Everything started too quickly for us. He proposed to me in the first month we got to know each other. I didn’t know him too well but I said yes, hoping I would use the years we were going to date to study him. Six months into dating, he asked me to marry him. Three months after “Would you marry me?” was our wedding. We came from our honeymoon with a pregnancy. Nine months later, we had twins.

There was no time to catch my breath and decide with my head. I allowed my heart to rule over everything because he was a good man, a considerate man who intentionally put me first in everything. Even when he allowed me to make the decision, I still threw it back at him, saying, “You’re the man. The king of my heart, the head of this home. Please decide for us.”

We were happy, thrilled until the twins came in. My mom came to live with us for a few months. When she was gone, I started breaking down under the weight of my burden. My husband didn’t do anything to support the upkeep of the babies. When they cried, they were my problems, when they needed attention, which they always needed, they were my problem. If they had to sleep, they were my problems. He didn’t even know how heavy they were because he didn’t carry them in his arms.

I started complaining out of pain. He called me bitter and it was true. I was bitter to see him playing soccer on TV while I was carrying two babies who were refusing to calm down.

When my maternity leave was over and I had to return to work, we brought a woman in to help. He complained the woman wasn’t neat so he sacked the poor old woman. He brought in a lady in her thirties. Three months later, the lady left us without saying goodbye. We woke up one morning and she was gone. When we called, she told us she didn’t know how to tell us so she decided to run.

I had to resign from work to take care of my babies. My job wasn’t paying much but it was a job anyway. It wasn’t easy but I loved my babies more and would do anything for them. I was home taking care of the children but it was hard for me to get used to being a housewife. I did everything and on top of that, he would call me to serve his food when he was hungry. All he did was play video games and talk on the phone all day. He didn’t care about domestic work.

After all was said and done, he wanted sex in the night. In The night When I was struggling to put my babies to sleep, he would be behind me, trying to get into my thighs. I remember breastfeeding these two babies while he was behind me doing it. I was crying. I felt like a slave, something to be used than to be loved. I got up and picked the crying baby to the hall so he wouldn’t wake up the other one. My husband got angry. “How dare you get up when I haven’t had my fill? How dare you choose the babies over my orgasm!”

It turned into an exchange of words. I was loud but he was louder. The babies woke up crying so I stopped fighting. He kept fighting until he felt he had won.

I was dying inside but had no one to talk to. One evening When he returned from work, I was waiting for him in the hall. Immediately he entered, I pointed at the sofa and told him, “Sit down. We need to talk. I have a million things to tell you.”

I took forever to say everything that was worrying me in the marriage. I was firm and articulate. When tears threatened to fall, I kept quiet and held them at bay before continuing. “Everything happened so fast but I didn’t know this was how things would be. You didn’t strike me as a man who would end up using me instead of loving me. I’m tired of everything and if this continues for another day, I’ll break down and never get up again.”

He was quiet for several seconds. He asked me, “Do you want a divorce?” I answered, “I’ve thought about it but I don’t want to do this all alone. You’ll help me do it. You’ll play a part in everything concerning these kids until they grow up. I didn’t make them alone so I’m not going to grow them alone. I will be here. You’ll change. Case close.”

He went quiet again. I was scared of what he was going to say next but I was ready. I asked, “Or you want a divorce?” He answered, “I haven’t thought about that until you mentioned it a moment ago.”

We both went quiet, looking at each other. He slapped his thighs and said, “OK, let’s see.” He got up and left. I sat there alone and cried. All the tears I kept at bay flowed ceaselessly until I felt empty and light. I blew my nose, cleaned my face and went into the kitchen to see him serving himself. “I thought you would call me,” I said. He answered, “No, it’s OK.”

Days later I saw him packing the video game into a box. He carried them outside and came back without it. “I’ve sold it,” he said. I don’t think I will need it the way I used to.” I was speechless. I smiled a little but he didn’t smile back. He wasn’t happy about selling the game and I saw it in his eyes. I told him, “You could have kept it and played it once in a while.”

He came to the kitchen to ask what he could do to help. We shared the babies. I taught him how to change diapers. He was bad at it but he tried. When they cried, he played with them. He would make a goat sound and if that didn’t work, he would crow like a fowl. My dead spirit came back like the rain falling on dying leaves. Soon we were friends again, just like we started. The beginning when we were running away with our lives.

When the kids started going to school, I looked for a job and got one not too far from our house. I could take the kids to school in the morning and go for them when school closes. He got their dress ready, he prepared them for school while I was making their meals. I said thank you to him often. When he asked why, I told him, “For not giving up on us.”

There was something I didn’t tell him when we had that crunch talk. I wanted a divorce. That was the aim of that crunch meeting but I wanted the divorce as soon as the kids were grown and could be on their own. I was going to ask him to hire someone to help if he couldn’t help and if he hired that someone, I would get a job, use the person’s help until the kids start going to school and then divorce him. Even when he started helping around, I was still angry. I was like, “You could do all these and you watched me suffer like that? I will leave you when the kids are grown.”

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They say the first year of marriage is difficult but we made it more difficult by adding twins to the mix. We crossed the first and the second and the third until I stopped counting. We are in our fourteenth year of marriage now. What is keeping us together is the result of that conversation we had twelve years ago.

We look back at those days and ask ourselves how life would have been if we let go. I tell him, “It would have been our loss because we wouldn’t have experienced this part of us. The happy times. The times when we became a team and won against every obstacle.”

—Tabitha

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