in integrity and ask, “Can I really live with this?”
Marriages do not fail because of the things you can live with, marriages fail because of the things you can’t live with. Most times, people knew they couldn’t live with certain things but they said maybe they could.
When One and One remains One.
These 17 key areas you are about to read will help you discover so many things about your man. It generated the most comments on my facebook page when I put up an abridged version as a note. Interestingly, the comments were from both male and female readers. One of the most reoccurring questions I got was, “Fela, how do I know if the guy I’m with is THE RIGHT MAN?”
God has helped me to develop the 17 qualities of this dream guy. I’m sure you’ll be totally blown away by this Mr. Fantastic!
I recognize that there’s no WRONG man, but the one you’re with may not be the RIGHT ONE FOR YOU.
So as you read, ladies, evaluate the qualities your guy has and guys, (you thought I didn’t expect you to read it?) check yourself to determine how well you rate and make sure you give scores and determine where you fit in at the end of the book.
I have developed a model which we will use to effectively assess your relationship.
There are 4 ways to assess each point and you can only choose one of the four; the one which best describes your man.
I: Intolerable (It is absolutely bad, terrible): Score: 1
T: Tolerable (It is bad, but I can live with it. I hope it changes though): Score: 2
C: Compatible (It is okay, I don’t have a problem with it): Score: 3
A: Admirable (It is so great, I need to step up to catch up): Score: 4
So as we deal with each point, write either I (1), T (2), C (3) or A (4) and score accordingly.
Are you ready to find out if you’re with Mr. Fantastic?
Let’s go.
FelaDUROTOYE
2011
Fela-Tara Durotoye
Here are the details for FD’s new book, Mr Fantastic.
The book will be launched at a colourful ceremony in Lagos on September 11, but people can pre-order copies to get a double relationship autograph from Fela and Tara.
To pre-order, call 08055617348
There will also be book signings at leading bookshops after the launch.
