Dainty Shackles

Some people will go through a divorce and will immediately feel like organizing a party to celebrate
You will look at them and feel it is wrong for them to celebrate not being with someone they professed to love just a few years earlier
You wonder why they are celebrating something that was clearly spelled out in the Bible that God hates

There are unions that will crush the purpose of God for your life
Most of the time you would have entered into such a union before you realize it is not for you
You could have spent five or six or even ten years in it even

I remember reading Buchi Emecheta’s Second class citizen years ago
I cried reading that book
The husband and wife she wrote the book about were good together on paper but the man was a destiny killer

How would the lady know that the man she was marrying only wanted her to warm his bed and his belly but not fulfill her destiny?

She wrote a book and the man burnt it! He burnt her manuscript

I am a writer. I know the hours of work it takes to write a book
I know the years it takes to write some,

Even a thread on Twitter, when I write some and Twitter glitches and it disappears,

I lose interest in writing for days

Not to talk of burning the manuscript of a novel written through so much pain

The lady was a second-class citizen in her own marriage
She celebrated leaving the marriage as she should have

Nobody should have to stay in a miserable union in the name of the church or any societal belief
Once in a while, you find an ordinary bloke or a babe who was living an ordinary life in which he/she was settled and married and singing kumbaya but whose life experienced a drastic change for the better 

Then the partner would begin to find it difficult to cope
They would begin to throw spanners in the wheel and cry foul Saying, “I don’t want this change, I want us to remain where we were, long after the ship of destiny has sailed…”

Remember that lady caught on camera hawking bread a few years ago? 

How else would her semi-literate husband cope?
Was it her fault she walked into the lens of a camera the moment the shutter clicked?
Should she rather remain the way she was or was it better that her life was touched and changed the way it was?

Would you insist the man stay in a union in which the dynamics had so changed he didn’t know the next time he would see his wife?

“As the deer pants for water, my soul longs after you Lord
You have brought me into a place of rest
My soul longs after You!”

The song in my spirit as I penned down this thought 

Some of us need to focus on our own lives and reality instead of judging others by the appearances of their reality we are seeing or think we are seeing

I am all for marriage as long as the two people in it are chasing millions (not only money but dreams and achievements) as one! 

I do not like unions where one will thrive and the other would wither
Even as a housewife or a househusband, the two must thrive for the union to be acceptable

I would sometimes meet wives who are carrying the burden of the home in every way while the husband just lazes about 

They cry and insist they desire to part ways with the lazy man because they are tired of playing donkey
There was this particular one I met in Surulere, Lagos
She lamented and lamented
When I met the husband, I realized he was not lazy, he hated the shoes he was wearing and he was willing to take it off

We prayed together
He got a job with an engineering company in Germany
The wife ran back to me
“Tell him not to take it. If he takes it this marriage is over!”
Why, I ask
“I had a dream, and my dream always comes true
He made so much money and things changed between us
I don’t think that is a good thing” she concluded

She was secretly happy he was jobless while complaining it was a burden
She was secretly happy he was powerless and at her mercy
It made her feel superior
The moment the tide turned for him
She was afraid the table will turn

She was afraid he would remember how mean she was and repay her in kind
Now she would rather take away the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity he has to make something of his life than help him thrive
Ironically, he would be working from home at the time but would travel to Germany for three months every year

When they got a divorce, he threw a party!

The seasons of a marriage are dynamic

It is in the course of a good marriage that the man and the woman would experience their greatest accomplishments in life both individually and as a couple

This is to be expected

I know a couple, the husband is now 50, wife is 42
They got married in 2005 and they have three children but they both had accomplished nothing other than that since they got married

They live in the same flat, always struggling to pay rent, both always in and out of a job 

No advancement in education, no trip abroad, not even an online course certification
Someone cited them as a good example of a married couple to me once and I shook my head
Marriage is about much more than struggling and tales of woe
It must bring out the best in both parties 

Work on yourself
Work also on your partner
Be willing to learn and grow
Be open to change and be willing to adapt
Your spouse shouldn’t be heaving a sigh of relief when you are not at home
If your bed is cold, warm it up
If your attitude is cold, change it
Bring out the best in each other
Don’t make the marriage a bondage for your partner
Slaves have something in common, they desire freedom
If you make your partner feel the marriage vow was a bond of slavery, he or she will celebrate when he or she is free of you and then go on to live his or her best life 

This is how you know you were the problem
When your two didn’t make him or her better but once he or she was free of you everything changed for the better for him or her
That moment, you will say to yourself “I don’t care” and he or she will say “Thank God I am free”

Remember this 

You should not be the kind of partner that will stifle your partner’s growth
I know many men who will protest if their wife is earning more than they are or is promoted far above their station in life
This should not be so
If he or she seems to be outgrowing you, please match the pace
Don’t try to kill the growth
Just adapt and match the pace
If you are the one on the fast lane, don’t make your marriage all about your achievements and growth to your partner’s detriment
All your accolades and achievements came from the stability your partner supported you with

It is not a competition
Neither is meant to be a second-class citizen to the other
Remember that slaves take a lot of solace in religion as a means of coping with their painful reality
If it is religion that is keeping your marriage together, you better know it is not enough 

A slave will take freedom on earth ahead of satisfying the church or people’s opinion
And when a slave is free
He or she will celebrate
It may be painful at first but after a while, he or she will be thanking God it is over
Work on your relationship
Make your home a delight

-GSW-