Married life
I Don’t Understand the Fuss About Marriage
What’s the point of getting married when you’re more likely to loathe your spouse sooner or later?
Two months before my fourteenth birthday, my father disowned me.
What has that got to do with marriage, you may ask?
Everything.
See, my earliest memories were of five-year-old me, my parents, and my one-year-old brother. We were a happy family. At least, that’s what I remember. I clung to my father like a starfish, always following him wherever he went. As for my mother, she would tell me bible stories and teach me my schoolwork.
To this day, I still remember little me getting prepared for school by both my parents. My mother would prepare my snacks and lunch, and my father would walk me to school. Even after all the toxic nonsense I experienced later in life, I still remember the love and affection they showered us with when we were all together.
If my parents had any deep-seated marriage problems, then I never noticed. Maybe I was too young to remember.
Then I turned six. And before I knew it, my brother and I were living with just our mother. Where was our father? I had no idea. But from the way my mother talked about my father to other people, I knew things were bad. Worse than bad, actually. Still, I was too young to understand what was truly going on.
One of the most traumatic moments of my life was the day I got locked up in the toilet at school for several hours (at least it felt that way to me). Later, I learned that my principal, with my mother’s approval, had locked me up in the toilet because my father had come looking for me in school. They didn’t want him to see me, so they hid me away.
The searing feeling of rage I felt at the time, was something I still remember to this day. What the hell was wrong with them? All of them. Why did they keep me away from my dad? And why did my father leave us in the first place? My cynicism toward marriage began at this point, I am certain, but I was probably too young to articulate it.
One day my mother took my brother and me to our father’s workplace. I really don’t know why she did that, but as I got older, I understood that it was because she was having a hard time raising us by herself and needed our father to take responsibility. I was about seven then, wearing my favorite white T-shirt and a pair of jeans trousers my mother had picked up for me. Or did I pick them up myself? That, I do not remember.
But, I do remember us going to the Fire Academy, where my father worked; he was an officer of the Ghana National Fire Service. Unfortunately (or was it, fortunately), he wasn’t there at the time. But, my mother had a long impassioned conversation with one of the firemen, who I assumed to be my father’s colleague. Whatever their conversation was about, I could not remember, but I imagine it must have been about what an irresponsible man my father was.
I’m certain that was what they talked about because only a few days later, my father came and took my little brother away. Weeks later, which felt like years to me, he came for me too.
Things started making sense to me then. My father was no longer with us because he and my mother were divorced. In fact, that happy and loving marriage I once knew had turned bitter, full of rancor and malice. My father was a proud man — when he loved, he loved hard, and when he hated, he hated with a passion.
To this day, I still don’t know what caused the rift between my parents, but they couldn’t stand each other, that much was clear. It wouldn’t have been an issue had it just been between them and had nothing to do with my brother and me.
But their resentment toward each other was so powerful that my father wanted us to share in this resentment — he wanted us to have nothing with our mother. And so slowly but surely, my relationship with my biological mother began souring.
Today, I have a much better relationship with my mother, but I still feel distant from her since I’m not used to her affection. On the contrary, I’m a lot closer to my stepmother, and most people actually think she’s my biological mother.
Over the years, my parents’ relationship never improved. If anything, it got worse. The only thing that changed was the fact that I grew some balls and told my father I hated how ill he spoke of my mother all the time. So he stopped. Never heard him talk shit about my mother ever again after that.
As I grew older, I couldn’t for the life of me wrap my head around how two people who promised to love and cherish each other for as long as they lived suddenly became such bitter enemies. As a teenage girl, one of the things I often heard was how I was going to get married to a man someday and have my own children.
That nonsense always got on my last nerves every time I heard it. Other than the fact that they assumed I wanted a man at all, I didn’t see the point of marrying someone if things were going to end badly sooner or later.
Because let’s be real — the overwhelming majority of marriages never last.
There’s an African adage that when two elephants fight, it is the grass that suffers. This was the exact situation my brother and I found ourselves in when our parents divorced.
Eventually, my father disowned me for reasons that had nothing to do with me, and everything to do with him and my mother. It’s a story I don’t want to get into, to be honest. But it was one of the darkest times of my life.
Basically, he found out that my mother had been getting in touch with me ever since I went to stay with my paternal aunt. I was deeply asleep one night when my older cousin came to wake me from my slumber.
“Ah, what?” I slurred, still trying to make out the face staring down at me.
“Your father wants to talk to you.” She handed the phone over.
“Hello, Da-”
“Eh, Torshie,” his voice was full of anger, “have you been going to see your mother?”
I paused for a moment. Was my mother coming to see me or was I going there to see her? Did that make any difference? Whatever. I just wanted to go back to sleep. “Yes, Da,” I said.
“What… you…” I could practically feel his rage scorching me through the phone. “From today onwards, you’re no longer my child. Do you understand?”
I paused. Was this man for real? “Okay.” The phone went dead. Yes, I had a temper too. I was my father’s daughter after all.
In my defense though, I was so sleepy I just wanted the call to end. But unknown to me, that was the beginning of a dangerous feud between me and my father that would last for several months.
We did mend our relationship though, thankfully, and the years after that until his death were some of my fondest memories of him. Even still, my views on marriage never changed.
I’m happy for people when they get married yet I cannot help but worry about the day things turn into a nightmare. Whenever I hear that someone is married, the first thing I think is how they will soon hate each other and get divorced.
It’s probably a pathetic way to go about life. But so far, only a few marriages I’ve proved me wrong. Ironically, that includes my father’s second marriage with my mom (my stepmother).
Time and time again, I hear all these horror stories women share about their married lives. They’re expected to clean, cook, look after the home, take care of their husband, bear children, and raise these children, while at the same time maintaining a career or business.
On the other hand, their husbands are never burdened with the same expectations. Yes, there are men out there who help their women out with all these things, but no one bats an eye when they don’t do it.
Women usually end up more stressed in their marriages. This may not apply to every woman or every marriage, but in Ghana, this is a very common occurrence. I’ve seen it happen too many times.
Yet from childhood, women are conditioned to think that their worth as humans is tied to their marital status or the man in their lives.
One of my mom’s catchphrases when I was growing up, literally translated to “you’ll take it to marriage.” This is something she often said whenever I messed up in chores or anything remotely associated with my ‘future marriage.’ We’re made to think that our whole existence as women is to please a man someday.
So we’re constantly under pressure to get married as soon as we’re old enough. Then we go into it, and more often than not, we get disappointed by it.
That, in my opinion, is what’s pathetic.
Presently, as I am, I do not see the need for marriage. Every argument one makes for marriage, every benefit society thinks I’ll get from it, I can have it while I’m single.
“What about children?” They say. If I do want children, I can always adopt. The woman I call ‘mom’ is not related to me in any way. If my father’s divorce has taught me anything, then it’s that family goes beyond blood.
If I find a partner who changes my stance on marriage, that’s great. I’m not totally opposed to it. However, if it’s going to adversely affect my mental health, then in my Simon Cowell voice, it’s a no from me.
I will rather be alone and happy than be with someone who makes me miserable.
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