The M word

There are only three things in this world that actually put fear in my heart; rats, menstrual cramps and relationships. Yes oh, relationships are my number one fear these days. I don't encounter rats anymore, except when i venture into someone else's space in the animal facility (thank God my lab works with some other kind of rodent), and as for menstrual cramps, i have learned to heavily drug myself up with pain killers.

I'm at the point in my life where very soon my mother is going to start fasting and praying that i find a guy. I don't think I'm that old, but you know Nigerian mothers. Towards the end of last year, she came to meet me and was like, we have to fast and pray becos i feel that there is a reason why you keep meeting useless guys. She said she feels I'm the reincarnation of my grandmother and knowing my grandmother as well as she did and what she went through, she suspects that my grandmother probably vowed not to get married in her next life (my life?) and she thinks that's what's affecting me. I was just looking at the woman, like..... are u serious? Finally, i told her that i don't think i have a problem, and if she thinks i have a problem she can fast and pray for me and I'll support her mentally but I'm not fasting over that. Then a couple of weeks after that, we were shopping and she said something about wanting to carry my child, and i was like you would have to wait a long time for that. She was like, no... as soon as you get into medical school, you are going to get married. See me see wahala, this woman is just over there planning my life for me.

I have dealt with so many useless guys that at this point i am scared of being in a relationship. Worst of all there's the dreaded "M" word, marriage. I can't imagine myself being married. It's not something i dream of, long for, imagine myself being in. In 2006 some Indian girl asked me what would be the song that i would walk down the aisle to, and i was like what???!!!!. I have never ever thot of or imagined my wedding day. She on the other hand, had picked the colors and song for her wedding. Hmmm..............In the back of my mind i know I'm going to get married (african culture anyone?), but I'm not looking forward to it becos married to me equals lots of heartache and tears and dissatisfaction. I remember a few years ago, i was saying this exact same thing to a guy friend, and he was like you can say that cos you are still young, wait until u are like 24 and see if you'll still say that. Time has passed, all my class mates (in Nigeria) are getting married, one of my best friends, and another of our very close family friend just got married in December and I'm older than both of them, and still I'm not any more eager to get married. In fact one of my class mates is getting married today. I'm so scared of relationships i can't even begin to think of getting married.

Why am i scared of relationships/marriage? Even though my parents were "married", my father was never there while i was growing up. He has been based in this country since the early '70's way b4 i was born. I would see him once a year for about 2-4weeks and that would be it until the next yr or next 2 years. I was told he lived in Nigeria for 3 years in the '80's that's when me and my younger siblings were born, but i can't remember that. I watched my mother raise us on her own, and i saw her struggle seriously sometimes. I was the one who would go with her to the hospital in the middle of the night when my brother would get his asthma attacks which was frequently. Imagine driving at 2am in Nigeria, where there is no single soul besides armed robbers on the road at that time. I heard her say many times to herself "but i have a husband, why am i going through this alone". Of course, as is expected of a lot of (Nigerian) men, my father had a second family here.

The situation with my parents did not make me scared of marriage, I just never had an opportunity to know first hand what a married couple should look like. I thot it was weird whenever my dad came home cos it was strange to have a man in the house. Until i was about 15, i always looked at him like a visitor, i couldn't relate with him as a father. The same goes for my younger siblings. The last born was just the height, whenever he would want to address my father he would say "excuse me, sir", like we said to our teachers in school. I laugh now that i think about it, but then i didn't think it was funny. It was just sad. The good thing about my father not being around was that my mother was able to raise us to be independent women. I wasn't raised with the usual gender roles in place. From when i was little i was told that i could be anything i wanted. We did all the chores that boys were supposed to do cos my brother was the last born and there was nobody else to do it. Seeing her situation, my mom basically raised us with the belief that we had to make our own money and never depend on anybody else to take care of us.

So not only do i not have a good model of what marriage should be, all the stories i hear about marriage are discouraging. All the relationships I've being in leave a lot to be desired. One of my older sister's ex-husband (thank God) used to beat her. When she would call the police and have him thrown in jail, she was referred to as a bad wife by the Nigerian community here. He would cheat on her and do all sorts of nonsense, yet she was supposed to keep a stiff upper lip and console herself with her children. I know a lot of women go through the same thing and yet they stay in the marriage because divorce is frowned on. Well, i frown up being beaten to a pulp by a man who is supposed to love and cherish me above all others. My sister stayed in that marriage for 11 years suffering all that abuse becos she was trying to make it work. She's a better woman than i am. I was chatting with one of my friends in Nigeria yesterday and she told me that more than half of the married women she knows are dissatisfied with their marriage and would leave if they could, but they can't. The guys feel like they did the women a favor by marrying them in the first place so the women should suck it up and deal with whatever way they chose to treat them. She said 80% of men in clubs in Nigeria are married, and she cannot begin to count the number of married men that ask her out. The only consolation these women have are their children.

When she said that, it really resonated with me, cos my mother used to say that a lot. It got to a point where she would say she was married to us (her kids) and Jesus. Meanwhile, her supposed husband was still alive and breathing. Is that what i want for myself? NO! People would say if you looked carefully, prayed and picked the right person it wouldn't be that way. Tell me about it! I know people who thot they were marrying an angel, until he changed up on them after marriage. We were all shocked back in sec school when my best friend's sister's husband started beating her, right after they got married. He even beat her so much one time she had a miscarriage. He had never shown any sign of being violent in all the time they were dating. They are both "good" Christians, so they prayed about the marriage. So what went wrong?

Marriage to me right now, is like a trap of sorrow, and (insert whatever negative word). I know it's a horrible way for me to look at it esp since i would like to get married one day. I don't know how I'm going to meet the "right" person. Hopefully as i get older, i will become more positive about it. I think the worst thing would be to be married to someone who doesn't care about working on the marriage, is stuck in his ways and believes that anything he says goes just becos he has a penis. Nah!