Six months after marriage, I asked myself why I got married. Nothing was working for me. I found myself tired, emotionally drained and deranged. I didn’t want to be a married man or I wished I’d married someone who wasn’t my wife. She wasn’t living up to expectations and I’d started to resent her and the sad thing was, she knew it and she resented me too.

I would come home from work and say nothing to her. She would come home from town and also say nothing to me. She would cook, and serve her own as if she were single. After eating, she would put the TV on and watch Netflix until her eyes couldn’t take it any longer. She found a way to be happy while I did nothing about my situation. I was right to be angry at her and myself because I married the wrong woman.

To make matters worse, it was during that period that she got pregnant. From the beginning of our marriage that we were doing it every day and were doing it out of love, we couldn’t get pregnant. In the moment of fight and chaos where we did it as a chore now and then, that was when she got pregnant.

She threw the test kit on me and said, “You’re going to be a father. It’s about time you change your attitude around here.”

I flared up. I retorted, “Who should change his attitude? Is that the best way for a wife to announce a pregnancy? And you tell me I should rather change my attitude? I regret marrying you and in fact, I wish this pregnancy would not work because a woman like you doesn’t deserve to carry my child.”

Something that brings cheers and togetherness to other couples brought a huge fight between us and for the first time, the word “Divorce” appeared in our conversation. She said it first; “If you think you’re tired of me, you know where you picked me from. Send me back to my parents. That’s what real men do.”

I retorted, angrily, “You think I’m not a man because I still tolerate you around here? Wait and see. It wouldn’t be long. You know the way to your parent’s house, don’t you? You’ll go before I send you away.”

She slept in the corner of the bed while I slept at the edge of the bed, trying not to have skin contact with her. While she snored away, I stayed up all night thinking about what was wrong with our marriage or what I saw wrong with our marriage.

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My wife has a great job with good earnings and perks but since we got married, I was the one doing everything in the house financially except the little things she had to do for herself. It took a great toll on me. I was the guy who looked forward to payday because I felt rich. After marriage, payday didn’t mean a thing because I would end up with nothing after all is said and paid.

I felt cheated. It was the reason I was drained. While I was doing all that, my wife didn’t give me grace when it came to the house chores. She would wash and call me to hang the laundry for her. She would be in the kitchen cooking and would call me in to cut onions for her. It’s always the onions because she doesn’t like the things onions do to her eyes. I will fry fish while she does the banku. When it was fufu, I was the one doing the pounding. I did my fair share of the job in the house while she contributed nothing financially.

That aside, I felt she didn’t give me enough credit. I would do all that and my wife would paint a gloomy picture of our marriage as if we didn’t have anything to eat in the house. I heard her talking to her sister on the phone. She said something like, “My sister, it’s hard oo. We can barely afford two square meals these days. It’s always dry in this house.”

My heart was boiling. “Why is she telling her sister that? That I’m not taking good care of her? Is she telling the world that I’m starving her?” When she cut the line, I burst into the scene and started yelling, “What do you do with your money if you think I’m not doing enough? I’m starving you, tell them but any sensible person will know I’m doing my best when it comes to provisions.”

We fought over those issues for days. The only way out was for her to tell her sister that she lied but she told me point-blank she wasn’t going to do it because she wasn’t talking about me.

While I lay thinking about divorce, she was at the corner of the bed, a little space, snoring unbothered. Even that got me angry. Her peace was my anger. Her happiness drained me because I was responsible for everything. At the end of my thinking marathon, I told myself, “She’s pregnant. Let’s wait until she delivers. I’ll take my child and send her packing.”

Seven months into the pregnancy, things became very difficult for her. She didn’t sleep. It meant I also didn’t sleep. I wanted to know what was wrong with her each time she was struggling. I asked questions and she answered. She wasn’t feisty. Even when I shouted at her, she was calm and composed. That was when I knew the woman was going through a lot. She always fought back but this time, she pleaded for patience.

We talked a lot during those days. We could stay up all night talking. Talking about her pain and struggles with the pregnancy one night brought our marriage into perspective. She asked me, “What do you want me to do? You don’t listen to me, that’s your problem. You want to win to be a man. You want to win over me to prove you’re my husband so you hardly listen to me.”

After every sentence, she asked me “What do you want me to do?” I was waiting for her to shut up so I tell her what I wanted from her. Finally, when I got the chance, I told her everything. From finance to domestic activities and to whatever rocked my boat.

She said, “I tried to help with the bills and you told me I shouldn’t bother. Twice you shot me down so I stopped. When I need something, I tell you but when you need something, you don’t tell me until I ask and then it becomes a fight. You do everything around here while I spectate. Do you think that doesn’t bother me? Talk to me in plain words, I’m your wife. Tell me I should take over this and that and I will, is that too difficult to do?”

After listening to her talk for over fifteen minutes nonstop that night, I realized the problem was me. I wasn’t listening. Right from the beginning of our marriage, I wanted to be in charge because our financial demands were small. I could handle it but when it got overwhelming, I assumed she should know it and help forgetting I’d told her not to bother.

Everything changed from that day. When you communicate everything in your heart, your chest becomes lighter. It’s like the foot of the elephant had been lifted from your chest. You become weightless. You feel like flying. When we finally slept that night, I slept better. Maybe I snored too. For the first time in a long while, we didn’t sleep far from each other. Our skins touched. She was warmer. It felt good.

Our marriage nearly came to an end because I couldn’t communicate my expectations. When I did, I did it poorly and did it with anger smoking out of my chest. Anger doesn’t solve it. It turns everyone defensive and in the end, makes things worse.

I understand some people don’t listen but have you tried communicating with your partner and it didn’t work? Try another means of communication. It shouldn’t always come when there’s a problem. Don’t shout it. Don’t communicate through a fight. Don’t wait until you’re angry before you talk about what the other party did years ago that you couldn’t talk about.

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Address them with patience as and when they happen and see if something won’t change. Above all, communication isn’t about you doing all the talking all the time. Listening is the key part of communication. If I listened to my wife more than I spoke, we wouldn’t have gone to the precipice of divorce.

We’ve done eight years with three kids. We talk through it all and it works.

Evans