We dated for two years before we got married. Everything was fine between us. Our sex life was good too. I wasn’t the kind of woman who would go to my man and push him for shuperu. I wasn’t comfortable asking for it so even when I needed it, I calmed myself down around him, hoping he’ll ask for it and I’ll give it to him. He was that guy. He didn’t mind having it three times a day. I didn’t resist. I didn’t complain. Whenever he wanted it, I was always ready to serve him. 

I remember one evening when we were dating. The rain was falling heavily when he called me to come over to his place. From my place to his place was like fifteen minutes drive and ten minute’s walk from the junction where you’ll alight. I told him, “See how the rain is falling. It wouldn’t be easy for me to go out there and get a car and come. Let’s do it tomorrow. It’s already late so tomorrow is just a few hours away.” He protested but I wasn’t ready to take that risk. We both argued until we hung up. A few minutes later, I heard a knock on my door. I was almost asleep. I screamed, “Who’s that?” And he responded, “Who could be knocking on your door at this time of the night? Open the door and stop doing shakara over there.” 

The voice was Reginald’s voice. My boyfriend. I hurriedly opened the door and he rushed inside in his wet dress. He wouldn’t even wait for me to take his shirt off. He rushed into me and took the piece he was yearning for. While he was on the bed panting I asked him, “So you couldn’t have waited for another day? Or you would have been dead if you did.” He answered, “As if she didn’t enjoy it. Keep quiet over there.” 

That was how far Reginald could go when it came to shuperu. We got married and a year later, he lost his spark. He blamed it on work and blamed it on pressures of life. He blamed it on the bad economy but I wasn’t a kid. I knew there was a problem. His thing hardly got up. Sometimes I would play with it until it gains some level of strength but just when he’s about to go in, he’ll go flaccid again. “Reggy, what’s the matter with you?” He’ll start ranting; “Being a man is no joke at all. How can I be responsible for all these and still be able to perform in bed? It’s not easy, you have to understand me.” 

I bore it all until it got to a point where I couldn’t stand it again. I was complaining every night. I was urging him to seek medication. When I went out and I heard about a drug that was good for men, I bought it for him. The problem was, he never took the medication seriously. He told me I wasn’t a doctor to prescribe a drug for him. I told him, “Then let’s see a specialist together. He told me he didn’t have the money to waste on a specialist and that he was fine. I’m the woman so I started feeling the pressure. Three years of marriage without a child does something to the woman than to the man so I took it upon myself to push him to work on it.

When he wasn’t listening to me, I went to his parents and lodge a complaint with them. If anyone was going to worry me about my inability to give birth, it was going to come from his parents so I made the complaint to them so they know it wasn’t my fault. The first time they invited him home, I was there with him. I heard his father and everything he told him. He even said, “If it’s your wife you don’t trust to help you, I will personally take you to a place where they would help you discover your missing manhood.”

He agreed to work on it but when he came home, he pressed his anger on me for taking our issues outside; “Am I a kid that you’ll report me to my parents? What do you take me for? You’re not even embarrassed that you’re selling your marital issues to the world. Shame on you.” A week or so later, I asked if he had done something about it. He said his father has taken him somewhere and he’s applying the medicine that was given to him. Yes, there were bottles that had something in them but I never saw him apply it anywhere. Some nights, he would come to me and tell me, “Let’s see if it’s working.” He would go like three minutes with a flaccid joystick and later tell me, “Slowly it would work.”

I called to tell his father how things were going. That was when he told me my husband had never gone to him for help; “He has never been here since we talked. I’ve never seen his face so where did he say we went?” It turned into another fight and for days he was not talking to me. I had to wake him up at dawn and beg him to seek help from a professional. Finally, he agreed to go with me when I promised him that I was going to pay for it. He was checked and given medications. He came home and left the drugs to rot. Even the ones he had to swallow, he told me were bitter. He behaved like a teenager in the marriage. He didn’t want to do anything to help his situation. Time is not on my side. I’m thirty-four years old as I write this. 

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I went to his parents to complain again and when I was leaving, his mother decided to walk me to the roadside. While going she told me, “Don’t take what am going to tell you the wrong way. I’m going to give you womanly advice and I believe if you take it. All this trouble would be gone. You’re a young woman, a very beautiful one as such. Look elsewhere. From all indications, my son is not willing to do anything about his situation. He doesn’t see the need because he’s a man. In the end, you’re the one going to lose. Don’t lose. Look elsewhere for what you want. Find a man outside and get pregnant. He won’t know.”

It was like I was listening to her in my dreams. I had to make her repeat her statement over and over again to make sure she was actually saying what I thought she was saying. In the end, I told her, “No I can’t do that. I would rather walk out of the marriage than do what you’re saying.” She retorted, “You’ll walk away and start everything afresh? How long would it take you to marry again and start all over again? Think about it if you really need a child.”

Now I’m even scared. This woman would call me early morning and ask me if I’d thought about the things we discussed. I don’t even pick up her calls because I know what she’s going to say. My husband is also not making any progress so I’m left between a rock and a hard place. There’s no way I’m going to do what my mother-in-law is saying. If anything, I would rather seek divorce but what she said is also true. How long would it take before I find another man who is willing to start all over with me? That’s my problem. That’s what keeps me awake at night. Now I don’t know what to do. Should I continue staying with Reginald, hoping he would change or I should walk out there and seek what’s important to me at this point in my life?

—Sweetie

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