Like a lamb to the slaughter

“He is a big joker! So he wants me to be all lovely dovey but when it’s time for him to give me emotional support he will be missing in action! He can’t have it both ways, only emotionally present with happy me, but missing in action when I’m down. Just thinking about it makes me so mad! I really needed him, but he really just couldn’t be bothered. I mean, if I can’t expect this of him, then who can I expect it from?”

I could hear the pain in her voice and I knew her question was meant to be rhetorical, but I had an answer for her, so I pulled her into a warm hug to calm her down which I hoped would make her more receptive to the lecture I was about to give, one I’d received not too long ago myself.

Yasmin had been married for only a few months, but had come to an emotional impasse that threatened to destroy her marriage. One I was trying to get to the bottom of. Her husband had recently started complaining that she was suddenly emotionally distant. It didn’t take me long to figure out what the problem was, she was dying to open up to someone- anyone, just not him. At least not anymore.

Source: Pinterest

An old friend of hers recently lost his son, and it hid her hard. Even though they hadn’t been in touch for a while, she’d never heard him sound so broken. She tried as much as possible to be there for him and his family, but it was emotionally draining. She’d reached out to her husband for comfort, but hadn’t gotten the response she felt she needed. It wasn't the first time, or the second, and frankly, she was tired, so she switched off.

Pulling away, “What I’m about to say may not be what you want to hear right now, but I’d like you to give it some thought. Can you do that?”

Taking her slow nod as a sign of cooperation, I began my story.

Before Charles and I got married, I'd had lofty dreams of what my marriage would be like. He would be my indestructible emotional rock! God forbid I was ever sad, he would never let a single tear drop from my eyes but would always be there with a warm hug and listening ear. The wedding day came and went, and reality quickly set in. Needless to say, I was an emotional wreck. Mind you, i’m not what one would call the emotional type. For years I’d done a good job- an excellent job actually, of hiding my feelings well, so a part of me was looking forward to sharing them with someone I felt I could trust and allow myself to be vulnerable with. It was a really difficult time for me at work but it was like Charles was completely oblivious to my needs and incapable of providing the emotional comfort I needed. When I needed a hug, he gave me a pat on the back. When I needed him to just listen, he gave me 10 ways to resolve the issue. So I started to slowly shut down. It wasn’t intentional. I just didn’t know what to do with this new me. I hated been vulnerable with someone who I didn’t feel was supportive, so I began to revert to the old me. But the more feelings I held in, the more I began to resent him. What was the point being married to someone if they can’t meet my emotional needs? But I hated who I was becoming. Something had to change, and change they did.

Ben was all that Charles wasn’t. Attentive and affectionate. So it was easy to.....

 To be continued

I told you so

Her constant pacing was making me uncomfortable. “Umitta, please sit down. This isn’t helping.”

“That’s easy for you to say.” She snapped. “I’m sorry. I know you are only trying to help.” She said sinking into the chair opposite me. “But it’s just soo frustrating. I told him this would happen, but he wouldn’t listen. He never listens!”

I knew I had to calm her down when she got up and started pacing again.

“Let’s go for a walk.” I said walking towards the door. The fresh air would do her some good.

Her husband had just lost his job. He’d gotten a job offer from a rival firm a few months earlier, which he had turned down against her advice because he was expecting a big promotion and bumper raise at work. Instead, he was sacked!. So even though I knew she was dealing with a variety of very different emotions, i wasn’t entirely sure which Ummita I was dealing with per time. Was it sad, mad or scared Umitta?

“What are we going to do? We just bought that land in Sango Tedo, so don’t have much in savings. How are we going to survive? I warned him this could happen, but he just wouldn’t listen. He never listens!”

Source: Pinterest

“Why did you come to me?”

“Huh? I don’t understand.”

“Out of everyone you could have spoken to about this, you came to me. Why?”

“Errr....I don’t know.”

“I think it’s because you thought I’d see things your way and possibly side with you.”

Her mouth opened as if to deny it, but was quickly shut because she knew I was spot on.

Ummita and I are very similar. We have the same “gift”- a gift which was a borderline curse during the first few years of my marriage. You see, we are able to tell the future. No, not in some mystical or psychic way, but…. It’s hard to explain. Just think of it like women’s intuition on steroids. We have this funny way of playing out a million different scenarios in our head, and somehow instinctively knowing what the outcome of almost all situations will be.

“Humor me a sec, I want to show you something.”

“Ok”

“Imagine I want to give you this key” I said holding out my car key. “But you get it under one condition- that you catch it when i throw it”

“Ok”

“I think if we both close our eyes when I throw the key, you have a better chance of catching it.”

“That’s utterly ridiculous” She laughed. “Both our eyes need to be open so you can throw it in the right direction, it’ll give me a better chance of catching it”

“Trust me. This will work. Now just close your eyes”

Watching her reluctantly close her eyes, I took a few steps back. Closed my eyes, and threw the key.

“Did you catch it?” I yelled.

“Of course not!  I told you it wasn’t going to work.”

“Yeah you did, but do you have the key?”

“I already said I don’t”

She didn’t get it. I had to try a different tactic.

“Ok, lets try this again. I’m gonna tell you something a very dear friend of mine told me before Aden and I got married, something that would probably have saved me a lot of grief if I’d taken heed of a lot earlier than I did.”

“Ok” she sighed. I could tell she was getting slightly impatient.

“She told me never to tell my  husband I told you so .”

I saw her mouth open as if to say something.

“Babe, let me land first.” I said before she could say anything. “I got married thinking- no, knowing I was smarter than Aden. After all, situations proved I was always right, so I didn’t understand why he’d have an opinion contrary to mine, and I loved to tell him so every opportunity I got. The more I told him I told you so the less he sought my opinion and the more mistakes he made. It got to the point where I patiently waited for him to make the mistakes I knew he would so I could tell him I told you so.”

I could tell my words had started to sink in, so I continued.

“I didn’t trust him to make the right decisions, and he didn’t trust me to support any decisions he made. It was a vicious cycle that threatened to destroy our marriage, because I didn’t trust his ability to make what I presumed to be the right decisions, I wasn’t in support of anything he wanted to do, even if it was right. It was spiraling out of control, it was no longer us against the world, it had become us against each other and I was powerless to stop it.”

“So what did you do?”

Laughing and shaking my head, I continued. “I fasted and prayed. Then fasted some more. I prayed that Aden would quit being soo stubborn and would listen to me. I prayed that he’d realize I was always right and fall in line!”

“Did it work?”

“Nope. Nothing changed, well except maybe my weight, I think I lost about 5kg from all the fasting.”

I could tell she was now slightly confused.

“To cut the long story short, a book by Stormie Omartian called The Power of a Praying Wife, found its way to me. It outlines specific areas women should pray about concerning their husbands. I thought it a little strange that the first set of prayer points were for wives to pray about ourselves. I mean, I wasn’t the problem, but it was a small price to pay to get him to fall in line.”

“Did it work?” she whispered.

“It took a while, but yeah, it did. Though not in the way you think. God convicted me in a major way! I was the one who needed to change. I felt my heart fill with the realization that it wasn’t about me, or what I wanted, but about what was right for us, because i can never want better for my family than God wants for us. The first thing I had to do was stop saying I told you so, the second was to lay down our opinions before God and ask for direction, conviction and humility concerning His will. If I was still convicted about my choice, the right thing to do was pray for Aden, generally that God would make him a man that I could trust to make the right decisions, a man that would hear His voice clearly concerning all things, and specifically that God would convict him concerning the issue at hand, and give him the humility to make the necessary adjustments. If I was wrong, then I had to humble myself and make the necessary adjustments. God showed me that I had elevated the “gift” He had given me for the benefit of Aden and I above Him. I realized that if I felt Aden was going down the wrong path, it was God and not my superiority complex that would get him back on track. In marriage there is no I. What affects one affects both. But what struck me the most was that most times, neither of us was right, there was often a different path God wanted us to go down.”

“Oh my God!”. She sobbed.

Realizing she was crying, I pulled her into a tight hug.

The Worse Kind of Betrayal (Part 1) : Regret

 I grasped my chest with my left hand and I tried to steady myself with my right, as the first jolt of pain ripped through me. I silently gasped for air and thought to myself, so this is what it feels like to die, as my knees began to buckle.

“Bidemi! Oh my God! Bidemi!” Bode yelled as he reached out to grab me.

Maybe it was the sound of his voice, or the touch of his hand, but in an instant, new life was breathed into me.

“Don’t you dare touch me” I said as I regained my footing and my eyes started to sting. I rolled them back and took a very deep breath. Don’t do it. Girl don’t do it. My initial reaction was bad

When friendship goes too far (Part 2)

“What arrant nonsense, Jimi can never try that rubbish with me”.

She put her hand on my shoulder.

 “My dear you have to confront him, nip it in the bud before it gets out of hand. Stand your ground; let him know that you won’t take such nonsense. Imagine! A married man going around claiming to have a woman other than his wife as his best friend. My dear, that’s how it starts oh”

Source: Pinterest

I turned to look at Uju. She smiled as she finally spoke.

 “I’m waiting for Chi to finish. Are you done?”  

The Valentine Story

“I’m so sorry” Jane gushed almost knocking me down in a hurry to get somewhere.

Bending down to pick up the files the impact had sent flying. “It’s ok. Just take it easy so you get where you are going in one piece” I replied.

“So you must have seen what Tade got today?” She asked excitedly.

”No” I replied curtly.

“Oh ok. I thought since you were coming from the direction of her office that you must have......” she trailed off.

Trying not to roll my eyes, I said a quick goodbye, not wanting to be drawn into a conversation about the events of the past few days.

Tade had been receiving Valentine gifts from her husband since the First of February. The gifts kept on getting increasingly extravagant that everyone was anxious to see what would happen on Valentine’s Day. It had started off with a dozen roses, then cupcakes from her favourite patisserie in the UK! He’d even gotten one of her favourite artists to come and perform for her right here in the office! At this rate, I wondered what else there was to do on Valentine’s day or any other Valentine’s day for that matter, then I thought of my own husband who would most likely send me the same text message he sent me 2 years ago- that’s if I’m lucky and he even remembers. After all, he forgot last year.

The office was buzzing. Everyone was talking about Tade’s latest gift.  “Wow are you serious? Tade is one lucky lady sha” Said a random lady I’d never even seen before.

“I can’t wait to see what the bros will do on Valentine’s Day...” replied the equally random lady she was walking with.

**********

Tade’s husband didn’t disappoint. I don’t know how he’d pulled it off but he managed to get her time off work for a few days for an all expense paid trip to Cape Verde.

By the 100^th offer of cake, I couldn’t take it anymore; everyone except me seemed to have gotten something. So I took some time out to be alone.

“Are you ok?” I heard Tade ask softly.

“Yes I am” I replied wiping my tears, I didn’t realise I was sobbing so loudly. Embarrassed, I just wanted to jump into the toilet.

“Do you want to talk about it?” She asked in that motherly tone of hers that just makes you want to hug her.

“No thanks. I’m fine”

“Gloria, you know you are not alright. If it’s so bad that you have to come and lock yourself up in here to cry”.

How can I tell this woman that I’m crying because I didn’t get a gift from my husband, talk less of him even wishing me a happy valentine’s day? This sort of a woman would not understand what it’s like to feel so unloved by the one person you love the most in this world.

“I’m not going anywhere until you come out” she said

Sighing deeply I opened the door of the toilet stall.

“Oh dear!” she gasped “you look terrible”

Just great I thought. How will I explain red swollen eyes to everyone in the office?

She reached over and pulled me into a warm embrace. “What’s wrong dear?”

I don’t know what came over me, but I poured my heart out to her.

I didn’t blame her for being silent for a while when I finished talking. She was probably thinking about what a loser I am.

When she eventually spoke, what she said left me speechless. She told me how for the first 5years of her marriage her husband didn’t acknowledge birthdays, valentine, Christmas nor even their wedding anniversary, and how her marriage had almost ended because of it. Luckily for her, a friend gave her the same advice she was about to give me.

“So you see my dear, you fight on your knees and not with your fists or with your mouth”

She laughed when I looked at her like she was crazy

“There is nothing God cannot do. Don’t get me wrong, my husband didn’t change overnight oh. Actually it was even I who changed first; God showed me a better way of communicating my needs. I’ve been married for 11years, but my husband has only been this way for the last 4 of those years”

I stared at her, speechless.

“I think he is trying to make up for all the years he was not like this” she laughed and continued “it’s only God that changes people dear, your tears and nagging will not bring lasting change, only God does. Don’t think that this is too small or trivial to take to Him in prayer. God is concerned about every aspect of your life, especially your marriage, and He will do everything to make sure it succeeds, you just have to do things His way”

Source: Pinterest

She gave me another hug and left me with my thoughts. I didn’t know where I’d start or what I’d say, but the words came as I let myself go. Then came the peace, and in a split second I knew what to do. I took permission from my boss and left 2 hours early.

**********

I met my husband at the door with a kiss, took his briefcase from him and led him to the living room. Seeing the puzzled look in his eyes, I answered his question even before he asked.

“I just thought it’d be nice if I did something special today” I said, gesturing to the candle lit dinner I’d laid out on the living room floor.

**********

That was 3 years ago. Today as I sit in my office cradling the roses my husband sent me for Valentine’s Day, I say a little prayer of thanks to my God that indeed answers prayers.

NOOOOO STOP!!! That's Ishmael

“I literally can’t stop thinking about him. He’s unbelievably charming and we have so much in common and to top it off, he is a Spirit filled....”

“Tongue speaking, fire breathing, demon casting, hot stuff”

Laughing, my friend immediately rose to her own defence as I completed her sentence for her.

“I haven’t gone on about him that much. Have I?”

“Err only like a zillion times! Anyway what’s the problem?”

“Haven’t you heard all I’ve been saying?  I can’t stop thinking about him. He’s literally on my mind every single second. It’s driving me crazy!!”

“Hmmmm”

“What?”

“Nothing. Just waiting for you to get to the point”

“Claire, the thing is, said thoughts haven’t exactly been of the pure variety.”

I almost chocked on the homemade Chapman I was sipping on.

“What EXACTLY have you been thinking about?”

“Anyway, it’s nothing overly serious. It’s just that I’m really, really, really, really, really, real...”

“I got that the first hundred thousand conversations we’ve had about him, just get to it madam”

“Sorry. Well it’s just that I’ve been wondering a lot what it’d be like to kiss him. More than wondering actually, fantasising is more like it”

I slowly set the glass down as I contemplated what advice I’d give my friend. She took the lack of an immediate response from me as a cue to continue.

“I’ve also been having this unsettling feeling I can’t quite put my finger on”

Bolatito had not so recently come out of a long term relationship that we all thought was the real deal. At the risk of sounding chauvinistic even to my own gender, she took the breakup like a man. But as time went on and she rejected suitor after suitor I began to fear that the break up might have affected her more than we’d all thought. Though to be honest none of the guys that approached her were anything to write home about. A union with any of them would have bagged her a masters degree in unequal yoking. I guess I just wanted her to ‘feel’ something for someone again, that way I’d know her heart was still beating.

So you can only imagine how over the moon I was when she told me about Mr Spirit filled, tongue speaking, fire breathing, demon casting hot stuff. He seemed to think she was the best thing since sliced bread and for the first time in a long time, my friend actually liked someone. But her last statement bothered me.

“What do you mean by unsettling?”

“It’s hard to explain”

Source: Pinterest

“Is it about him or the relationship? Come on babe, you have to give me more to go on here”

“You know what? I think I’m just being silly. This is all happening so fast .I think I’m just a bit scared”

That was 2 weeks ago. Today, I sit here listening to my friend tell me what she just found out about Mr Spirit filled, tongue speaking, fire breathing, demon casting, hot stuff and why a relationship with him would be a one way ticket to disaster .

 ***************

I started the New Year on a high, believing that a lot of things had or at least were falling into place for me. They all seemed so in line with what I believed God has for me this year. There was one opportunity in particular that had me almost as excited as Bolatito was about her new Beau, and like her there was an unsettling feeling I couldn’t shake. I hadn’t prayed about the opportunity as I kept telling myself that it wasn’t yet time to take that step because I was still waiting for things to develop further. However, I was already getting comfortable with the prospects that the opportunity would bring when the Holy Spirit convicted me that I was playing with fire. I’d let things spiral out of control for too long, things may not have gotten to the level that I think they should have for me to pray about the situation, but they had long gone past the level God required. All this was impressed on my heart as I drifted off to sleep last week Wednesday. I didn’t even say what most would call a ‘proper’ prayer, but I committed everything into God’s hands as I drifted off to sleep and you wouldn’t believe how He opened everything up the very next day. I was amazed how something that seemed so right when I woke up on Thursday morning became the complete opposite by the time I went to bed that same night.

 We all know the story of Ishmael, how he was a product of impatience and the desire to ‘assist’ God. Looking back over the events of the past few weeks, I don’t believe I was impatient and if at all anything , I took steps to ensure I do not do anything that can be perceived as helping God. Yet Ishmael came knocking. This has led me to conclude that Ishmael may not always be the product of impatience or helping God, like in the case of Sarah, but may also be a distraction technique used by the enemy, designed to keep you occupied so that when Isaac shows up, you will be so caught up with Ishmael you won’t even notice. You might have waited for as long as you have and even be willing to wait a bit longer when Ishmael shows up looking all like what God promised you.

One thing to bear in mind is that when the Ishmaels’ start appearing, your breakthrough is probably close enough for you to literally touch it. The enemy is only trying to distract you from it. So hold on just a little while longer, pray a little bit more, praise a little bit more.

Even though I used a male/ female relationship to illustrate my point, this Isaac/ Ishmael dilemma applies to all areas of life as I’ve learnt from my own personal experiences.

 I believe that this year God is going to fulfil so many promises it’ll make our heads spin. But as is characteristic to him, the enemy is going to try his best to make sure this doesn’t happen by presenting people with counterfeits. Be watchful. Be vigilant. Be Spirit led in all your decisions. Remember the perfect time to pray is NOW, and not when all the eggs seemed to have lined up.

Happy New Year

I am NOT my hair. I am NOT your expectation. I AM who God says i am.

I could hardly contain myself. I’d actually passed the test?! I still couldn’t believe it. I was sure- no, I was certain I’d flunked it. I literally screamed into the phone when i called my best friend of 20years to break the news.

“I got it! I got it! I got it! I go....”

“Hello to you too young lady”

I giggled nervously as I waited for her to ask the million dollar question.

“So what did we get madam?”

“Avinu just called me! I have an interview in a few days”

“Oh my God! Oh my God! Oh my God! Are you serious? But I thought you said...”

 “Yeah I thought I flunked it too, but I guess I didn’t. I could hardly believe it when the HR chic called me, I was tempted to tell her she made a mistake”

“Hmmmm”

“What?”

“Nothing. You really have to prep for the interview”

“I know. I’m gonna spend the next few days doing research and...”

“That’s not what I mean”

“oh?”

“Babe this is one of the most coveted positions of our generation Avinu is not one of the - but THE most desirable employer. You can’t afford to be anything less than what they expect. Apparently they have an ‘unwritten’ spec of the people they hire.”

“Hmmm”

“I was talking to Valerie from research, you remember her right? Anyway she said that her cousin applied 3years ago but didn’t get in because she didn’t meet their specs. Anyway, I’ll come over after work today and we’ll talk”

As I entered Avinu’s candidate waiting area I could tell that everyone else had gotten the ‘unwritten spec’ memo. I could even have sworn that I saw at least 3 other girls wearing outfits identical to mine. There was however one lady who stood out, she looked like ‘me a few days ago’. She had on an outfit similar to what I would probably have worn to this interview if Nnenna hadn’t intervened. I was still musing over her outfit when I got called for my ‘face to face’.

I could tell from the rapport I had with the head of the department that it went brilliantly. So imagine my shock when I got the ‘we are sorry email’. I really thought the job was mine. Even though it wasn’t popular practice and I fully expected to get brushed off, I went out on a limb and called the HR Rep, I was surprised that she agreed to speak to me. What she told me shocked me. Even though I was the most qualified in terms of education and work experience out of all the candidates they’d interviewed, I didn’t have the image they were looking for. They wanted someone ‘different’- the lady she thought I was during my telephone interview, not the member of the ‘unwritten spec’ posy she met during the ‘face to face’. I whispered a barely audible thank you as she advised me to apply again in 3years.

*****************

In May 2008 I cut my hair and went natural. I loved it! It felt like me. Which thinking about it now is strange because all through secondary school even though I had natural hair, I yearned for the relaxed tresses everyone else had- because that was the generally accepted perception of cool and sexy.

I didn’t face any opposition to my choice to go natural until I moved to Nigeria in 2010. I wasn’t surprised that there was opposition, what shocked me was its intensity. At a point it became a constant flow of rejection and criticism. A few people actually asked me if I was ‘SU’, others implied I wouldn’t find a husband as long as my hair was natural. I began to dread trips to the saloon because it meant I’d either have to endure people talking behind my back about the state of my hair or I’d receive a lecture about why I should relax it. I finally gave in to all the pressure in July 2010 and relaxed it. Since then I’ve harboured secret thoughts of going natural again.

A few months ago I saw pictures of the friend who started the natural hair journey with me and WOW! Is all I can say. Her hair looked wonderful, and I couldn’t help but think that would have been me too if I hadn’t succumbed to the pressure of changing to suit other peoples idea of how I should look.

So in August of this year, I cut my hair again. The criticism is back, if anything it’s worse than before. However, I’m not the same person I was in 2010. I’ve realised that a lot of those who try to shove their opinion down my throat actually believe they are doing it for my own good. They really do not have any ill intention. To them a woman’s glory is her nicely relaxed hair and her beauty is found in her made up face. This may be true for some people (and that’s ok for them), but it isn’t true for me.

There have been those who want me more extroverted while some think I’m too in your face.  Some want me to lose weight; others want me to gain some. It goes a lot further than my hair, or even my appearance. Everyone has an opinion, but at the end of the day it’s only Gods opinion that counts.

Imagine you buy a DVD player that in your opinion is identical to that of a close friend, only to get home and find out that it doesn’t play any of your DVDs. You call your friend, because well he has an identical one. Your friend advices you to do all sorts of things that don’t work. You try all the advice you find on Google. Still nothing works. After about 2 weeks you decide to check the operator’s manual and you find out that this particular DVD player was manufactured to play only Indonesian DVDs. When you tell your friend this, he gives you the contact details of a technician that can ‘fix’ it. You call the technician. He ‘fixes’ it. But the DVD player stops working within 7months. You call the technician again, who informs you there is nothing he can do as it’s the side effect of ‘fixing’. He says if you’d contacted the manufacturer initially they would have been able to help you and you wouldn’t have to buy a new one, like you have to do now.

Something similar happened to a friend of mine and got me thinking that as humans this is how we generally behave. We decide people/ things should be a certain way and try to hammer them into the mould we have carved out. We don’t ask God- the manufacturer what His intentions are for them or for ourselves. Usually due to the fear of rejection by others we try to conform to their blueprint of who they think we should be. The danger with that is we find it difficult to fulfil the purpose God intended for us. Like the young lady in the story who followed the well meaning intentioned advice of her friend and changed her appearance from who she was to who she thought the company wanted, and ended up having to wait 3years for another chance. A lot of times people give advice with the very best of intentions, but good intentions don’t mean God intentions. What God says about you should ALWAYs trump what everyone else says about you. It’s who God says you are that you are.

I remember a sermon I heard in which the Pastor was talking about how different he is from his brother. They are both Pastors but he is by far less out spoken and introverted than his brother- they are almost opposite both in appearance and personality. Yet are both doing fantastically well in their various ministries. There is no one size fits all coat that says to be successful in a chosen field you need to be like everyone else in that field.

We need to be who God made us to be and stop trying to be someone else. The first step to fulfilling your purpose is to know and be comfortable with who God says you are- regardless of what the crowd says. Only God can give you the image of who He has called you to be.

Knock, knock please let me in!!!!

“Eyamba?”

I didn’t respond. I wanted to scream, hit him – anything to dispel the raging emotions I was feeling. How could he come back after all this time and ask this of me. Just when I was picking up the pieces of my broken heart, just as I was getting my life back on track. In that moment I considered all the hurtful things I could say to him - to give him a taste of how I felt and what I thought of him and his stupid request. In a flash my mind went over the course of events that had led us to this place- the threshold of divorce; the death of our beautiful baby boy.

The night he left, I remember sitting at the dining table thinking about how much he had changed. About how in the 3years we’d been married or in the 2years we’d dated I’d never seen this side of my husband. It’d been 8months since we lost our son and I still didn’t know what my husband was thinking or how he was feeling; in all that time I’d tried to reach out to him, but he treated me like the enemy, like it was my fault our little boy was gone. I knew I couldn’t stop trying, so I walked up to where he sat on the couch and stroked his head, like I used to do when we first got married.

“Hey baby, how are you doing?”

He looked at me with so much irritation I physically withdrew. This was not my husband; this was not the man I married.

“Nnena, you keep asking me that question like you actually expect to hear anything different from what I’ve been telling you.”

“You say you are fine, but I know....”

“Has it not occurred to you that after everything that’s happened you are the last person I would want to talk to?”

Tears welled up in my eyes

“What can I do? What do you want me to do?”

Turning away from me

“Nothing. The truth is I just can’t do this anymore”

My heart rate increased

“You can’t do what anymore?”

Just like that, in just a few words the love of my life placed the final brick on the wall that he’d been building between us. He wanted a divorce.

It’s been 4months since that night, now he sits here, telling me he’s had a change of heart and wants me back? He must be having a laugh. Maybe he started weeding when he left, or maybe crack cocaine, or maybe.....

“Eyamba”

There he goes again. Eyamba is my middle name; he’s the only one that calls me that.

“Don’t call me that. You lost the right to call me Eyamba the day you decided to stop fighting for our marriage”

I regretted the words the moment they came out of my mouth.

“I’m sorry I didn’t mean to sound so...”

“No, no, no you are right. I gave up that right when I gave up on you- on us. Please give me another chance. That’s all I ask, just 1 more chance”

I don’t want a divorce, but I also don’t want the constant insecurity that comes with not knowing if he will throw me off the ship again when the next storm comes. I know I have to take all these fears and insecurities to God while my husband’s actions prove that I can trust him to stick around no matter what comes our way.

Extending my hand across the table to shake his over the untouched platter of chicken wings he’d ordered, his audible sigh of relief brought a half smile to my face.

“We’ll see how it goes”

***************

This story was inspired by a “Focus on the Family” show I heard on the radio as I drove to work today. The host interviewed Dr Dennis Rainey who talked about his book Building Your Mates Self- Esteem.  

During the interview Dr Rainey talked about how one of the major causes of separation and divorce is emotional abandonment caused by the emotional trauma faced as a result of losing a child or having a mentally/ physically challenged child. He emphasised that instead of using the opportunity to grow stronger as a couple and face the challenge together, one (or both parties) begins to build an impenetrable brick wall leaving their spouse on the outside. It reminded me of the Tyler Perry movie “Why did I get married too”. I’m reminded of the character Patricia, played by Janet Jackson who lost her son and ultimately lost her marriage because she couldn’t cope with the grief and basically shut her husband out. What I find particularly heartbreaking is that more often than not the couple doesn’t even realise they are dancing to the tune of the devil, who is trying his best in these last few days to destroy as many families and marriages as he can in what little time he has left.

Grief is indeed a very powerful emotion, but like every other feeling- it can lie and often does; painting your ally as your foe. The bible tells us to be watchful and vigilant so my advice would be to nip the situation in the bud before it explods, but even if it does we serve a faithful God who is able to restore all that has been stolen from us – or that we have thrown away.

Snooping around on Dr Rainey’s website, I stumbled on other causes of emotional abandonment:

Unforgiveness: Emotional abandonment is unforgiveness taken to its extreme conclusion. When we feel that our spouse has hurt us and we refuse to forgive them, we look for ways to protect ourselves from being hurt again in the future.

Callous treatment: When I am careless in how I treat my spouse, it creates hurt that may start out small, but can grow into deep wounds as it festers over time. 

Lack of effort: Sometimes the problem is a little less obvious than unforgiveness or harsh treatment. It is easy, especially for men, to just assume that the relationship is going along just fine, and so don't put in as much effort as they once did, and start to take their spouse for granted, leading them to think that they are not important in their lives.

Lack of time: Many of us simply try to pack too much into a day. Ruled by the urgent, we fail to make time for the truly important: things like romancing, talking about issues and really developing a friendship with our spouse. We stay constantly busy, erasing quality "couple times" from our schedules.

Fear of talking through issues: Emotional detachment does not just happen out of the blue; there is always something behind it. If one or both of the spouses has an inability or fear of talking through the issues in their relationship, then this kind of disconnect will be the likely result.

Source: Emotional Abandonment: When Your Spouse Shuts You Out

Suggestions he made about resolution and restoration:

 Agree to talk

Be prepared: Before you have the talk, take the time separately to think through the unresolved issues that you'll be discussing

Be direct but gentle

Begin to meet unmet needs: Often a person pulls back from the relationship because, in their mind, their needs are not being met. A healthy marriage demands that both partners actively work to discern the needs of their spouse, and work to meet those needs. Seek to understand your spouse's needs and ask yourself how you can start to better express love by meeting these needs. Make your spouse and sorting things out your new priority.

Deal with your own stuff: If I am feeling abandoned by my spouse, I need to ask myself a tough question: What have I done to drive my spouse away? Now it may not be only your responsibility. Nevertheless, you have to find out what you are responsible for and take ownership for your actions

Intentionally re-engage: If you are to re-establish your emotional connection, it won't happen by accident and it won't happen overnight. You need to agree to make your relationship a priority and spend some quality time together.

Act kindly: Small gestures of warmth, acts of kindness, and efforts to rekindle the romance between you will go a long way toward renewing your bond with one another.

Love unconditionally: You cannot control your spouse's behaviour, but you can control your own. Regardless of how your spouse responds, you must choose to treat them with love. This is not easy to do when your partner is not reciprocating, but it is what you vowed to do when you promised to love each other "for better or for worse." And nothing breaks down emotional barriers like unconditional love.

Allow God to work: I'm going to challenge you to ask God to change you. God wants your best and He'll always be ready to take full responsibility for any life that is totally surrendered to Him. That also includes re-engaging with your spouse and getting attached in love again. God wants that and He will guide you in that, if you'll allow Him to.

Source:  Nine Steps to Defeat Isolation in Your Marriage