I am a thirty-eight-year-old Muslim woman who has been married for three years. And thanks be to Allah, we have a lively two-year-old boy. My husband is everything a Muslim woman might want to have in a man. He protects us and provides for us by every means possible. Though we are very much in love with each other we are polar opposites. On one hand, there is me, an introvert to the core. And on the hand, there is him, a man of the people.

I enjoy spending time by myself, but that does not mean I am lonely, as most people fail to understand. I have interesting hobbies like listening to music, reading the Quran, checking out fun things online, and watching TV. My husband, however, enjoys spending time with people, and his doors are always open to everyone in need. Because of this, I also occasionally allow myself to be sociable. I can only do the social scene occasionally because I am not the type to smile. And people tend to misread my resting -bitch-face and presume the worst of me. It used to bother me when that happened, but it doesn’t anymore.

Apart from people misjudging me, they also feel intimidated by my presence. I have encountered people from our family, and outsiders who are not able to be themselves around me. They find it difficult to talk to me. If it is something to do with a family occasion, they would work and order everyone around but not me. Even though I am not happy about it, what I don’t like at all is the name-calling and backbiting that accompany their behaviour. They also have a habit of accusing me of doing things I don’t know anything about. Of course, they can’t say those things to my face. So they do it behind my back, where I can’t defend myself.

This thing is really eating me up. Sometimes I cry when I think about it because I don’t understand why they would do these things to someone who doesn’t talk. I don’t have a lot in common with these gossip-mongers so I barely look in their direction. Yet they still find ways to drag me into their drama. My sister-in-law is one of them. She and I don’t see eye to eye. So she finds fault with everything I do. If I greet her she would complain, “The volume of your greeting is too low. It’s like you were forcing yourself to greet me.” If I try to be more audible the next time she would say, “You are shouting at me. Why are you greeting me in such an aggressive manner?”

She bad mouths me to her other siblings who live out of town, and they swallow up everything she tells them that I have done, without hearing me out. I have been through a lot because of my personality. I grew up with a father who was always caught between his love for me, and my stepmother’s constant displeasure with me. Now I am married to a man who is caught between his love for me and his sister’s disapproval of me. And at the end of the day, I always come out clean. Not that I am saying I am perfect. I am just saying I have a clean conscience because I know I am doing my best to keep the peace.

And so far all my attempts at keeping the peace blows up in my face. I would meet someone and say, “Hello, how are you? How is your family doing?” and then follow up with some chitchat. The next thing I would hear is the person going about spreading rumours, “She said this,” and “She said that.” Meanwhile, I did nothing of the sort. All I did was exchange some pleasantries. Somewhere in June, my husband had to beat up one of his colleagues for my sake. The man came to our house to accuse me and insult me for gossiping about his wife. Which was something I didn’t do. So my husband didn’t let him get away with it.

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We have a saying in Zongo communities that states, “I don’t have a head.” It means, “Whatever good I do to people, it brings me unfavourable issues.” I relate with this saying mostly because sometimes I do not know how to carry myself around people. I am always wondering what the repercussions might be. And I don’t like to deal with that kind of stress. I prefer to do things in the simplest way one can think of.

Right now, the person I am closest to is my younger brother’s wife. Why? Because we cherish and love each other so much. I always trust her to handle her marital problems in the best way that she can and I in turn never condone my brother’s misbehaviour whatsoever, toward her. She has a good relationship with my family, and we love her. Sometimes, I envy that. Because here I am, finding it hard to connect with my in-laws because I am a recluse.

If you are reading this piece and you relate to my experience, I would like to know how you handle this situation.

—Memuna

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