I am the daughter of an extroverted man. I understand being an extrovert is not a bad thing. However, my father’s personality affected his marriage with my mother. He entertained a lot of friends and women. He listened to what his friends said about how he should run his home and ignored who truly mattered, my mother. As for the women, they were his side chicks. He had children with some of them.

His behavior made my mother very unhappy in the marriage. I always watched her and told myself, “I don’t want a marriage like my mother’s. I want to be happy. I want to marry a man who is nothing like my father.” It wasn’t until my father’s death that I saw my mother become happy. Tell me, why would I want this kind of life for myself?

When I started dating, I dated some guys before I finally settled down with Marcus. In my previous relationships, the men were loving, and very caring, and most importantly, I had friends in them. They were people I could talk to any time of day all year round regardless of what stage of the relationships we had gotten to.

There were two of my exes who were willing to move heaven and earth for me to be happy. One was a doctor and the other was just trying to find his feet in life at the time of our relationship. Although I loved them, the relationships didn’t work out because I saw traces of my father in them.

I dated them at different times but they shared similar temperaments. They were far too nice and overly welcoming to everyone they met so I was afraid that they would behave like my father if I married either of them. Honestly, that was the only reason why I left them.

After searching for so long, I finally met this cool, calm, collected, and confident guy who showed me who he was right from day one. He is an extreme introvert, who was always on the go to ensure that he succeeded in life. Marcus had no time for small talk. Whenever I asked him a question, he would answer with a word or two.

I was not the only one he spoke few words to. Everyone who came into contact with him barely got a word out of him. Despite his constant state of melancholy, I liked the fact that he is a provider. No matter what was going on in our lives, he made sure that we never lacked anything at home. This gave me the impression that he was too focused to be distracted by friends and to a larger extent, by women. So I agreed to marry him.

I had a son from one of my relationships before I met him. And in the years we’ve been married, we have three children together. So in all, we have four children. The way Marcus loves my first son is out of this world. The boy is now seventeen and in high school, but he doesn’t know that Marcus is not his biological father. Even when we are fighting, my husband would make sure that my son’s fees are paid and his needs are met.

There is not a single shred of doubt in my heart that my children have the best father in the world. However, I am not sure that I have the best husband. It has taken me this long to realize that I am my father’s daughter, after all. I love to make friends, go out, have conversations, and laugh out loud. Unfortunately, for ten years of my marriage, I can say that I have willfully deprived myself of all the happiness there is in marriage.

I have a provider but not a husband. After all these years, he still does not chat or even smile when I am with him. Currently, he works in the Eastern region while I am in the Central region with the kids so we don’t see each other quite often. Most of our conversations are held on the phone. And I wouldn’t call them conversations. They are check-ins.

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When he calls, it’s like a recorded message that plays day in and day out all year round. “How are you, and the children? He would ask.
“Is there anything that needs to be fixed at home?”
“Do you have enough food?”
“Okay, I will call you later.”
These are the questions he asks me every time he calls. It’s like a template. We talk three times in a day but all these calls don’t sum up to five minutes.

Now, I am frustrated. I need someone to talk to most of the time but I know for a fact that he will not change. We are not that old but we have the relationship of an old married couple. He is thirty-nine, while I am only thirty-seven. If God gives us the grace to live long then I will have to keep enduring his walls for the rest of my days.

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I believe that I have not seen joy in this marriage. That’s something I want to change but I don’t know how. I want to experience the joy of freely laughing with my partner. We should be able to pull pranks on each other and make. These are the things I hated about my father but now I know that I also possess these qualities and I want to be with someone who will reciprocate them.

I see my brothers playing with their wives and it saddens my heart that I don’t have some of that. I see the friendship they share with their wives and children and I wish that kind of freeness existed in my home too. I know my husband, and there is no way he will adapt. I believe that I can only get what I want if I leave this marriage. However, I keep wondering if I will get a man who will father my children like he does. Besides, I don’t actually want to give up on my marriage. It’s just that I need more than food and school fees to have a happy home. Please, what do I do?

—Jessica

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