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(Chioma’s Perspective)
I am just coming back from work, and what do I find? The toilet seat not taken up. I keep on telling him to take it up anytime he takes a dump, but he keeps on forgetting, it is as though he is doing this on purpose. I boil with a great deal of irritation anytime I see this. He is my husband, he is my Taiwo, I have to remember this anytime he does anything that annoys me, that is me accepting the mess I put myself in.
Loving him is difficult. We are still in our early stages of marriage, we have been married for 2 years now, and there have been moments of anger and arguments, sometimes the pettiest thing, for instance, why the hell wouldn’t he want to raise the toilet seat up anytime he is done with it? Sometimes he takes a piss on it, gosh! It is terribly annoying.
He acts like a teenager all the time, eating junk and always watching football. I just want to have a bond with him in the living room. For Christ’s sake, I have a 9-5 job, and I would like some affection from this man. He doesn’t even get to be woken up by the alarm, since he designs at home, he sometimes even forgets to take his bath. I just want one-on-one interaction with him, but it is one stupid match every damn night. Then I get angry, but he says, “baby, you are on your period, just try to calm down”, now it’s “baby, you are pregnant, just remember to be at peace”. Thank God I was not pregnant while we were dating, I am very sure that he would have left me, I know what Taiwo can do.
Mummy, you are right, men do really act like children, even worse, they are babies, how can a married man take a street football match so serious that caused him to use the wheelchair for three months, three months of being starved of sex, three months of doing the house chores and the cooking all by myself, and also taking care of him. I was without sex for three months; it caused a lot of emotional struggles.
Loving him is difficult, some days I just sit on the bed, crying for hours, and it is because of him. If I divorce, it will be another circle of an annoying man, so let me just stay with my poison that has killed me multiple times.
He doesn’t even check my phones or my chats, even when there is no password, does he trust me that much; I am sure he knows that I would never leave him, that stupid boy. I love him though, my mother always told me marriage doesn’t come that smoothly and lovely as expected all the time, but it is a marriage of two different people. He is a lovely man though.
(Taiwo’s perspective)
I wish she would sometimes stop talking about something, like how Rachel looked slutty to work, or how the C.E.O made a joke about the stocks of the company rising to a certain level, I really don’t give a fuck about it. All I just want to do is watch this match with every attention in me. But she will not understand, she would start talking about me not giving her the time she needed that she wants to share some intimate moment with me all the time; I mean, we live in the same house. I miss those days when we were dating, it was not as serious as it is at the moment; I had time with the boys to party and flirt, but now I have a nagging wife; and the sex, the sex was great when we were dating, I mean, it was fornication because it was against Christianity. Presently, She comes to bed naked, leaves naked, I am getting tired of it. She looked sexier when she came to my apartment to visit while we were dating, she would wear this mini skirt or these sexy tight jeans, at night she does not wear any panties, and that always excited me.
Sometimes I ask myself why I got married. The wedding was one of the most exciting moments of my life, I planned it very well, spent money, real money; it was in the biggest redeem church in Lekki, we even had the reception in “light-house”, it was something for me. But I had not known it would become like this, she farts in the night and smiles at me thinking it’s funny or amusing. God, it stinks and very embarrassing for me, and when I tell her, it amuses her.
Loving being difficult, anytime I come home, I meet my wife seated on the couch watching whatever soap opera she is watching and looking so unsexy, she is getting too fat, I try to tell her, she could do some aerobics or cardio.
They say after loving comes patience and perseverance. I am strong, I know, my parents always told me about the sweetness of getting married and the pains that come with it, I never paid good attention to it. My parents have been married for close to 35 years, so I always thought it would be easy and fluid to be in a marriage. I thought their ted talks were just because they wanted to talk and make a pond seem like a sea. The irony is that my present situation is deeper than the ocean, and I am drowning. I am just a little bit overthinking this, maybe we could work this out, we still have a long way to go in the marriage. The doctor said that she was pregnant, a baby will be nice, I guess. I hope so. I shiver when I remember that I am someone’s husband, I shiver more when I remember that I am going to be someone’s father.
I wish I could get a few joints to smoke or a couple of cigarettes. It would help me think smoothly and comfortably, but I sacrificed that for Chioma. No one would want to have a husband that is high all the time, it would be inconsiderate, and mom said that a marriage should be more of sacrifice than love.
I wish I could leave her and have peace of mind; it would be great for me, I would remain single till I die, but I can never do that to my baby girl, my Omalicha, my Chioma.
David (A WRITER'S BLOG) 