I read my wife’s story yesterday and it brought tears to my eyes. Something about the way I saw myself in black and white; it was different from the mirror.
A lot of people would read that story and think, ‘Oh wow… This woman went through a lot… Too much’ and it hurts that I am the cause of this comment.
This particular article is not to clear my name, justify my actions or make excuses for my ex-ways. I just want to also bring something important to light…
Yes, Mikun and I were super best friends when we started out. We said we loved each other so much! I couldn’t explain how my heart squeezed my chest area whenever I saw her. She had the rightest comebacks; the widest smile and the best ever spirit.
But like she said, a human is only a human. If angels traversed amongst us then we can begin to expect to marry 100% consistent beings. (What am I saying? Wasn’t the devil an angel). My point is that, during my down time, the financial, emotional and physical stress was so much on Mikun that for witty comebacks, she gave me hard facts, for wide smiles; she gave me brief but worried smiles, for a positive spirit; she gave me a positive yet worried spirit. And being mean to her for not being as consistent as I wanted, seemed like the next rightest thing to do.
I was wrong and things went back to normal.
But things did not just suddenly ‘go back to normal’ one perfect day when we both woke up on the right side of the bed. In fact, on the day to which I would attribute the beginning of our smooth sailing, I had woken her up in the middle of the night when I arrived home just to tell her to, ‘shift to your side of the bed. I have the left side.’
She woke up looking a little confused for a while and then said, ‘Oh, babe, wow.‘ She looked at the clock on the wall (2:30am), and said as she shifted to the right side of the bed, ‘How are you? Are you hungry?‘ I scowled at her and told her to leave me alone but my stomach betrayed me and sang a different song. She smiled and said, ‘Chai, your stomach is saying something else o. Oya I won’t make food for you. I’ll make food for your stomach. I prefer the sound of farting to the sound of a rumbling stomach’ I laughed. That was the first time I had laughed genuinely in months.
Over the course of time, I began to bring myself to order. Mikun never whispered her prayers in the mornings and evenings and she made me always hear her prayers points. ‘Father, continue to show William how much he means to you; let him see that he’s such an amazing person and that the devil is only a deceiver. Show him through the mirror of your word, the great man he truly is, and help fling away the devil’s distorted mirror in front of him’ Prayers like that.
In my closet, I would pray the same prayers. Sometimes I’ll laugh at myself at the ‘fling the mirror away’ part. I started to hang out less with my friends… And so on. Everything stemmed from a DECISION. You see, it was in those times I realized that a man can never be anything unless he decides to be that; and a man would be anything if he decides to be it.
William became a good guy!
I started to go out of my way for my wife. I would pray with her and for her; make food before she got home; download the latest episodes of her favorite series for her and declare the night as ‘movie-night’; compose jokes (that weren’t so funny) for her; ask about her day and listen attentively; play games with her; love her…
When I started to make good friends, I met a guy named Efemena. And he said something really profound. And that’s what I want to share. He said, ‘The notion of the experiences in conventional marriage is that the woman suffers by the hand of the man. While this is a reality all around the world, it’s like painting Yin without Yan; it’s an incomplete representation, William! Marriages can be fun! And they ought to be. There are marriages where the woman and yes, the man, live daily loving one another. Even without the blood pumping emotions, we must tell stories also of men who absolutely adore their wives. Women must not live in constant fear of whether their husbands are merely caring because they have something to hide. Girl-friends must not always tell each other to “beware of all those nice things he’s doing o. It always means he’s trying to say sorry for something”. We must stop looking at happy couples and think on impulse “what do you think these people’s issues are? You think any marriage is 100% happy?”
And men, we must also learn not to expect anything from our wives… that is, if we say that we’re loving them. If you have no plans on loving that woman for life, then please, don’t put a ring on her delicate heart. And yes, loving her involves preferring her fart far over her hunger… Literally and symbolically.’
I'd love to hear your thoughts!