Before I got her to say yes to my proposal, we talked about a lot of things, and one of the things that came up was why she left her previous boyfriend. She answered, “He had commitment issues.” I asked how long the relationship lasted, and she said eight months.

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I loved her, and to me, she fit into the future I wanted to build for myself and my future kids. Just a week in love, and she asked when I intended to marry her. I answered, with all the love in my heart, “Oh, very soon. I won’t put a date to it, but very soon.”

She said, “We don’t have to buy rings if we decide to marry because I already have them.” “You have rings? For yourself and the man you’ll marry? How come?” I asked.

She bought the rings when she was with her ex-boyfriend. According to her, they were planning to marry, but because the guy feared commitment, he left her after she had bought the rings. I asked why she should be the one to buy the rings, and she answered, “I’m making things easy for us. It’s not only rings; when we get there, I will buy what needs to be bought just to support my husband.”

I didn’t judge her. I saw her as a supportive partner who would do her bit for the progress of the union. The rings were in a box and positioned in front of her mirror. Anytime I went there, she would have something to say about the rings and remind me that we had a marriage to do. “See how the rings are looking at us,” she would say. “They are wondering when they are going to be on our fingers.”

Usually, I didn’t say anything until it began to sound like a broken record in my ears. “Tell the rings their time will come, and they will never come off our fingers ever again,” I responded.

Then she changed the statement: “Look at the rings looking at us. They are asking us when the time will come for them to be on our fingers.”

Our relationship was only three months old, but the rings were already asking questions and getting frustrated about my answers. I asked her to slow it down. I told her to be patient and allow time to do its magic. I told her, “When the time is right, you wouldn’t be the one to say what’s in the minds of the rings. We’ll grab them and put them where they belong.”

“Time doesn’t usually decide. We will have to decide, and time will agree,” she told me. So I told her to give me a year to sharpen the crooked edges of my life. “Eii, a year? It better be a year because I don’t want to go beyond thirty before marriage. In my family, we don’t go beyond thirty.”

I understood why her ex left and why she said her ex had commitment issues. I should have probed further to understand those commitment issues and address them before starting a relationship with her. Now, I’m here suffocating in a relationship where rings talk in proverbs and ask questions I don’t have ready-made answers to.

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Without the pressure, she could be a good person, but she makes me feel like all she dreams about is marriage and nothing about the marriage itself. It scares me that after marriage, nothing else will come from him, and I will be the one to suffer. I’m not thinking of leaving because of this, but how do I address this issue in a way that will shut the mouths of the rings and also bring perfect understanding between us?

—Jason

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