FADING

Recently, I had a conversation with a friend who said she doesn’t want to get married. At first, I was pissed. A lot of questions were in my head: why would you not want to get married? Haven’t you seen how happy couples are? Don’t you want to build a life with someone? I had so many questions to ask, but I decided to hear from her first. According to her, marriage is complex. She is not married yet, but she has seen many broken marriages. She told me a few stories she knew of broken couples. I tried to explain to her that despite the fact that marriage can be difficult and complex, that doesn’t mean you should run away from it permanently. I tried to convince her, but her mind was already pretty made up. When we both parted ways, I started thinking about what she said. Is marriage THAT COMPLEX? Is it something not worth trying at all?

Back in the days, marriage used to be for better for worse. People took marital vows seriously. Recently, my Instagram algorithm has been showing me videos of old couples who have been married for more than 4 decades. Isn’t that beautiful? Do you know what it means to be married to someone for more than 40 years? Of course, they had little fights and misunderstandings, but the most important part is that they overcame everything. I always smile whenever I watch those videos. I mean, who wouldn’t? However, it seems things are different now. In today’s world, marriages have become more complex than they used to be. Today, many couples are parting ways over simple misunderstandings that could have been easily avoided.

For this week’s Hive Naija prompt, the community asks us an interesting question; What would you do if you realize that you have fallen out of love with your new husband a year after marriage? How would you react? As I mentioned above, marriage is complex and difficult. One of the things that makes it difficult is when a partner falls out of love. Sometimes it can even be both. Falling out of love just a year after marriage is not normal to me. It means something must have been wrong before the marriage happened. I mean, the first years of marriage are meant to be the most beautiful, before the children start coming, you get to enjoy quality time with your partner.

Do you think couples who have spent 40 years together never fell out of love? Not even once? Some of them probably fell out of love, but they managed to stay and with time, things got back to the way they were. If it is that my partner didn’t do anything wrong and the fault is from my side, the first thing I would do is remember my marital vows. According to my religion, marriage is forever. So falling out of love isn’t a solid reason for divorce. Of course, I also would not want to be unhappy or force myself to smile and laugh. The next thing I would do after having it in mind that divorce is not an option is to have a conversation with my husband about the issue. Keeping quiet about it will do no good. Maybe keeping quiet and pretending like everything is fine would make my husband happy, but it would keep eating me up until I can’t pretend anymore.

Definitely, my husband would be someone I can have any conversation with and I’m sure he would be ready to listen to a conversation as important as that. I would clean and genuinely open up to him. Together, we would brainstorm ideas to fix the marriage. To make things work, we both have to be intentional about it, and with time, we will get things back to the way they were (the way they should normally be.) More importantly, we would pray to God about it. A family that prays together stays together. Little misunderstandings can ruin marriages, but if God is involved, things become easier.

In conclusion, human beings are complex. We are the most complex species and that is why things about us are sometimes difficult to understand. Marriage is complex, but with God, patience, and communication, marriage becomes less complex.

Thank you for reading through. ❤️