Love, Marriage, and the Happily Ever After

It was my 31st birthday when I realised Ubong didn't see the same future as me.

He had hinted at his phobia of marriage some years back but I didn't take him seriously. I mean, who wouldn't want to get married and have children?

It was six months into our relationship, we were lounging over a movie on Netflix when he said it. He doesn't want marriage or children. "I want a partner with the same mindset. We'll have fun together, and tour the world. Have the best s3x of our lives while on vacation. Keep each other company, grow old together and die happy and spent."

I laughed it off because, in my head, I was already seeing our unborn son taking the handsomeness of his face. Ubong took care of his looks, visits the gym and eats only healthy meals.

For the three years, our relationship lasted, he took me on vacations twice a year. Working for a multinational company as an engineer and investing his money afforded him the lifestyle.

It was on one of these vacations which he planned around my birthday, that my eyes cleared to the reality that shattered my heart. He was dead serious about not wanting marriage and children.

I was expecting a ring that cool evening, but Ubong looked into my eyes and repeated himself. "I don't want marriage or children. We've talked about this Amanda." He was going to say more but my heart couldn't take it. I stood up and walked away, leaving him at the candlelight dinner he organised to celebrate my birthday.

Burrowing my feet into the beach sand to feel the coldness of the night, I fell in a heap and wept. The thought of starting over again. The thought of losing Ubong. We were both compatible but for his nons£ns£cal mindset. My parents would have none of it. How do I even break the news to them, that I don't want marriage or children? My friends would laugh at me. My two best friends are already married with children. Oh, how I wept that night.

Ubong came looking for me and found me crying whilst listening to the crashing sound of the sea. He hugged me tight, and without saying a word to me, led me to our hotel room. He tried to apologise for crashing my hope, all I did was stare at the man who wouldn't sacrifice his stance for me.

The vacation was cut short. I mean, what's the point of staying to have great sex when we have no future together?

When we returned to Nigeria, he kinda knew that would be the last time I would be seeing him, and so, he chipped in "If you ever change your mind. I will be here waiting for you. We have something beautiful together. I hope you realise it soon." Without a word, I turned my back and walked away from him. Forever.

Heartbroken.

I really missed Ubong, but what can I do?

A year and six months later, approaching thirty-three, desperate to get married, to shame some relatives and also to make my mother happy, and to be on the same level as my married friends, I met Peter.

Well, Peter from day one talked big about his dreams and ambition. He had a job as an accountant in a microfinance bank but didn't earn much. Thirty-seven and also anxious to get married.

Anita, my friend never liked him.

Once, she visited the house I rented and furnished ahead of my marriage to Peter. She met him.

Anita was annoyed and worried about me. She wasn't comfortable with the way Peter allowed me to take on the bills. What she didn't know is that Peter needed someone to believe in him and support him to achieve his dreams.

She described him as a dreamer and a big talker but not a doer.

"Amanda, a man is supposed to be a provider, I don't see this man providing for you. You have literally taken up the bills and he is cool with it? Wake up, girl!" She screeched in her usual high tone.

"It's only temporary, I can assure you. He is a very kind guy, coolheaded and cares a lot about me. He is a good man. He will get a better job and everything will be fine."

I dismissed Anita's worries. We talked about something else before she took her leave.

That was eight years ago. We've been married for eight years and I can't help but remember Anita's warning. My shoulders are crumbling under the weight of bearing all responsibilities alone. Some days, I cry myself to sleep. My husband Peter still talks big about his dreams and plans for us but has yet to get a better job. He is still the coolheaded and kind man I know but a dreamer.

He talks about making big money and getting us out of this struggle but never walking towards it. He finally got sacked from work after someone else used him to carry out a fraud and left the country. To save him from going to prison and also save my face from shame, I agreed to pay the six million Naira debt. Our two children won't go to school if I don't pay their school fees. We won't eat if I don't provide, We won't have a roof over our heads if I don't pay rent. I keep funding contracts that never pull through.

I will cry, shout, and beg him to get a job, but He'd say he is pursuing a contract and we'd be rich soon. He takes life easy, is laid back, and is very okay with little he gets out of life. For the times I lose my patience, spoiling for a fight, he would rather leave the house for me and comes back when I am much calmer. He'd smile and take my anger with levity. He would beg me to be patient with him and then bore me with talks of his big dreams again. is

It happened that one of the days I had cried so much, after remembering Anita's warning and also the beautiful comfortable life I had with Ubong, without thinking, I dialled his number. He picked at the first ring. His charming voice washed away the pains, and sorrow overwhelming me at that moment. I couldn't say much. I just cried while He listened. When I was done, I hung up.

He sent a text.

We began to talk via text. Occasionally, he would send me money.

He still wasn't married.

This man. One of a kind.

One day, I was returning from work. Earlier that day, I had had a series of texts with Ubong which I had deleted from my phone before the close of work. My husband had told me to wait for him at Abass Supermarket.

He had gone to see one Honourable for a contract and He'd be joining me in the car after the meeting. So, I got to the supermarket and parked by the roadside as the supermarket didn't have much parking space. I waited for my husband to be done, so we can go home together. I looked at the time, 6:05 pm.

I turned to my right, and I thought I saw Ubong leaving his car and walking into the supermarket.

It was him!

My eyes widened. My heart began to race. My palms became sweaty. We have been talking on the phone for a while but have yet to see. We have talked about seeing, but no time yet or should I say I didn't trust myself to see him again.

Shamelessly, I called out to him. He turned. Our eyes met. He smiled broadly on seeing me and began to walk towards me.

I ran like a child into his waiting arms. He hugged me tight. His heart beating against my ears, I drew in air, enveloped in the perfume of the man I once loved deeply. We remained like that for a while till I shamefully realised how awkward that was, and withdrew. He was reluctant to let me go. We exchanged pleasantly before walking into the supermarket. I totally forgot about my husband.

We shopped together, laughed and would hold hands from time to time. He was paying for his groceries and mine, when we heard a loud noise coming from outside the supermarket.

We saw people running helter-skelter. There was commotion everywhere. A few minutes later, a crowd had gathered outside the car park and people making frantic calls.

I and Ubong joined the others to step out of the supermarket and that was when we realised what had happened.

A trailer carrying a container had fallen. My eyes widened in fright when it dawned on me that it fell at the exact spot I parked my car. My car was nowhere to be seen. The container had fallen on my car and smashed it to the ground. I was going to pass out from shock. I would have been a dead woman if I hadn't left the car and walked into the supermarket. My body shook terribly. Ubong held me and kept reassuring me. Twenty minutes later, I was still there with Ubong trying to calm my wrecking nerves when my husband showed up. Ubong was kissing my forehead and holding me against his chest when my husband tapped me.

We both looked up. I quickly left Ubong's arms.

My husband knows Ubong. He has seen many pictures of us together saved in my Google files.

He turned and left.

He didn't even realise I'd have been dead before he got there, if not for Ubong that made me leave the car.

He didn't even know the accident that happened had to do with me.

He. Just. Left.

That night, I didn't go home.

Ubong booked a hotel for me and left.

I was all alone in the hotel.

I was numbed.

Couldn't gather my thoughts.

I managed to send a message to my mum to go get my kids pending when I clear my head. I sent a message to my office about the accident. They understood my state of mind and gave me time to recover.

A week after, Ubong renewed my hotel bills.

He asked me to send it to him when I need him.

Two weeks after. My husband's text dropped.

"Come back home. I am no longer mad at you. We can work things out. I don't want a broken home for my children."

Here I was, getting the much-needed escape my body yawned for all these years. Do I want to go back? I don't think so.

Do I want a thing with Ubong if ever there is a chance? Definitely yes. Will he want me back? I don't think so because I have children already.

Does Ubong saving my life on that fateful day, go to show that we are destined to be together? Who knows.

I threw away what we had together just because of societal expectations of me.

Do I really really want children? Thinking about it. I guess No. I mean they are cute when they are babies but no one prepares you for the emotional stress of raising another human who is also struggling with their emotions in a bid to find themselves and why they are here.

I feel Terrible for the times I took my frustration out on my kids for a fault, not theirs. I was crumbling under the weight of the whole thing, that I have little or no time to enjoy life with them.

Two weeks away from it all feels like an escape. Still, I feel guilty for feeling so much relief and at peace for once in eight years.

How is it that I am forty-one and just discovering ME?

I looked at my phone again and the opened message from my husband.

"Come back home."

Written by Ngozi Aghala