I’ve been married for six months, and I’m finding it very hard to adjust to marriage. I love my husband. He was a darling when we were dating. He listened to me and made me a priority, which I also did in return. Nothing has changed since we got married. The only thing is that he doesn’t understand my need for space.

FOLLOW US ON WHATSAPP CHANNEL TO RECEIVE ALL STORIES IN YOUR INBOX

I’m not a touchy person. I didn’t know he was such a touchy person until we got married. When we sit on the sofa, he wants his head or legs on me. I’m okay with it sometimes, and when I’m in the mood, I’ll run my fingers through his hair, massage his head, and play with his ears. I’ll massage his feet when he places them on me. The thing is, I want it sometimes but not always and every time.

Sometimes, I want to sit alone and relax or think about something, but my husband will bump in and throw himself on me as if he were a cloth I forgot to pick up. When I don’t touch him, he’ll request it. When I say I’m not in the mood, he interprets it as there being a fight between us.

At night, he wants me in his embrace until we fall asleep. Every night. It’s tight and suffocating in there, but I have to offer myself for his embrace until he sleeps so I can wiggle my way out and fall asleep too. As I said, I have a mood for that. I want it sometimes but not every day. He’ll tell me he needs it to feel connected and also to be assured that we’re on good terms.

So it’s become a struggle for me. Some mornings, I need alone time. I want to wake up, put the back of my head on the pillow, fold my arms on my chest, and look at the ceiling while I think through life and the morning ahead. I would wake up first and be doing that, but immediately when he wakes up, he pushes his head through my arms and lets it rest there while he breathes on my face.

He spoils my morning, interrupts my day, and breaks my night in two. I didn’t catch this when we were dating. I had a say in when to visit him and when not to. I didn’t notice, but maybe I might have chosen the days I was in the mood for those things to visit him, so when he did them, I didn’t see anything wrong or suffocating about them. That aside, I always went back home, to my bed and to my sofa, so I had many days to spend time with myself.

And then there’s cooking. I’m adjusting to the fact that I have to wake up every day thinking about what to cook for my husband. That aside, it looks like I have to find myself in the kitchen every day. I didn’t do that—not even when I was living with my parents. We would cook in bulk so the rest of the days were about heating and eating. Here, at 9 p.m., he would tell me, “Some fried eggs and tea wouldn’t be bad at all, ooo.”

It comes out of nowhere, so random, but I have to get up and do it for him. That’s how he measures the depth of love. If I suggest anything different or try to put it off for another time, there would be questions asked. To avoid that vetting, I have to get up and do it. So I find myself frying popcorn at 10 p.m. because someone wants popcorn and Coke.

When they said marriage was hard, I didn’t think it was this physically hard too. I thought about the troubles that may come and go, I thought about the fights, and I thought about the probability of a husband cheating and bringing a child or a disease home. Those were the hard things I envisaged. I didn’t think of encroachment of space as part of the difficulty or the loss of me-time as part of it.

So a week ago, on a Friday after work, I went back home to my parents and slept in my bed all weekend—back of my head on the pillow, arms folded on my chest like the pope’s dead body—looked at the swirling fan, and had all the morning to myself. He called, but I looked at the phone from the corner of my eye and continued having my me-time. I don’t know how this is going to continue, and I don’t know how I’m going to adjust to this. Everyone says, “Communicate. Tell him how you feel.”

You Broke Me Into Pieces: A Daughter’s Emotional Conversation With Her Father

Communication isn’t just about talking. It’s also about how the other person receives and interprets what you say. I’ve said it. I’ve acted it, I’ve made it obvious, and even sang it in a song, but he would listen and then ask, “Why are you singing a sad song?” So the communication ends up not communicating. Maybe I’ll adjust along the way, but this marriage thing is hard. 😁😁

—Tiwaa

This story you just read was sent to us by someone just like you. We know you have a story too. Email it to us at submissions@silentbeads.com. You can also drop your number and we will call you so you tell us your story.

******