I am talking to someone now, but he keeps hesitating to commit. He talks about everything else, but he won’t indulge me whenever I try to steer the conversation in that direction. I have no idea why, and it has been almost a year. It is making me anxious, tired, and angry.

I am 32, with a job I would consider good because it pays my bills comfortably. Today I am 32, then I will be 33, and before I know it, I will be 40 with no husband. I am not desperate, but I want to have my own family too. I want to be a mother, a wife, and a driven career woman. I’m pretty and smart, yet I’m single, not even with a boyfriend.

In my family, you barely hear news of good marriages. I used to laugh whenever people mentioned it, and I would point to myself and say, “It can never be me.” But now it is me. It is me, going from one prayer camp to another, asking God to help me find my person. Sometimes I think about it so much that a tiny part of me starts believing marriage in my family is forbidden.

I want to understand whether doing well and having a good life as a woman means I do not deserve love.

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I dated my first boyfriend for almost a decade, and after everything we had been through, we had to split when he cheated on me just as we were preparing to get married. When I found out, he did not beg me the way I expected him to. He simply stood there, neither denying what he had done nor asking for forgiveness. As I was leaving, the only thing he begged me for was not to tell anyone he had cheated on me. He wanted to protect his good name.

Today, he is married to the woman he cheated on me with, and they are doing very well. That could have been my life. I could have been the one wearing the ring. I could have been the mother of his child.

My next boyfriend, Quartey, was jobless when we started dating. He was only running a small one-man business. I accompanied him to business meetings, personally reviewed his CV, prepared him for job interviews, and even helped him choose what to wear. Eventually, he got a well-paying job with a multinational company, and we were both excited about the future.

He was an emotional rollercoaster, but I loved him to bits. We dated for five years, and while we were well advanced with our marriage preparations, he broke up with me. His reason was that I was too good for him. How on earth was I too good for him? He also said he was not ready for the next big step, so he walked away.

The next man I tried to date came into my life at a time when I simply did not have the emotional strength to love anyone properly, so I was never fully committed to the relationship. Bismark was everything I could have asked for, but I was too broken to be with him. By the time I had healed and was ready to give us a real chance, he told me he had moved on.

He said, “I may regret this because you are a great person, but I have moved on. I also cannot trust you.” He wanted us to remain familiar with each other, but he would not commit. That is not the kind of relationship I want.

In every single relationship, just before they broke up with me, I was about to give them a gift. Even then, I still handed them the gifts and walked away with a broken heart.

The man I am talking to now, I do not know what his problem is. Or maybe I am the one with the problem. Or maybe it really is the curse in my family working tirelessly against me.

I believe I am peaceful, and I hate drama. I believe in resolving issues calmly and having difficult conversations instead of avoiding them. I am a great conversationalist, a lover girl, and emotionally intelligent. I do not party, and I am selfless, kind, and a minimalist. Even wearing makeup feels like too much work for me. I am not dependent on a man, and I never want to be a burden because I do not even know how to ask for help, although I secretly love being taken care of sometimes. Maybe that is the typical first-child syndrome.

I Called My Girlfriend And Another Man Answered The Phone

But I am tired. I need rest for my emotions. I need a shoulder to lay my head on. I want a man who will allow me to be in my soft girl era and make me feel safe enough to be completely vulnerable. I want a kind and ambitious man whose leadership I can trust and follow, and whose vision I can support in my own little way.

Is that really too much to ask? I look at pictures with my friends, and I am the only unmarried one. All I seem to attract are married men pursuing me or eligible bachelors who only want friends-with-benefits arrangements.

I deserve stability too. I deserve love too. But how do I find it? Where are the men? Or is this really what the curse is about?

—Maria

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