Ok, first of all, I’d love that we are on the same page; you’ll agree with me that no one is perfect and marriage is one of the times you are quite prone to making a lot of mistakes, and of course, those are what make marriage quite a difficult ship to sail.
Marriage is very delicate. The reason there’s a lot of misunderstanding in marriage is we tend to imagine a lot, we think too deeply, we connect event to event to get our answers instead of having trust and believing our partner could be telling the truth (depending on that partner through). We don’t see the impropriety in our own assumed-right decisions; especially on cases that could have been resolved with a switch of assumption.
The same word I would say when we were friends and we’d laugh over, it would be the same word that would spike up your anger by the time we’re partners and even bring an end to our relationship. There’s a lot of tolerance in friendship, we give the benefit of doubt to friends, but in a romantic relationship, it’s quite the opposite.
Most marriages end on the basis of little issues that meant nothing; I’d like to clear you up on something: I understand some other ulterior motives might be hiding behind the mask in some cases, other cases, there is nothing outside the drawn circle, we just imagine there is and based on our hunch we destroy a relationship that might have stayed for better.
Suleiman is not the kind of man that goes about cheating on his wife. He’s frankly too busy for such act, and in turn he also would not want to be cheated on.
Cheating on someone like Sule will not be easy, because he showers a lot of love anytime we are together and he does everything possible to keep his family in good shape.
On the other hand is me, Aishat. I’m quite beautiful and meek hearted as far as I know. I am not the educated type and I am also not a people person. I am the kind of person everyone wants to save their money with instead of the bank. I am too much of an honest person and that made me notorious.
Sheriff was my childhood friend whom I was really fond of. At a time in our lives he started showing interest in me. He wanted to have a relationship with me, but I wasn’t interested in Sheriff. He tried as hard as he could, but I didn’t feel anything other than friendship for him. But he was someone I’d always want to have around because we’ve spent almost half of our lives together.
Sheriff was mature enough to let things go after I got married. He entirely withdrew his admiration for me. He addressed me as he would a sister, and that was one thing I couldn’t but love him for. The respect, the maturity he displayed were wonderful.
I told Suleiman about his affection for me and how he’d let go because I got married. He understood the situation and his behaviour wasn’t different from normal.
In the Second year of our marriage together, right before the ending of July, Sheriff had a very serious accident, he had a lot of fractured and broken bones. He was in the hospital for a very long time, during which I visited him frequently.
Sule didn’t mind the situation because he realised how dear Sheriff was to me being that we’d been friends all our lives. He let me make food to the hospital, he let me worry about Sheriff. But it was at the beginning of the occurrence.
After a week and half of frequent visit to Sheriff, Sule started acting up. He started giving signals that I was over caring for Sheriff.
There was a day I decided not to take my bath before leaving for the hospital because I was going to be late if I did; Sule wasn’t happy about it.
I’d foolishly started telling Sule what was going on in the hospital, although I realised he wasn’t very happy each time we spoke about Sheriff but I kept up, I wanted to show I had nothing to hide.
One night, we had a little quarrel about the food I made the day before, it was too salty, Sule was not happy about it. He told me I was getting too engrossed with seeing Sheriff. I tried as much as I could to handle the situation maturely and it did not escalate.
I began to really withdraw from seeing Sheriff whom the doctor were not so sure would be able to make it. I actually stopped feeding Sule with the update, so he didn’t know how severe it was with Sheriff.
He was getting prepared for work one morning and I decided to lighten his mood. I readjusted his tie and told him how handsome he was, then I thought flickered through my mind which I said out loud, that I remembered the time Sheriff would wear a tie for the first time, he couldn’t because he was afraid he’d be choked, then I laughed about it.
In the next ten minutes, Sule called me back and angrily started telling me how improper what I said was. He began reopening issues that were already trashed. He pointed out how I was so distracted by Sheriff I couldn’t cook well, I had to skip my bath because of him. Then he mentioned that I should have married him instead.
As mild as I thought it was, I had to spike up and try to speak up for myself, so it won’t look as if his claims were true.
We exchange a lot of unpleasant words and before I knew it I had to leave his house, he didn’t want me anymore. I left for home. Everyone blamed me. I tried to make people see reasons, but it was as if the whole world was against me.
I knew I was Sheriff’s strength, I was the reason he was trying to pull through, when news reach us that he couldn’t make it, Sule came to his sense and took me back to my matrimonial home.
He apologized, but it was too late, Sheriff whom he no longer wanted me to visit, whom he thought I might be having a good time of my life with, whom he thought he was sharing me with was dead. And I’m glad the doctor pointed it out that I shouldn’t have stopped visiting, it was helping his health.
I learnt my lessons, Sule did his too. I hope you do yours from this short read.
