This blog was very active when I was single then as a newly-wed, so I would like to touch on marriage today now that I may be considered a seasoned partner in marital life since I am married for seven years. Wowsa, do I have stories?
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| I love this picture because it looks very close to us. Keep reading |
I will not be dwelling only on issues in my marriage because let's be honest, every marriage has its own prevalent issues but I will be making certain inferences on what I have learnt over the years. On a certain scale, I believe I and many of our friends say I am happily married, lol, but then again, marriage is a crazy investment where two people who may have no business doing business together set up trade together.
If you look at the premise of marriage itself, it is almost a nutty idea, God forgive me. Two individuals who have completely different upbringing and backgrounds are expected to become one to spend the rest of their lives together while trying to choose whose ingrained values or culture to adopt for the training of their products (children).
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| Marriage should be filled with laughter like this. So Sweet |
However, I have come to find out that my husband is cut from an entirely different cloth when it comes to communication. You can classify him as reticent, brooding usually mistaken as gentle albeit with an advantage of wisdom and not very quick to react in anger. What this means is, when we have certain issues that need ironing out, he would rather not discuss it and he has the unfathomable talent of holding things in. Now, this character is very alien to me as I come from a background of outspoken individuals. In fact, while growing up in my Dad's house, the one person that was taciturn was seen as slow and was teased about it until she came out of her shell.
This is one of the differences that may present itself as difficulties in marriages and there are eclectic patterns in diverse marriages concerning personality, sex, money matters, faith, career, education, wealth acquisition, friends and other things. These differences often lead to divorce when couples cannot come to a head or a compromise about issues they are facing and when ego comes to play, everyone would like to go their separate ways instead of backing down for the other party. Let's not digress to cheating today because that's an entire book on its own.
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| The most expensive divorce ever executeth, lol. Jeff Bezos and Ex-Wife. Rich Ex-Wife |
One of the other things that break marriages down is taking each other for granted, I mean, this happens in 99.5% of marriages and every party is guilty as sin. Just imagine if the way your husband chases you around for your attention while you guys were dating is the same way he does in marriage and vice versa, I think this may help marriages. Unfortunately, this is almost naturally impossible because of human nature as we get bored easily and it is those things that we do not have we continue to chase, once we have them, meh. They can chase you to forgive them after quarrels as a girlfriend, wait till you become a wife........of many years. Does this not sound like a bad investment? A wife of many years should be pampered just like the investment of many years that has better returns, mostly. No, a wife of many years means it is time to chase a sidechick instead of making the long-suffering wife feel appreciated. Women have suffered, this is why we are wilding out now.
What actually prompted this write up was the recent dissolution of Dr Dre's marriage to his wife of 24 years, Nicole Young. 24 years! That's eternity in the years of marriages these days especially in Hollywood where Dr Dre presides for a livelihood. Dr Dre is a prominent personality in American music business and is renowned for transforming the sound of music with 'Beats by Dre' so this is a public divorce. What struck me particularly was how Dr Dre was able to woo his Nicole into marrying him, I initially thought it was a chivalrous attempt until I read the infamous love letter he wrote to her which I would term as 'crude" but it obviously worked to rope her in.
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| Dr Dre and Nicole Young now Ex-Wife |
Dr Dre's now ex-wife was married to someone else and Dr Dre wrote her a letter imploring her to be with him so he can "take care of her" and he really wish he could be "all up in that ass", can you believe this guy's lascivious guts? Unbelievable. Then again, how else do you make a woman swoon? What woman does not like to be "taken care of" or have her ass as the center of attention, coughs. There had to have been some kind of sparks between these two for him to have the boldness strong enough to write her such an explicit letter. He obviously had no regard for the institution of marriage, he wants what he wants. Anyways, it worked and gave him 24 years. So, now why the divorce? Did he forget how to construct sentences in love letters? I doubt it, he just does not go out of his way to make his woman happy anymore because he believes strongly, just like every single married person would think, that the wife will always be there, tomorrow, next tomorrow and next, so no issue. The passion to be all up in that ass don fade away. There lies the problem with most marriages. Does her ass have stretch marks now? She did have two children for him so stretch marks are sincerely justified.
Nicole obviously is not having it, she filed for divorce citing irreconcilable differences and guess what?, there aint no prenup too mehn. Here's where I need to mention that Dr Dre is worth a whopping $800 Million Dollars and our Nicky baby is asking for spousal support. Did I hear someone say Kaching!? Damn straight.
I witnessed a lot go down in my parent's marriage, some things a child should not witness but who are we kidding, we have all seen sides to our parent's marriages that we do not approve of and other things that we may have incorporated into our own unit now. I think some of the things I saw made me have a strong resolve about the kind of woman I wanted to be in life but I did not lose my values keeping my word. One of the things I did hold on to was the essence of making everyday count for love in marriage and I put my entire being behind this. There is something I would always say to those I love, "We could be having fun right now but we are fighting and losing the greatest moments of our lives". We getting old ya'all.
So can we say marriage is an institution that was made not to last? I mean it is impossible for a person to be completely and continuously enamoured by another person for the rest of their lives. What about these long-adopted quotes? "Nothing lasts forever" "The only constant thing about life is change" yada yada. There is always something or someone competing for that affection after the ephemeral honeymoon phase, be it a sidechick, a sugar boy, a career, desire for a short escape (where do you think you are going?)😂😂 Do we say a wife should compromise and inure herself to her husband's way of life based on his upbringing or should the husband be the one to let up? Do we say one partner should continue to remember how impassioned their love was and not complain about unrequited love? It's a crazy conundrum.
That said, marriage is a lot of compromises, letting parts of yourself go so you are able to merge with parts of your spouse, letting things that infuriate you fly over your head, learning every single day to make precious moments, having moments of introspection, self-assessment with truth and more. The rate of divorces these days is alarming because times are changing. I think a large chunk of the reasons for divorces is that women are speaking and standing up for themselves more these days than ever before. According to most women online "We are not tolerating what our mothers tolerated".Inserts hair flip.
My mother did tolerate a lot in her marriage to my dad and that's why she is so precious to me today because she never left my dad which I obviously mean, she never left us, her children. Most times in this part of the world and especially the period of our formative years, the children would most likely remain with the dad as no court of law would deem a woman capable of raising children on her own. She stayed and endured, I am happy to say today, they are still together, over 45 years together, amazing yeah? Paid them a visit a week back and as my dad was conversing with us, I glanced at my mum and saw this look of deep love in her eyes as she looked at my dad talking. It made my heart give itself a warm hug, I left their home an even happier person that day.
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| I wanna grow old with you, I wanna die lying in your arms🎼🎼 |
According to my mum, she stayed because of her children and this paid off very well for all of us. We all know what usually happens when a step-mum steps in to take care of young children, there is usually no taking care of. I am happy my mum stayed with my dad and that today that altruistic decision she made many years back still makes me feel very lucky. Would I stay if I had to experience half of what she did? Are we women of today selfish than our mothers because we are more empowered? Is empowerment and independence the reasons we are so ready to walk out of marriages without thinking about the children? Questions upon Questions.
My Pastor strongly believes in the institution of marriage and would not condone divorce but only on the grounds of domestic abuse. People tend to forget that abuse has many colours, how about emotional abuse? Suck it up yeah? Iss ok.
For me personally, I try to bring back the spark in my marriage. Prior to the corona lockdown and quarantining ourselves, I would always drag my husband out (emphasis on drag, lol) to romantic dinners, Friday night movies, live band bars, concerts, parties etc, just to bring about a revival and this works . I make sure there is some monumental event to celebrate every single month, people think I am crazy. I keep memorable dates of special events in my life and no birthday or other celebrations passes by without me trying to make a big deal so that we can have some good times. This is one of the many ways I used to re-ignite passion and make moments that last forever. These moments have saved us repeatedly when we almost forget how good we have it. My hubby is an introvert while I am most extrovert. Listen people, he was an extrovert before we got married, e be like say the guy was just performing for me while we were dating but it was sweet that he indulged me all those years. 10 years of friendship, 7 years of marriage is no beans. I still have more friends who are not married than married friends. Times are changing and people tolerate less so the standards are over the bar. Better single than divorced right?
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| Us at a couples dinner party. I went makeup free. Our children go "Awwww" to this picture |
Make lasting memories with your significant other today. Memories are forever.
Always Real,
Modupe Onanuga Longe
