Over the years, I’ve grown to understand one thing; problems in a relationship start small. They look innocuous at first so you don’t pay attention to them. You wake up and go after those things you think are the bigger issues but by the time you realize, it’s those things you called ‘little’ that are sinking your relationship. Ours started very small. It was a question I thought didn’t need n answer so I brushed it aside. Today, it’s that same question that has come to bite me in the buttocks.

We were watching a movie one evening and one of my favorite actresses came on the screen. I said, “Wow, this girl is in this movie? She’s the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen on screen and whenever I see her in a movie, I watch till the end so i can see her a lot.” This is a harmless statement, right? Because we all have that one celebrity crush we are dying for and would do anything to hear their songs or watch their movies. My girlfriend was there that night. She said, “See how you’re idolizing someone who doesn’t know you exist. When was the last time you told me I’m beautiful? When was the last time you looked at me and said all these things you’re saying tonight?”

Those questions weren’t important so I didn’t answer them. They looked like the little things that needed no petting so I brushed it aside. She kept asking me. I had no answer for her. I said, “You’re overacting. It’s just an empty comment about a movie star so why are you being overreactive? Don’t you have men on screen that you idolize?” She also didn’t answer because yeah, that question was only a rhetoric question.

READ: How Do You Deal With A Good Man Who Is Quick Tempered?

I lost the taste for the movie so I got up and went to sleep, leaving her in the hall. I woke up at dawn and realized she wasn’t sleeping next to me. I went to the hall and found her coiled on the sofa. I thought she was overtaken by her slumber while watching the movie, so I tapped her, “Franka, get up and come inside. It’s almost morning.” She squinted, she saw it was me. She turned to her other side and continued sleeping. I tapped her again to wake her up. She said, “Do you care where I sleep? Please leave me alone.” I left her to her fate and went back to sleep. When I woke up in the morning, she had already left without saying a word.

The war had already started and I didn’t know about it. The sad thing was, it started right under my nose but I didn’t see it because, in my mind, something small like that shouldn’t start a fight. It took me four days and some hours to be able to bring her back to semi-normal. Before she finally accepted to forgive that little thing I did, she said, “We’ve been dating for over three years now, you’ve never said I’m beautiful. I brought it to your attention and all you could do was ignore me and leave me there.” I said, “I’m sorry you took it that way but I wanted to sleep that’s why I left. I didn’t leave you there.”

Problem solved. I got my love back. I got the sunshine back up in the skies so I could have a lovely day. 

One morning, we were attending a friend’s wedding. The wedding was at 10am. It was 10:30am and this girl was still standing in front of the mirror adding colors and shades. “Franka, we are already late. won’t you hurry up?” She screamed from the inside, “I’m almost done, give me two minutes.” Ten minutes later I called again, “Franka, it’s been over ten minutes since you said two minutes. Are you not done?” She said, “Why are you exaggerating? It hasn’t been ten minutes. You give me five minutes p3 I would be there.”

I was already angry when she stepped out. She was smiling and giggling. She asked, “Am I looking beautiful?” I said, “Looking beautiful for the where? Hurry up and let’s go.” Throughout the wedding she was moody. At the reception when we lined up for food she didn’t get up. “Franka paaa didn’t get up for food? Then the issue is getting out of hand,” I thought to myself. I asked her, “It’s everything alright?” She said, “I’m fine.” I said, “You don’t look fine so tell me what it is.” She said, “Oh so you can see me? You can see me to the extent that you can see I’m not looking fine but when I asked if I was looking beautiful, that one you didn’t see me.”

She got up and left. I didn’t follow. “How could something small like this get her this angry?” I sat down, finished my food, enjoyed the rest of the program before leaving. I decided not to call her until she calls to apologize. Two days, three, five days later we were not talking. “Has she moved on already? Just because of what happened that day?” I put my pride aside and called her with a borrowed pride. I asked, “So after acting like a kid that day, you expect me to call you before you call? Don’t you know how to say sorry when you err? What sort of distin is that?”

She let down the rain on me that day. She said, “You think I erred? So why are you calling me? Why don’t you leave me alone and go on with your life? You don’t even see me so why do you care?” I responded, “I don’t see you sɛ sɛn nti? How are you my girlfriend if I don’t see you? Are you a ghost?” She said her mind and I said my mind. She said five and I said six. She went low and I went lower. After everything, I put down the borrowed pride and went to see her. She wasn’t going to apologize so I had to apologize. Finally, she said, “Even the day you proposed to me you didn’t tell me I was beautiful. This one, I asked for it. I looked at you and asked, ”How do I look?” You didn’t even look at me. But you have time to look at someone in Hollywood and say she’s beautiful.”

Trust Franka to always bring the past issues into the present. She’s my girlfriend. I love her. I have to take her bad and the good so I can be with her. But the issue here is this, Beauty is not one of her strong attributes. I’m not with her because of beauty. Yes, I find her intelligence attractive. I find her go-get attitude very alluring. I love the fact that she loves me in equal measure. And these things are the most important thing to me and I always try to amplify that. What’s beauty that’s eaten her up? But because she wanted to be told she’s beautiful I changed.

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I saved her name on my phone as Beautytiful Franka so I’ll remember to call her beautiful. Whenever I answer the phone, I say, “Hey pretty.” When she wears something new, I compliment her. When she comes around and she wears my clothes, I tell her to keep them because she looks better in them than I do. I thought I’d improved. I thought I’ve gotten my A-game on and I’m acing the whole thing until we had a fight recently. 

She called me fake. She said I was trying so much just because she complained. She said, “The way you say it koraa doesn’t feel like it’s coming from your heart. It’s like you’re saying something just to score a point. It’s not something you mean.”  

Eiii, amania mehu! If I say, trouble. If I don’t say, disaster. I can’t go. I can’t come. What do I do?

She doesn’t talk to me any longer. This time around, she doesn’t even pick my calls to nag like she’s used to. I’ve been to her house twice to tell her I’m sorry. She still doesn’t seem cool. I texted her days ago asking, “So what’s the next step? If you had moved on, please let me know and I will do the same.” She didn’t respond and it’s making me wonder.

But these few days that we had not been together, I’ve also had time to reassess the whole ‘situationship’ that we are in right now. I thinking I should let her go. Maybe we both deserve a fresh start with someone else, where we can spell out what’s important to us before we start a relationship. If I continue with Franka, I’ll spend the rest f my days trying to impress her, trying to make her feel the beauty I believe is not important to me. That would be a job I wouldn’t like to do for long. So I’m thinking I should seize this opportunity and let everything die off. 

What do you think? Is it the right thing to do in my situation? I would be reading all the comments because it’s important for me to do the right thing at this moment of my life.

–Wilhelm

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