The ‘mambojambo’ that is marriage

Can you explain why you got married?

Was it for love or out of convenience?

Either way, if you got married I know it’s not easy and am talking from experience. I married for love and that’s what keeps us together even when we don’t have money to buy bread or we have been bickering for days on end which leads to the silent treatment for a few days. But who am I kidding? He can get the cold shoulder for a week if am feeling selfish.

Now imagine this is how you behave when you are in a marriage and in love. My mum once told me my aunt and her husband didn’t talk for eight months. I was flabbergasted and I actually mean that word! It’s obscene to me that you can tiptoe around and grunt and sneer and shrug and ignore someone for eight months while living in the same house.

My parents have frequent fights but they’re becoming less and less, but harder and harder. This only means that the issues are becoming more serious and more painful and sometimes they sleep in separate beds. I’m used to it,after all they have been married 27 years but not I am not immune to their marital problems. It hurts me to see them fighting but it hurts my mother more, so I will just let them sort it out and stay out of it. Every marriage is different and so mine,is another story altogether.

We have two children. Both pregnancies were unplanned which as you might know leads to some major stress. Why? You’re simply unprepared,but in all fairness baby number two was to keep number one company so she wasn’t completely unplanned. I was having baby fever so when I missed my period the next month, I skipped the hyperventilating stage. The idea was to encourage a lifelong companionship in our daughters and so far it’s working. The stress on the other hand due to financial constraints, is far from over nor is the future very encouraging on most days.

What’s the silver lining in this situation?

I lost baby weight real quick and I also matured faster. Got more cynical and bluntly realistic. You don’t want to play a game of facts with me. I know them by heart and personal experience, so I will always win. The children are not at fault. Of course they are not! They are cute as can be and have to become my source of motivation and also depression. When I think of how am failing them some days when I cannot give them sugar, spice and everything nice I feel real gloomy.However it’s us, we put the ‘leap’ in leap before you look and this has been the sequence of events since our union.

It started fairly well,it became very rough, then good, then rough, then good okay…I think you get the picture. An unpleasant cycle is how I will put it mildly. Now we are in a state of numbness, with the occasional we are jolt back into our financially excruciating past. Children are a huge responsibility that couples need to prepare for in all aspects. Like your bubble needs to be near perfect before you bring kids into your world.As a young couple we learned that the hard way. We wanted kids. A product of our love and although it’s sounds romantic in this economy, love is expensive.

Its tough getting by sometimes and although I know it’s a temporary situation the process is often painful and destructive. Some marriages actually break. Your husband or wife becomes estranged, I chose to stick around. Even after the blame game and the consistent fights and the heart break and heart ache; I stayed. He stayed too. We chose each other.

So what is marriage?

I asked this question because, not only am I still discovering this union, I am discovering myself.I am not the same person I was before we moved in together. My life also has not been the same. The very meaning of sharing your life with someone that is what marriage is. Not the ring on the finger, or the title Mrs. It is the actual thing.

I have watched a couple of movies that refer to the success of marriage as not in saying I do, but in staying married .Some of the obstacles have been our own doing other times things just don’t work out. A deal falls through or you don’t get the job, but we have to pick up the pieces and continue where we left off.It’s always hard to accept when you have failed, but when you do just continue and remember that success is a failure that worked out in the end.

Know that in sharing your life with someone, decisions are not made alone all the time, and choices affect not just one other life, it could be two or three others. It requires conscious thinking and forecasting. As much as it sounds like an economic plan, the truth is it probably is. Think about your family’s economy; their health and well being, quality of life, living standards, happiness, comfort and your own peace of mind. Don’ t be fooled, after good health the next best thing is peace of mind. When you have peace of mind you have good health and vice versa.

My plans haven’t always worked but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t plan.Having a plan keeps you organized and focused, with a reminder of what’s important and what needs to be done in order for you to have a happy life. When you have a family you need to be disciplined and that goes without saying for marriage.

The meaning of marriage

I asked for my own closure because coming to terms with your own life requires you to ask the right questions. I have been feeling like someone pulled the rug from underneath me and kicked me while I was down repeatedly. Like my life ran away from me and I was just left there mouth agape, wondering what is happening!

Now, after some time to think I know what marriage has made me.A young woman full of grit and strength. I’ve shed my old skin and become someone new. I do everything I can excuses aside. My survival instincts went into sport mode and now I know what I am made of and what I can do.I have found that I am bound to a man so tightly that we can’t break, unless we decide to let go ourselves.The world has tried. People have tried, but still we stand united.Sometimes bruised and broken but still hoping and smiling and loving especially,when it hurts the most.