Two weeks before our wedding, it felt like I was making a mistake. The marriage, the vows, the journey of forever. Everything became so scary for me. I needed assurances. A screaming voice that would calmly tell me, “It’s alright. Everything would be fine.”
I was scared to open up to friends or family. I wanted to talk to my mom but I already knew her answer, “Pray. Just pray. Everything would be alright.” My dad was busy being a dad so I didn’t feel it was right to talk to him.
I called my husband-to-be, now my husband on the phone. I asked how he felt going into something that would last forever. He didn’t think twice about it. He told me he was fine and couldn’t wait for me to become his wife. He made me feel like my feelings were evil. How could I develop cold feet for a man whose feet were hot and ready to run?
I hushed the voice inside of me and decided to go on with the wedding. The night before the wedding, I prayed a long prayer asking God to wake up from his slumber and calm the raging storms that were threatening to drown me. I rehearsed the vows. I imagined my husband saying the vows back to me. Somehow, it calmed my spirit. I had a beautiful night’s sleep but immediately I saw the light of the morning of my wedding day, my heart started racing.
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People who didn’t know what I was going through rushed to my room to turn me into a bride. The makeup woman didn’t stop brushing my face. I sat wishing she could brush my confusion away but every stroke of her brush reminded me of the journey ahead of me. My mom said I looked like a gift. My sister told me she had never seen me this beautiful. My heart shouted, “Here comes the bride who doesn’t want to be a bride.”
My mom and my aunt came to stand behind me and prayed in tongues before covering my face with the veil. From there, everything moved so fast. Like a movie on Forward Skip, we juggled and moved so fast to the point of the vow. I said mine slowly. I savoured the words. I marinated on them until I could taste the words coming out of my mouth; “For better for worse, in sickness and in health…until death do us part.”
The night after our wedding, I looked up from the bed I was sleeping in and saw my husband’s face. I made a joke, “So we are here. What’s next?” “What’s next is that you’re my wife. We are starting a family,” he answered.
Three years later, I know the reason it felt so wrong, the whole marriage journey. My husband is a good man on some chosen days—twice a week I think. The rest of the days, I can barely tolerate him. He gets angry over little things. I asked him to help me choose between two dresses and he shouted, “At your age, you don’t know what you want? Go and sleep if you can’t choose what to wear.” I wanted to dress for him but he shot me down.
Some days, he will leave money on the table for me. Sometimes he would go for a month without putting money on the table. I complained. He told me he didn’t bring me to his house to feed me like a pig but if you look at it critically, I’m the one feeding him. He was tiny when we got married. Now, his ring no longer fits but he doesn’t pay for what he eats. When it comes to money, he wants us to split. When it comes to chores, he’s the man.
If you see my husband smiling with me and being kind then it means he wants sex. He takes sex from me the way strange men take from the prostitute. If I compare the two, I would like to believe the prostitutes are having it better. Because they get paid for what those strangers do to their bodies. I get none yet I labour for him and also feed him on top.
In my lonely moments, I’ve cried for a baby. I tell myself, “If I had a baby, I would use him as a cover-up. When he’s out there putting his fingers into life, this baby would be my distraction. I will sing for him and listen to him cry. That would keep me busy.”
My husband, the man I vowed to love through thick and thin tells me he’s not ready for a baby. So he withdraws when he’s close to the point of release. He warns me not to get pregnant until he’s ready.
Where’s the love? Where’s the spirit of the vow we took? But I don’t blame him so much for who we have become. I blame myself for marrying a stranger. I believed every love story started at a point where the two were total strangers. My belief made me a liar so here I am.
We met one late afternoon and talked until the sunset. He proposed to me a week later and asked me to say yes. I said yes because he was the man. We dated for only two months before he travelled abroad for three years. I was faithful to him. I waited for him because he made promises. By the time he was coming back to Ghana, we had already made wedding preparations.
I told him recently, “I don’t feel loved. Do you remember how things were the first month we met? The way we talked until the night settled into dawn? The way you held my hands and pulled me closer? How we talked about the future with smiles and glee? I missed those days. We are not too old to show love to each other. The way you sometimes treat me, it hurts. Can we change something around here?”
He called it nagging and turned his back on me. According to him, he’s loving me the best way every husband can love a wife. I’m only complaining because he’s making fair demands out of me. The fact that I pay for food. The fact that we split through the middle. But that’s not my concern. If that will bring the love I need into our marriage, I will labour from dusk till dawn to ensure I have love. He didn’t understand me so I told him, “I’m looking for love. If you can’t provide, we haven’t come too far, we can always go back.”
He shouted divorce when I was only using it to paint the absence of love in our marriage. He told my dad that I said I wanted a divorce. My dad called to whip me in line. My mom called and prayed the spirit of divorce out of my heart. She said, “Look up to God alone. Don’t give the enemy a chance in your marriage.”
She’s getting it wrong. The enemy is the one I’m living with. He’s the reason I’m here ranting instead of concentrating on my young marriage but that’s what happens when a woman is starved.
Don’t get me wrong, marriage is a good thing. Mostly, when stories like mine are shared, people say, “I’m scared of marriage because of all these things happening in marriage.” I don’t mean to scare you. I only need a place to rant about my troubles. Things may change tomorrow if I persist and I may not come back to update you so you may never know.
I’ve given myself up to a year. I’ve drawn a road map that should lead me to the change I need. If it doesn’t work, God will be my witness and the courage to push me to send his drink to his family. Everything is well-planned and written. There are people I’m inviting into our marriage. There are things I’m going to do as a wife. There are things I will ask him to change. There’s a portrait he has to live up to. There are conversations we will have. When all that fails to yield the needed results, I sing, “Divorce, she wrote.”
—Asantewaa
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You don’t need to keep quiet and die in silence dear. Let your family hear from you.
Dear sist. Try and see a counsellor so he could be invited over. The help of a psychologist will also do. Divorce on my side is a big 👎….. best wishes dear…
Your road map should include pulling away from him, first emotionally, and – if it becomes necessary – physically, otherwise known as separation. Let’s hope he has just taken you for granted, and he’ll wake up from his selfish slumber in time, when you start implementing your plan. Patience!
Have you told your parents that he is deliberately denying you a child by withdrawing at the point of release? Be candid and open to them and to his parents as well. No parent of a married person will condone such insensitivity. Don’t be embarrassed and cover up for him otherwise the jury will always vote against you.
I support George’s ideas, distance yourself for a while, let him value your absence. there might be a change if not then take your decision, u are still young and good enough to live a happy life
At certain times, out instincts are right but we treat it as the devil pumping negetive ideas into our head. We only get to know wwe wwe right after all when it is late to draw back or make changes. I pray things fall in line and with divine intervention, you’ll smile and be happy again. All the best Asantewa.
Sorry about your challenges my dear. Take heart, all is not lost. What you’re facing are teething problems of marriage. One of the biggest issues you’re facing is your husband’s level of selfishness. He seems to to only want to take from the marriage and not give anything back. He seems to be very immature. The first thing you must do is to love yourself enough to become emotionally independent. Don’t look to him for love and affirmation. Let your God be sufficient for you. Draw closer to God and get busy with church activities by joining a group in church. When he realises you’re no longer running to him for affirmation, he may amend his ways. Secondly, both of you need to see a counselor. He needs to be spoken to. It seems as though he’s getting some bad counsel from friends. Thirdly, you need to inform your parents about his decision not to have any kids now. If he wants to remain married, he has to behave in a mature manner and take your desires into consideration. Marriage is a collaborative effort between two parties, not a place to satisfy one party’s whims and caprices. All the best, dear.