Marriage Is Everything Bad But…

A week before my wedding, I nearly ran away. I was confused. I didn’t know what I was doing and it was at that moment I sat down to critically think about all the things people have told me about marriage. My mom felt I didn’t know my man enough.

We dated for three years and all through those years, we were living apart. We dated distantly. The highest number of days we spent together as a couple were four days. I can calculate the total days we spent together as a couple and it wouldn’t be up to 30 days.

“Marriage is hard. Doing it with someone you barely know will make it harder,” my mom said.

What she said was right but I felt knowing someone was a constant journey and I also thought as far as there was love, we could do it without any sweat.

Friends who were already married said a lot of bad things about marriage. “Marriage is this, marriage is that.” “It takes a special grace to be married.” “Marriage is not for the faint-hearted, my sister. You need special grace to go through it.”

It didn’t help matters that I have a cousin who got a divorce three years after marriage. Rose. I loved Rose. She was the girl my mom always used as the standard for good behaviour. Anytime I did something wrong my mom would say, “Rose will never do that. Look at her and learn her ways.” We grew up together so we developed this special bond as adults. She told me things. I told her my secrets too.

I saw her marriage crumbling down because I was the ear that listened to her when she was going through hard times in her marriage. She was two years divorced when I told her I was getting married. She said, “Eiii, you didn’t learn anything from what I went through? See me now. Two years later and life is good without a husband. You want to go into slavery?”

I was looking at her, taking in everything she was saying as if she was telling me the gospel. I knew her story and I knew the place she was speaking from. She continued, “Anyway, you don’t have to listen to me. Our stories are different and it’s good you experience your story yourself instead of being told.”

I listened to all of the negatives, yet told myself, “If there’s love like we have then our story will be different.”

A week to my wedding I was overwhelmed. My husband-to-be had been with me for over a week and I’d started noticing all the things I didn’t like about him. He wanted things to be done his way. When I called for yellow, he called for blue. When I called for a live band, he told me live band was boring. He even went as far as arranging my bridesmaids the way they should look on the wedding day. He called it perfect but I didn’t see any perfection in that. I told myself, “Mom was right. I should have lived with this man for at least some months to know him better.”

So I sat in a corner, looking at him calling the shots and telling myself, “I don’t want to do this anymore.” I wanted to call Rose and tell her what was going on. I wanted to call my mom. I wanted to call all those who told me about the negatives. I wanted to give them their stone and say, “You guys are right. I’m yet to get married but I’ve started seeing all the things you told me. I won’t do it again.”

In the midst of the confusion, I called my dad. We didn’t have a good relationship. He and my mom got a divorce when I was ten or so. He went ahead to marry another woman, got a divorce three years later, and then married another woman a year later. They are still together.

He didn’t shirk his provisional responsibilities towards us but over the years, my mom made him a bad man in our eyes. “A man who can’t keep to one woman is not worth a man,” she told us. Dad spoke to us once in a while. Whenever I went for my fees, he advised me. He told me he loved us but I did not believe him.

When I called him he told me he was getting ready to come and perform his duty as a father at my wedding. I said, “I don’t even know if I want to marry again.” He was shocked. He asked, “Why are you saying that? It’s barely a week to your wedding and you’re having doubts?”

I narrated the source of my confusion to him. He said, “Yeah, everything you’ve said is true but look at me, this is my third marriage. I will do everything to stay married rather than just be alone. Marriage is hard. Marriage is stressful. You may lose your mind sometimes, you’ll question your sanity. Your patience will be tested. You’ll give up. Regardless of all these, there is a ‘but’ somewhere in the sentence. Once you find what’s after the but, you’ll enjoy your marriage regardless of all the troubles.”

He didn’t make sense. I’m talking about real-life troubles and he was there giving me motivational speech. I prayed about it and a voice in my head said, “Give it a leap of faith. Everything will be fine. Even if you end up like your father, it’s still a beautiful life.”

I wore my wedding gown with a smile on my face, put my hand under the armpit of my dad and walked the aisle as if I didn’t have problems. My dad called me beautiful. He said, “Look at him. He looks like a great guy. Fear not. You’ll enjoy the ride.”

A few hours later, I was married.

The first year was turbulent. We didn’t agree on so many things but we learned to compromise. The second year was particularly tough because I thought I knew him but he kept springing surprises. In the third year, when we had our first child and didn’t know where to put the square peg, this man walked through the marriage like he had had four children before this one.

He would wake up at dawn and carry him. He asked my mom to teach him how to bathe the baby. He was taking fatherhood more seriously than he took our marriage. That also got me infuriated.

By the time our marriage was five and we had two children, we had settled. We knew why we fought and tried as much as possible not to bring reasons to fight. He could complete my statement for me and I could look at his face and know what he was thinking. I knew his strength so I tailored my weakness to suit his strength. He loved being a father so I allowed him to be so I could just concentrate on being a wife.

By the time we were seven years old, I started thinking about what my father told me. I asked myself, “What can I put after my but?” Experiencing marriage for seven years brings clarity to the whole enterprise. If both of you are not keeping secrets and are committed to building the marriage then it should be easy to know what comes after the ‘but’.

“Marriage is difficult but….”

I pondered. Looking for the truth to make my sentence complete.

“Marriage is difficult but I have a home I run to. It can be very stressful living with a man and trying for the last lap of forever but you get someone to share your troubles with. When I want to be a mother and a wife, I get someone to be a father and a husband. Doing life next to someone you know makes the burden a little bit easier…”

The list went on and on because seven years bring a lot into the frame.

Recently my cousin was getting married. I was part of the wedding planners. Unlike me who was confused and was trying to walk out, she was bubbly and extremely excited about her wedding. “Maybe she knows what I didn’t know. Maybe she knows her man better than I did but does she know about the black life of marriage after the white wedding? Has someone told her?”

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I didn’t offer to give her advice. I was still a learner myself but when she specifically asked for it, I told her, “It’s difficult but you’ll get a hand to reach your back and close your zip for you. It may look small but it’s worth it. I saw him taking a photo of you. Marriage is all the bad things people say but one day you’ll pose and get someone to press the shutter for you. It’s the little things that make the bigger things bearable.”

She laughed at the simplicity of my advice but I hope she learned because that’s all I’ve learned about marriage, I mean my marriage.

He Says He Can’t Date Me Because I’m Too Beautiful

Everyone’s story may be different but at its core, all marriages are the same. Two people raised in different homes decide to fall in love and become one. But how can red and yellow become one colour? They both have to agree to merge with each other so they can become a beautiful orange colour, the colour of a dying sun. If red resolves to stay red and yellow decides to stay yellow, we can’t have the colour of sunset. There will be troubles. That’s why there are troubles in marriages.

But I’ve learned also that commitment makes it easier. I’ve learned when we make a conscious effort to look for what follows the ‘but’ it becomes easier to grace through the path of marriage until you reach the last lap of the forever you promised each other.