I held him by his hands, raised him to his feet, hugged him, and whispered “NO” in his ears. Then, I walked away. I was balling my eyes out. I called an uber, had to wait outside a while for it to arrive then it did. He was truly devastated that he just sat back in the restaurant and could not believe it.
The tears refused to stop on my way home. The taxi driver had the dilemma of minding his business or consoling me. When he could not handle it anymore, he handed me some pocket tissues and said, “don’t worry, you will be okay.” Sooner than later, I got to my destination.
I took off my heels, walked in, and flung my purse as I reached for the floor. I had standards that were not met or even understood, goals that stayed dreams. Undoubtedly, our relationship was not worthy of that kind of commitment yet. Should I have said yes to avoid hurting feelings? Was I wrong to reject bare minimum treatment? Was I wrong to demand effort, responsibility, and commitment? So many things were off in our relationship. It bothered me how he could not recognize that.
I was looking for a relationship and in due time, a marriage where I was not the only one calling out errors and requesting growth. In the past year that we dated, not once did he say… “Cindy, this and that is the reason why I acted in this way, could you adjust this…?” Since I was the only one saying things I did not like or raising issues that triggered my insecurity; it felt like I was a chronic complainer. Most times, those complaints were met with a stand-offish attitude or dismissed with a mockery of apology to shut me up.
From assessing the models of marriage around me, I was passionate about setting the foundation of emotional consistency in my relationship. I craved for faithfulness, respect, difficult conversations from two people who are not willing to quit, willingness to teach or learn without fear of acceptance, safety in vulnerability, leadership from God’s word.
We had still not found a way to help each other in stressful situations. I love to be reassured because I tend to coil up and withdraw at the scent of stress. That didn’t work out fine as he would give me space and expect me to get over it. His was the distractor coping mechanism where he turned to something else to invest his attention when he felt overwhelmed. The distraction ranged from friends to academic work; or anything he had control over, completely ignoring the problem area and expecting it to disappear over time. I envisaged us finding healthy ways to sort issues so that our relationship is not love-starved at any instance.
Our relationship had high moments too. The ones tagged “couple-goal moments.” The beautiful memories we had shared over time could not erase the void I felt. I lacked faith getting married to him would make any difference if we did the same things.
My boyfriend was a great individual. He had succeeded in all other spheres in his life asides this one. I felt crushed that I had to disappoint him in that magnitude. Thankfully, there was no alcohol in the house, so I chugged the milk from the fridge and ate everything my pantry supplied.
After a shower, I laid in bed to watch anything with the potency to distract me. I took my phone and texted him an “I’M SORRY.” He replied within a split second, “Why? What did I do wrong?” It was a heart-rending moment. I imagined how difficult it must have been for him. Not knowing the right words to reply, I held my phone and kept blaming myself for maybe wanting too much from him. Sleep eventually happened.
Later that week, he suggested that we met at a lounge. The idea appealed to me; we met, discussed for hours, and mutually agreed to work harder towards marriage.
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