My husband was very sick. For one year, he couldn’t sit or walk or stand or be a man. He was a vegetable. Always in bed. The only thing he could do very well was talk. He was depreciating very fast but it looked like his ability to talk was moving in the opposite direction.

When it looked like all hope was lost, he started talking about death and what we should do when he dies. He asked me to promise him one thing. That I would never marry again if he died. “I want you to have time for the kid and also preserve my memory.”

He asked me to make that promise very often but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I was twenty-nine years old and had been married for only three and a half years. One out of the three, my husband had been sick. I felt there was too much ahead of me to promise a man that I wouldn’t live once he was gone.

He tried but I never made the promise. One day he said, “I see. You’ve already decided on what to do but make sure you don’t bring any monster around my child.” I told him, “You’re not dead and you’re not going to die. Let’s concentrate on bringing you healing. That way, I wouldn’t have to think about who to marry.”

Slowly, he nudged himself back to life. One day he sat up. Another day, he took a step. One evening, he was back to being a man again. Our house which once smelled like a hospital regained its freshness because the man of the house was back on his feet again.

My husband now hates me because according to him I couldn’t make a simple promise when he was dying. “If you loved me enough, it would have been easier for you to promise me.”

The whole thing sounds so petty I always laugh whenever he brings up the topic. “This is the woman who toiled night and day to ensure you’re here today. You think I didn’t love you enough? Then what was I doing next to you for over a year?”

Chat With The Faces Behind Silent Beads

He even thinks I was seeing another man while he was stuck in bed. I took the matter to his parents and my husband was able to convince his parents that I was the problem. Even to the extent, that his parents are supporting him to divorce me. When I called the issue in front of my parents, this man changed the topic and listed all the sins I’d committed since we got married. It was no longer the promise but something else.

I don’t have a problem leaving him but I’ve made him a promise that once he walks me out of the house, he would go back to the bed that hosted him for over a year. As simple as that.

—Tabitha    

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