I grew up in a chaotic family where fight is the language of everyone.
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As a product of a polygamous home — my dad had six wives with one concubine who lived separately, and had thirteen children from all the seven women. Four out of the six wives left him, and my dad was left with two surviving wives. As a little boy, I grew up to know only the last two, my mother and the other woman, my step mum. My mum happened to be the last of all – nice and accommodating but tough and rugged. She doesn’t condone nonsense and hates to be cheated. While growing up, I knew she could fight for Africa. My step mum too was another great fighter, strong and shrewd.
I can’t remember a long period of peace in our house without a fight. Sometimes, the wives fought one another, and at other times, they fought with my dad.
On several occasions, I have seen him run through the stairway into his room and lock himself up to avoid an attack from his wives during uproars.
Don’t Kill Me
Countless number of times, I heard my dad saying things like “Iye Jumoke, ma pa mi.” That is calling my mum with her first daughter’s name, saying don’t kill me. I began to have wrong picture of what marriage is all about. In my subconscious mind, I wouldn’t want to marry a wife like my mum, I wanted a quiet and easy-going wife. The image of what my dad passed through in the hands of his quarrelsome wives was registered in my memory with inner fear of what marriage has to offer.
So, I approached marriage with fear. The fear of the unknown.
I don’t know what definition of marriage you have in your mind; to some, marriage is a journey of sorrow, sadness, and frustration. What is marriage to you? Your marriage is what you define it to be.
My dad never warned me of any impending danger of marrying many wives or living with a quarrelsome one, but I could read the warning all over him by myself. Subconsciously, I have learnt some things I needed to unlearn if my marriage would ever work out.
The first three years of our marriage were tough years for my wife and me. What I feared most suddenly became my early experience. Perhaps, God was teaching me a lesson on how to face my fear and conquer it and how to lead a selfless life. Going into marriage with a wrong expectation is the worst of all. I must unlearn what I've already learnt, I must focus less on myself, and more on what bring joy to my family. We both had our faults, things we needed to straighten up if the marriage must work out. Nobody can do it for you but you and until you do something about it, your family may fade away right before your eyes.
I Am Not Your Slave
Early in our marriage within those tough time, my wife kept mentioning a statement at every slight opportunity: I am not your slave. It took her years to understand that I am not ready to make her my slave and delete the notion off her mind. She came into the marriage with already stored-up notion that men do turn their wives into slaves, since in our culture, women are expected to virtually do all the house chores.
Her premonition about marriage prior to the wedding was like ‘hey, don’t take nonsense from any man before he turns you into a slave.’ It took me time to convince her through my action that it’s never true.
Two people coming into marriage with different views of what marriage is: one with the fear of the unknown and the other with wrong notion of what marriage offers. You can see the reason why we had those challenges at the early years of our marriage.
We needed to unlearn what we have both learned before meeting each other. I needed to see my wife as my wife, not as my mother. She is my wife, with unique make-up and characters; different from my mother personality that I stored in my heart. I shouldn’t expect to experience the same thing my dad experienced. I should be myself, show love to my wife and endeavor to bring the best I want out of her. My wife too needed to change her wrong premonition about marriage deliberately: my husband is not a wicked master, I am not a slave, I am his wife, and whatsoever I do as a home keeper is an expression of my love for my husband and not out of servitude.
We both buried our wrong notions about marriage so that we can see the bigger picture together and not the fearful or slavery picture that we have learnt prior to our marriage.
The bigger picture is that our marriage is what we make out of it.
Try Not To be Selfish
For you to make the best out of your marriage, you must learn to be unselfish.
According to Rick Warren, “Marriage is a lifelong course in learning to be unselfish.” Our marriage is 10 years now, and we can say that God has been faithful. The fear is gone. We are best of friends, no slave master, second-class citizen or a slave mistress. Most importantly, we learn to be unselfish every day.
Selfishness will end your marriage fast!
Every human being is naturally selfish. But the more you love each other, the less selfish you become; the more you grow loving each other, the more selfless you are.
One good part about marriage is that it makes you focus less on yourself alone, and work for the best of your spouse and children. It gradually diminishes your self, and teaches you how to be more responsible for others. To keep your home, you must learn how to be unselfish, and to break you home very fast, just remain selfish consistently.
If your marriage does not end your selfishness, your selfishness will end your marriage.
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