My dear Jil, I think you’ll be making a huge mistake if you go ahead and marry this gentleman. The issues will only get magnified in marriage. He’s not satisfied with you, you’re trying to adjust furiously, you’re not really yourself in the relationship. And in spite of all the adjustments things are still not okay. No adjustment can cure the fundamental problem in this relationship. And the fundamental issue is, you don’t love him, you just want to marry. You’re tired of waiting for Mr. Right. That’s never a good basis for a marriage. Essentially you’re marrying any man. It could have been anybody within a certain range. There’s no proprietary affection. Here’s the problem with such arrangement: once the wedding is over your strategic objective is fulfilled. There’s incentive for wedding, no incentive for marriage. But you have to cope with marriage. You don’t wed and walk out. It’s not wise to marry someone you don’t love. It soon shows in marriage. After some point you’ll get irritated. The alternative is for you to put up with the situation but that’s risking your emotional health. You’ll be flirting with depression.
There was a man who found himself in that position many years ago. He married a lady who didn’t love him. She just married him because she wanted to marry. She felt she was running out of time. Things were okay at first, as okay as things can be in such a marriage. There was no elation in the relationship. Everything was grey and neutral in emotion, but they coped, had simulations of happiness. An emotion neutral marriage is like water that is neither cold nor hot, you know, water whose temperature is in that disappointing and irritating zone. You’re neither having a cold bath nor warm bath. The lady clearly didn’t love the man and she soon began to manifest those emotions through un-care. The un-care escalated to retribution. She began to punish the guy for offences no one can define. He was the offence. Sex of course suffered. They would have sex two times a year if he’s lucky. She couldn’t stand him. The poor man suffered immensely.
In a similar fashion you’re going to punish this man. You don’t love him. You’re going to punish him in marriage and you won’t be able to regulate your emotions. There’ll be deep irritation. Your only option is to condition your mind to accept the situation. You must accept the marriage as your lot in life and choose to forego happiness, see if you can derive happiness. But that’s not an easy thing to do. Neither is it wise. Happiness is so essential in a relationship. Without happiness what’s the point? The relationship becomes a health challenge. The man I spoke about didn’t want divorce. So much so he told God he was ready to forego happiness just to preserve his marriage. But he soon learnt you can’t live without happiness. His was an impossible prayer. He couldn’t survive. His health shattered. Things just kept getting worse at home until the lady began to exhibit hatred towards him. She blamed him for every problem in her life, blamed him for HER unhappiness. The situation at home became so bad he landed in a psychologist’s couch. His emotional state was highly troubled. But the lady was relentless. Her emotions had taken over at this time. She was angry – angry at him, angry at his success, angry at his network… It was like a movie. The more his health suffered the more she turned the screw. This would go on for years. The man tried to hang on. He was in and out of hospitals. But it was an impossible situation. There are things that can’t be resolved in life. Human factor. At the end of the day the man had to give up the marriage. He just couldn’t hang on any more. It was either the marriage or his life.
Given the circumstances of this relationship I see yourself punishing this man in marriage. He does not know what awaits him. Neither do you. All those modifications you’re making now… The only reason you’re making them is for the sake of getting married, not because you believe in them. I’m afraid that one day something is going to snap. And when that happens God help you both. You will become what you can’t believe, what you never bargained for. You will change. At that point things will be about your emotions, not reason. And when emotions take over God help us all. The range is wide – from despite, to infliction of apathy, to full blown hatred. It’s hard to explain to you why it’s better for you to remain single than to go into a terrible marriage. It’s just so hard given your state of mind. In your singleness at least you have your freedom. There’ll be loneliness but you’re free. Ok, may be some societal pressure too. But it’s hard to quantify the value of freedom, especially freedom from oppression.
If you go into a horrific marriage the damage that will be done to your psyche will be incalculable. You’ll be horribly processed. Why don’t you just wait for the right man? Desperation will get you into a wrong union. And desperation only addresses short term issues. What about the longer term? Don’t lock yourself up into a marriage that will not make you happy. You’re not supposed to trade marriage for happiness. You’re supposed to have both, they’re not exclusive. You already have compatibility issues with this gentleman. Part of the problem is because you had decided on the marriage even before knowing him. It was a fait accompli. In essence you worked to the answer, adjusted the data to fit the desire, permutated the result. You had made up your mind you were going to marry him irrespective of what is thrown up about him. You know you’re not going to be happy living with this man. You can see that already. Don’t do it. How would you cope?
We underestimate the value of happiness in marriage. But what’s the point of a marriage without happiness? That’s a dungeon. I know you’re under pressure from home, your mum especially. But you don’t marry to please people you marry for yourself. You’re the one who’s going to live in the marriage, not your mum. Yes, your younger sister got married before you. But in concrete terms what has that got to do with you? The girl has her program, you have yours. Everyone has his or her program. The price you’re going to pay going into a forced marriage is just too great for whatever benefit you imagine will accrue. In the short term the marriage gets those aunties off your back, stops your mum from all the emotional blackmail. She thinks you’re too choosy. I know one or two aunties is advising you to get pregnant out of wedlock for a married man. It’s a bizarre solution, but in every family there are those aunties. Pray, how does that kind of advice help you? It will only compound issues. Those aunties hardly give that kind of advice to their own daughters. The advice is usually reserved for someone else’s daughter. And they don’t really have any interest in you beyond you being a gossip fodder. They’re happy you’re struggling to get hitched. It’s their one up against you for being ahead of their daughters professionally. The human heart is irrationally vengeful. Not everyone who laughs with you wishes you well. The pretence construct of life is very grand. There’s so much pretence. But you can sense when people don’t wish you well. It’s usually there right under the surface. Sometimes it slips into language. There’s that light smear, like butter spread thinly on a slice of bread. If you go ahead and entrap a married man with pregnancy that cannot bring goodwill from the man to you. That course of action has its own complications. And you can’t predict what the man will do. He may cut off from you! The baby may end whatever “relationship” you thought you had. And he may maintain parenting relationship and reject anything else. Some men have been known to walk out permanently. You’ll be left with the baby. There’ll of course be complications all round – in the man’s life, in your life, in the baby’s life, in the life of the man’s family… Many of these issues are often resolved at burial grounds. There’s also the issue of unrealistic expectations. He may not want to leave his wife. Or he may not be able to even if he wants to. These things are enormously complex. And if you go that way doesn’t that even defeat the purpose of the whole thing. Here you are wanting a man and ending up with a baby without a man.
Of course some advocate you can marry a man you don’t love; they say the love will come down the line. Perhaps. But what if it does not come? What if things deteriorate instead? Should you gamble with your life? You don’t want unhappiness in your life. The mid-section of your life shouldn’t be marked by unhappiness. That’s a big band of life.
Unhappiness in marriage will age you. The grey hairs will show up, right on cue, ahead of time. Worry lines will be etched on your face. And you have to keep pretending everything is okay. The sad part is, everyone will know things are not okay, despite your pretext. They will talk furtively behind your back. You will live in fear of being found out, even though you’re already found out. And things can deteriorate fast in such a marriage. There just comes that point where neither party cares. All things are possible from then on. And why live with a man who’s practically a stranger to you. You’ll be in the same house but you really don’t have anything in common. You’re just cohabitants. The presence of children in the marriage will help the charade. But even the kids will know things are not okay at some point. You’ll be relating dutifully with your husband. There are marriages that are so fractured they’re held together by the duct tape of pretence. You don’t want that kind of marriage. It’s sad, really sad.
It is for all these reasons that I implore you not to go into this marriage. For the sake of you both.
