The Marriage Dream Killers

Note: This might be termed as BIASED but it is the truth. Crucify me if you will. Get your thorns and your nails. I am READY for you.

As a regular guy in Nigeria, you have to face a lot of issues ranging from job search, the perfect partner, financial stability, a social standing, planning ably for the future etc. Believe me, the economy doesn’t exactly encourage you being successful in all of the above but we still try to make it work, we strive, we cope, we pray. It is not easy being a Nigerian guy.

As if that isn’t enough, a whole new phenomenon has entered the fray. Imagine this scenario: Guy meets girl, chats her up, and starts a relationship with her, starts planning a life with her and around her after they must have dated for more than two years and then all of a sudden, disaster strikes.

Straight from the blues, you start noticing changes in your girl, you see that she is trying to distance herself; you notice she can’t meet your stares or respond to your touches anymore. Alarm bells ring in your head. What could be wrong? The insecure part of you tells you, your girl is seeing someone else. You act on impulse, start an investigation that would make Sherlock Holmes blush to find out what is making your girl’s love falter for you and then one day when you can’t take it anymore you blurt it out and confront her, accusing her of cheating. You bring forth your hole-infested proof to support your accusations and after you are done, she talks and your whole relationship goes downhill from there.

With tears in her eyes and a tremor in her voice laced with righteous anger for daring to accuse her of infidelity, she reveals all not caring what you would feel. The pain she has been keeping inside her is unleashed on an unsuspecting you and guess what, she wants you to feel the pain. First, she refutes your claim that there is no man in her life, she hadn’t been cheating, she had just been looking for the right moment to tell you what she has been battling with. At that moment, shame crowds your senses, for doubting her, you start to feel pity, your love starts flooding back, you apologise and then ask what she has to say, what has been bugging her so badly that is affecting the relationship. And then she talks....

She reveals that her head of church (pastor, reverend and in the case of muslims-Alfar) says the future is bleak for the relationship and should be stopped less it turns into tears in the future. They have been led by God, seen visions about the futility of the situation and advice that the union must end. Listed is a regular kind of vision usually bandied around: You are going to be an unfaithful husband and have a family outside, someone between you both would die prematurely, one of your in-laws would create havoc during the marriage. The list of endless gloom goes on.

When you hear this, as a guy, you don’t actually realize the severity of the situation. All that is going on in your head is thankfulness that your girl wasn’t cheating on you and this was what you had to face. It is just a minor thing, you would think. All you have to do about this situation is to pray about it and it shall be solved. I am sorry to say bro, but you are in for a shocker.

Look into your girl’s eyes and all you see is a stranger, a lack of will to fight and that’s where the real problem starts from. In that instant, she tells you that it is best for both of you to part ways because it is not the will of God. She reveals to you that this isn’t the first time such messages have been delivered to her by men of God besides her parents (especially the mum) thinks it is a good idea to split now in order to avert future danger. “Please let’s end this,” she says. “It’s for our own good.”

At that moment, everything starts to appear in slow-motion to you. Whatever happened to love? What happened to it conquering all? What happened to the future you guys had planned together barely some weeks ago? What happened to the time you guys have invested in the relationship? What happened to the saying “With God, all things are possible?” What happened to God’s will not changing?

You beg, plead, appeal for your girl to take a chance, fight for the love you guys have built but all that meets you is more tears. You can see she is suffering, the weight of her declaration is too much for her but she stands firm. At that point, whatever you say is crap, your words to her are like coming straight from Lucifer’s anus. All the time, she had been distancing herself was in preparation for this moment of standing firm. In her mind, she is fighting a righteous battle with only one loser-You.

Your emotions from thereon ranges from anger, sorrow, hope. You are angry at her, the pastor, God. You question everything. Tears flow forth like a fountain. Depression follows. The love of your life is gone and you couldn’t even muster a fight. The helplessness is overpowering. Your friends try to help you but they can’t feel the pain, even half of it. Memories tumble in, you see her everywhere, the places you have been. Your phone is your worst enemy, you see her pictures. You delete them, but they remain in your brain. If you use a Blackberry, every update she posts sends shards of dejection into you. You delete her as a contact and later regret also. You cut all lines of communications with her but that only hurts the more. You finally turn to the Bible and when you read stories about Hezekiah in the Bible where God’s will was reversed when he was supposed to die, you get flooded with hope and excitement. You march up again to your girl to state your case citing Isaiah Chapter 38 as your reference. She listens to you drone on in righteous excitement and when you are done, she says the same, that she can’t take that risk to go against the ‘will of God’.

This brings me to the issue of the pastors who are bearers of the news of the ‘will of God’. If they don’t realize what power their tongue wields, they should know today and now. A lot of guys are going through intense pain because of their revelations. I am not faulting the authenticity of what they reveal but as opinion leaders, they should know better by letting the subjects of their message also know that although things might look gloomy in the future, prayer is the key to changing all that. It is not merely enough dishing out revelations; they have adversarial roles to play. Whatever they say has been key to a lot of potential relationship break-ups but what if they actually called the people involved to advice. A real man of God knows no condition is permanent so I don’t buy the whole bullshit of things set in stone. The female folk are very emotional so who would they believe, you the boyfriend or their pastor?

Lives are at stake here. Pastors wield so much power especially when it comes to prophecy. There are situations where some pastors tailor-make their prophecies also to what you actually want to hear or the scenario you have painted for them. For example, a guy might have parents that have a broken home and when this is told to the pastor who is supposed to prophesy, would this not play a part in his final prophecy. Surprise,Surprise if he says, the same would happen to you. Even if it was supposed to happen to you, can’t it be reversed? What exactly then does prayer stand for?

As a girl, when you hear these revelations, I can understand the feelings of helplessness, confusion. It is hard to go against the words coming from a man of God, hard to go against those of your parents all for one guy who you are suddenly developing doubts about. All his shortcomings are instantly brought to the fray. If you guys were previously having small niggles, you amplify them and see it as a sign of impending doom. All you want to hit is the exit door. But if you loved this guy, why don’t you stand firm and fight for him. Why don’t you pray with him? If the revelation says the guy is destined to fuck-up in the future or have extra-marital dalliances, what are the chances that it won’t happen to the guy that God has ‘ordained’ for you via the pastors. Isn’t it another girl that would marry this same guy that has been ‘pre-destined’ to mess up in the future? Isn’t it another girl that is willing to take a chance. Now that you have hit the highway and left, you end up looking for the guy you left in every other guy and guess what, you just can’t find it. You end up settling for second best and in a marriage you think could have been better. You always think of what might have been if you had fought, waited, prayed and taken the plunge with the real man you loved, you abandoned, you left. An advice is if you truly love this guy, fight for him. No marriage is perfect but you have the advantage of knowing where the problem from your own marriage would come from, that’s if the pastor’s revelation was right anyway. Here is an advice from a girl that went through the same, she says this in hindsight and I quote-

“What I learnt is to know God for myself and not need to go through intermediaries to find his purpose for my life.”

Guys, it is hard, painful, excruciating. You wonder if this girl ever loved you at all if she could leave you hanging high and dry. Your family, friends accuse her of not having the balls to stay around. They tell you, you deserve better and that you should move on. What’s the point of fighting for someone who isn’t ready to do the same? Someone else would come along, they say. She was probably not the one for you. They tell you that even if you guys come back together, if any run-of-the-mill quarrel occurs, the panic button is activated because of the prophecy.

On last count, I have about four friends, this has affected and they moved on. Some are married today (whether happily, I don’t know) while some are still in limbo, still searching for someone that had the same characteristic of the girl that ‘dumped’ them. Some have taken it to the extreme, barring their hearts and having sex with anything in skirt to get through the pain. Some want or have fantasized on ramming their knuckles into the guts of these ‘elusive pastors’ who never want to see you face-to-face. They prefer saying their piece and moving on oblivious of the pain it has caused.

If you are in this situation, I feel your pain. Worst feeling ever. Imagine seeing your girl some months later in the arms of another dude? Or imagine her seeing you?

If this is occurring to you at the moment and you know your girl loves you and is willing to fight for what you have both got-FIGHT.

If she shows signs of not fighting but deep inside you know she wants to-FIGHT.

FIGHT till you can do no more. Only then can you look back and know you have done your best. It’s her loss. If it happens to her in her marriage, would she then take Flight?

Finally, on a cheeky note, if you meet a girl and you are beginning to like her, kindly tell her and her mother to consult the nearest pastor before you go further and spare yourself the heartache.

I rest my case.