I was young when he found me. He was twenty-nine and I was twenty-one. He was already doing well in life—not rich but he had his own work that was doing well, lived in a beautiful place, and had a car he called his own. I was twenty-two when he asked us to marry. I thought it was a joke because we had dated for only seven months and I was still in school. I told him, “I’m not ready for obvious reasons. Let me complete school first, get a job, and get married to you.” Then he said something that didn’t go well with me. He said, “Already, I’m the one taking care of you so why don’t you let us marry so I can continue taking care of you in an official way?”

I didn’t like the way he said it. That he was taking care of me. Actually, he wasn’t the one taking care of me. He was helping out here and there but my parents were the ones taking care of me. For him to make that statement didn’t sit well with me. I wanted to walk out. I wanted to do it slowly until I finally leave the relationship. I tried but he kept coming. I intentionally did a lot of things to get him angry but he didn’t. I called every day asking for new things just to push him away. He didn’t go. He provided the ones he could provide and gave me dates for the rest.

At some point, I saw how genuine his heart was so I discussed that statement with him. He said, “But that was over a year ago. I said, “It still hurts me. You sounded boastful and I don’t want that in a man.” He said, “Sorry about that. I didn’t mean it in the way that you took it.” I forgave him and we moved on.

After school, my dad died. His death nearly broke me into pieces. I didn’t want to talk to anyone or see anyone. But he broke barriers to talk to me and was with me throughout the grieving pain. We buried my dad. I did my national service and completed. All that while, I was waiting for him to bring up the marriage discussion again but he never did. I was wondering, “Has he changed his mind? Is he seeing another person? Or he doesn’t want to marry again?” 

Then I met another man who expressed interest in me. I’d wanted to give him a chance thinking Mike wasn’t serious about me. But one day I told him, “There’s this man pestering me, should I give him a chance?” He got angry. He said a lot of things to express his anger. He said, “Go for him and leave me alone. What nonsense is that?” I said, “I’m sorry. It was a joke. It won’t happen again.” But it changed him somehow. A few months later, he brought back the marriage discussion. I accepted to marry him because I felt I was ready. 

We got married, were happy for a few months until things started changing. He started coming home very late from work. I asked questions and his answer was always the same, “I’ve been busy.” I thought that wasn’t enough. You’ll see a call on his phone and later he’ll vanish from the house and come very late in the night. I went through his phone. All those calls were coming from friends. They were the ones taking him away from me. I asked him, “You’re not happy with me?” He said, “It’s not that. You, I’m sorry. I will come home early next time.” He never changed. He always said sorry and went back doing the same thing.

He was getting closer to a certain girl in his office. He was talking to her often than it was comfortable. I wouldn’t sit down so I brought his attention to it. He said he was a new girl and needed more assistance. “Even if that’s true, it’s still extreme looking at the times that you speak with her,” I said. He responded, “I’m sorry for that. It won’t happen again.” His problem was, he was very quick to say sorry but never followed through with what he said he would do. That got me restless. 

On the other side of the coin, If I did something and he wasn’t pleased, he’ll talk for ages and nothing will calm him down. I will say “Sorry” but he won’t listen. He’ll keep talking until he himself is satisfied. One day I delayed his food for an hour. If we lived in a compound house, the whole world would have heard about us. I said sorry. He said, “Tell that to the trees. You’re sorry my foot.” When he calmed down, I said to him, “Why did you have to say all those hurting stuff to me? Even when I said I was sorry, you didn’t listen. You kept going and going and that really hurt.” He said, “I’m sorry about that.”

For a very long time, I wasn’t happy. I could see he wasn’t happy too. We were both not concentrating on the marriage. We did things selfishly and when the other partner complained, we only said sorry to each other. One day we got to the tipping point. I was pushed to the edge. My feelings went as far as thinking of divorce. Not knowing he was also thinking of divorce because he felt he wasn’t getting the best out of the marriage. One day he asked, “Are you tired of me?” the time he asked that question, we had fought and had stopped talking for days. I said, “Yeah, I’m tired of you. I’ve been thinking about divorce lately.” He said, “That makes it the two of us.”

We were quiet for a while. I was thinking of what next to say. He said, “You know what our problem is? We say a lot of sorry to each other without doing anything about what made us say sorry. We are always apologizing. We are always doing things that will make us say sorry. Can we stop saying sorry to each other? let’s try that and see.” I said, “How will that help?” He said, “Just stop doing the things that make you say sorry. I will do too. Let’s see.”

That was two years ago. Since then we’ve never fought. He had learned to be a better man and I’d learned to reciprocate his every gesture and his every move. He doesn’t go anywhere without me and doesn’t do anything without telling me. We are consciously living a life that helps our marriage to grow. The last time I asked myself, “Why did you even think of divorce in the first place?” The answer made me feel embarrassed. So the thing is, every marriage can work if partners can identify their root problem and consciously work at it. Our love for saying sorry was our undoing. When we stopped saying sorry to each other, we found our juicy spot.   

–J.A

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