I cannot really remember if there was ever a time I desired marriage. The whole idea of me getting married was just something introduced by my immediate environment that I must engage in to be a complete woman.
The only reason I could recall as to why I wanted marriage was so as for me to have access to varieties of pots of soup and food that I wished to eat. Some people had access to that earlier in life, but some of us didn’t.
The only thing I remember I ever tried to do to keep a relationship was trying to perform salah because my ex has always known it that I’m irreligious. I couldn’t even pretend to pray salah for three days before I told him we couldn’t work.
To worsen it, I was in Ilorin during fasting and I had to wake up every night to cook Sahur with my mother, and I found it really draining and I knew it right there that these things aren’t for me. If at all that I’m likely going to settle, I can never do those things.
It took me over a year to get over my ex, and that’s to imagine how much I loved him, but some relationships aren’t just meant to be. I cannot pretend to be what I’m not just to keep a relationship.
Marriage is something that has been ingrained in our system ever since we were kids. I guessed the reason it still makes women happy that they are married, but it’s funny how the reality of it is the total opposite of what’s being preached that it is.
I guessed it is also the reason some women will perform to keep a man. Why would anyone have to pretend in order to be kept by another human?
We women should do better. We can do better because our worth doesn’t revolve around marriage, and it shouldn’t.
By Salimat Zakariyah