This is what it takes to be a superb spouse

John Hampson Sr, a witness to Wesley's life, once bumped into the disturbing scene where John was being dragged across the room by a handful of hair, held by his wife Mary Vazeille (nickname as Molly); evidence that she definitely an abrasive personality.

One biographer stated that Molly Wesley along with Xanthippe - Socrates' wife and Job's wife in the Bible were one of the worst wives in all history.

Socrates claimed Xanthippe made him a philosopher and Wesley became a tremendous preacher, interesting!

A growing body of research has found that personality traits and romantic relationships are linked to relationship satisfaction: The negative ones are being:

Abrasion: If someone is unfriendly and rude in behaviour, we call this person abrasive. Individuals with abrasive personalities are usually harsh, blunt and critical to people who surround them.

Abrasive people tend to be perfectionists and often belittle others, giving insulting comments, either intentionally or unintentionally.

This is a character to avoid if we want to live meaningfully and enjoy our spouses and other people.

Intrusion: This is a fellow who rarely respects privacy. They wants to control everything, oversteps boundaries physically and psychologically.

It's being delicate or becoming innocuous (a behaviour like frequently questioning whereabouts or activities). An intrusive person is often intimidating and threatening, having full of unwanted communications. This is another poor behaviour.

Pensive: This is a person who's always sad and lost deeply in thoughts. It's typical melancholic behaviour. Ooh, a pensive person is wistful, having sad appearance of someone looking back and thinking "if only..."

It's a thoughtful mood centred on something good in the past that is missed or something not so good in the present that could have been better "if only" something had gone differently.

On the contrary, in order to become a superb spouse, someone enjoying their relationship, we can cultivate the virtues of:

Persuasion: This is making someone want to do or believe a particular thing. Persuasion helps to communicate needs, preferences, and values, while also respecting and understanding those of others. Persuasion techniques create trust, rapport and harmony in relationships.

Cohesion: This is a person who's closely connected to a team, spouse or a friend. That's how relationships work, we must be cohesive.

As spouses, we are cohesive by being attracted to each other's positive relationship attitudes; task cohesion comes as we are attracted to our wives or husbands because of shared commitment and values.

Attraction: Cohesiveness and persuasiveness makes a spouse attractive. An attractive personality possesses great qualities like humour, calm spirit, maturity, intelligence, loyalty, confidence, charisma and good communication. These qualities attract others, having an attractive and well-maintained appearance adds to the appeal of your personality.

Finally, to be a superb spouse you need to have great character qualities; great appearance is a bonus quality.

Amani Kyala is a counsellor, writer and teacher, +255 626 512 144