When I met John, I had already decided in my heart that I was going to marry him. So every question I asked leaned toward knowing him more, especially about his family. Family is very important to me, almost like the Bible is to Christians.

I asked about his love life too. There was a story about how he had been fooled by a girl from the same church he grew up in.

“That girl stressed me. Every now and then she needed something for something. I nearly went bankrupt because of her. But thank God for grace.”

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According to him, when they broke up, he was devastated. He said he was at the brink of death.

I have been on the receiving end of a broken heart too, so we comforted ourselves and laughed over it, as if we hadn’t once sat in that same darkness. He warmed my heart in a way I had never known before.

John has a sister. Not by blood, but as they say, a sister from another mother. They have a beautiful relationship, and it helped me understand why he treated women the way he did. He was gentle and kind with me, and he was the same with her.

I made it a point to build a good relationship with her. If she had been that generous to him, then she had to be a good person, someone I would need on my side in this relationship.

We got married three months ago. We have barely settled into the marriage, and we are already fighting over this same sister who is supposed to be just that, a sister from another mother.

Remember when I said his story warmed my heart? His parents died early. When no family showed up to take care of him, a church in his town stepped in. And he was placed in the care of this sister, who also happened to be a family, but not so family. She catered for him like her own. If you ask him, he will list a thousand things she did that made him the man he is today. From the first day he spoke about her, I saw it in his eyes, how deeply he cherished her.

So there were things that felt far fetched, things I chose to ignore. I was a girlfriend after all. I couldn’t possibly tell him to stop talking to his sister. What kind of jealous person would that make me?

I didn’t want to seem like that, so I made a note to address it after my status in his life changed.

Now I am his wife, and I find myself sidelined in my own marriage. When he has a problem at work, or anything at all, the first person he calls is her. I hear about it much later, when everything is already done and dusted. Sometimes I only find out when they are on the phone, laughing and reminiscing, and I have to ask questions just to understand what is going on in my husband’s life.

His sister is his confidant, and I have a problem with that. I am his wife. I should be the one he runs to. The one he calls and says, let me talk to my wife. Let me hear what she thinks. It does not match at all.

He tells her everything. Not only that, they talk and make decisions without me. Sometimes when he’s at home, he could sit on the couch and be on a phone call with her laughing hahaha till he is hungry. Even sometimes while he’s eating, they are on the phone. Then me, a newly wedded wife, I will be there listening while they chit chat.

I mentioned it him severally. He told me I was complaining.

“Since when did you come into my life that you want to dictate how I should live it?”

That was not how I intended it, I told him.

“But I can’t abandon someone who has been there for me my entire life for someone I am still enjoying,” he said.

In the last three months, I have tried to speak to him at the quietest hours, at the brink of dawn, hoping that the softness of the night would soften his heart. Instead, it has only hardened it. Now he tells me he does not care what I think.

“Think whatever you want to think. I will do whatever sits right with my soul.”

The last time we circled this conversation, he even threatened me.

“If you push this, I will tell her that you don’t like her.”

He said it so casually, like a joke, and walked out on me.

Am I threatened? Maybe yes.

This sister is only five or six years older than he is. She is beautiful, the kind of dark skin that does not age. And that is not even the point. I am just as beautiful, if not more.

But she is single. She was on the edge of getting married once, and then it suddenly collapsed. Up till now, I have not heard a single clear reason why that engagement ended.

See, I am a woman. She is a woman. We are women. You are a man too. You are men. We are humans.

My husband is getting more handsome by the day, especially after we got married, and what if, you know.

What Nobody Tells You About Divorce

Their relationship does not look ordinary. I am afraid it is not. And even if it is, families cross lines every day. How much more an adopted one?

Am I crazy? Or do I actually have a reason to be afraid for my marriage? Is there any way I could cut her off from my marriage

—Titi

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