Marriage is not a school course work

The thing with books is selling point.

A book with a target audience hardly ever suffers low sales, especially if the title na magnet to that audience.

Marriage books; there are tons of them. They make good reads sometimes, in fact I remember ‘The power of a praying wife and husband’ by the Omartans’.

So you see, I have no problem with the books, just some of the buyers.

A good marriage is not built on a rich collection of these books, you can’t keep going to the bookshop when something is wrong. Your spouse is not a mathematical calculation or project, so what are you chasing?

Mrs. A said “Ahhh,  my husband reacts to xyz situation this way”

I didn’t exactly think so, having known Mr.A for a while myself. So I prodded

“Why do you think so?”

She runs to bring me a book on marriage and temperaments and declares boldly

“ALL Sanguines react that way to xyz situations”

Interesting.

I glanced through her collections. Everything was there, like a marriage library of some sort. My eyes caught some on marriage and sex as well.

“Hope the nacking is not mechanical too?”

No response.

Each man is different, each woman is. Books are good, I swear down. In fact,  I should be a ‘buy books’ ambassador. I however insist that time spent flipping pages and applying their contents like a zombie should be diverted to knowing your spouse more.

Stereotypes are foolish.

I recall the first week of our marriage. I spent time in the kitchen one morning, making toast and tea of life, it was good enough for a food exhibition.

Kabiyesi drew me close in a hug and whispered in my ears

“Never make tea and bread for me again in this house for breakfast, swallow strictly please”

I was torn between amusement and slight hurt for wasted efforts. The man didn’t even sip small in pity and didn’t even look at the toast.

We don’t even know when we do these things. My birthday came up a few months after then and the man went and spent thousands of Naira on a Swatch wristwatch.

I remember how I didn’t even mask my disappointment and the first and only time I wore it was to school the next day. All the wows and compliments didn’t change one fact my husband didn’t know. I don’t wear wristwatches, bangles or wrist ornaments of any sort. I thought he had noticed, same way he thought I had noticed his penchant for early morning eba.

So now over the years, I have tried slowly, wearing light bangles as I get them a lot from others. He too understands on days when I insist on tea or akamu and akara.

The examples abound. If we even for imagination sake assume marriage is school work, who is the marker? Same you abi?

Read, learn, apply wisely.

And if you eat eba like us, remember to remove the soup from the freezer before you sleep tonight!

May the day break.

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