For the past seven years since we got married, nothing has changed for me when it comes to my wife. I love her the way I loved her when our love was just a day old. When I travel, I want to hear her voice every day. When she travels, it feels lonely and I find it hard to sleep. When she’s out of the house and has to return home, I’ll stay awake and wait until she comes.

She travelled for a funeral not long ago. It was a returning journey. She called at 6pm to tell me her bus just moved. I called now and then to check if she was safe. I would text her every hour to ask where she was and if she was feeling OK. She got home around 12am. The kids were asleep but I was seated in the hall waiting for her. I cooked for her but she said it was too late. I made her bathing water ready at the right temperature. I waited until she was done and we both went to bed at the same time.

I learned this behaviour from my wife when the marriage was new. She would do everything for me, wait on me, put me to bed before she slept. When I travelled, she would be on the phone with me because she couldn’t sleep. We’d talk until she would yawn severally and say, “Let me try and see if I can sleep.”

Today, all that has changed.

When I travel and I’m on my way coming home, she won’t wait or call or text. By the time I get home, she will be sleeping with the door locked. When I call her to open the door, she will be angry and warn me to come home early next time. “If you know you’ll be late, take your keys so you don’t disturb my sleep,” she’ll tell me.

There will be no food waiting for me. Nothing.

She doesn’t call when I travel. When I call her later in the night, she will not pick up or she’ll pick up just to tell me it is too late so she wants to sleep.

I’ve been thinking about it. This change. This gradual death of our love languages. It scares me. It makes me think she’s out of love and only existing in the marriage. I’ve asked her questions, “You’ve changed ooo. These days you don’t wait for me.”

Her answer was, “I’m too old and tired for that. Are you a kid that you can’t find your way home if I don’t call you?”

I’m not a kid. I know love and marriage go through phases. Times and seasons put a dent in the way we feel about things, people and the ones we choose to love but this change is too drastic, especially when she was the one I learned these things from. Am I thinking too much? Am I creating a storm in a teacup?

Men Don’t Like It When Women Do The Paying

I want things to come back to normal. I want my wife to be the wife I married seven years ago. I want the language we spoke so fluently back. I want to feel like a boy again. Is it too much to ask?

—Cosmos

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