Leila’s story finally gave me the courage to talk about my own. I’m not the only one dealing with demons, I realized. I’m not alone in this battle and that should have brought warmth to my heart but no. This isn’t something to be proud of no matter how many people you know who are going through the same battle. Leila is married. I’m not married. Leila’s husband brought the curse into their home. Mine is a little bit different and I will talk about it soon. One common thing I share with the other girl in Leila’s story is that whenever we come close to a man, the man loses everything. It’s the reason I decided long ago that I won’t get married. Not that I don’t desire marriage. I do but I wouldn’t say I like to bring suffering into the lives of innocent men—men whose only mistake was loving me enough to want to marry me.
This is how my story started…
I fell in love with a certain man who loved me so much. I loved him too. We were together long enough to know that marriage was the next step in our relationship. When the time was right, he came home to see my family and was given the list. We planned on buying the items on the list one by one. I drew a plan for the marriage ceremony. I looked into wedding dress designs, number of bridesmaids, color combinations, flowers, cake, and everything that goes into a beautiful wedding. I’m the woman. Wedding is a woman’s day so I had a mental image of how everything was supposed to be on my special day. I told myself, “It’s going to be something simple yet elegant.” I planned everything to the smallest detail.
Before we could start buying the items on the list my partner’s business started collapsing. It wasn’t a slow collapse. If that was the case he would have tried the tricks in the books just to stabilize the business. Every businessman knows that there are times things go up and there are times things come down. They are always ready to resolve the issues when things start going down. My partner didn’t get the luxury of time to be ready. Within a twinkling of an eye, the business came right down. It’s like the way people fall when they stumble. Everything happened so fast.
He started making unexplained losses. Everything became a mess. He didn’t have the mind to think about our marriage. Slowly, I watched as our marriage plans dissolved into nothing. We agreed to wait until the business picks up again. My family started probing; “What’s happening to your man? He came for the list and we haven’t heard from him again. What is he waiting for?” I would fake a smile to tell them that everything was ok. Sometimes, I will tell them, “Soon he will come home. He’s getting ready, Let’s wait and see.”
When things kept dragging, I told him, “Dear, let’s forget about the white wedding. Let’s do the traditional wedding and move on from there.” If his business picked up from zero to one, it went back right to zero right after I talked about the traditional marriage. My man became so broke and frustrated. He started taking it out on me. He got angry easily. He shouted where he previously spoke calmly. It got to a point I started sensing danger so I walked out of the relationship.
Not too long after I’d walked out of the relationship, I realized his business has started picking up again. Sales picked up. Profit was lifting itself up from the slumps. He could afford to smile again.
I saw the same thing happen to my sister. She met someone who was ready to marry her. The man came to see my father to ask for my sister’s hand in marriage. He left our house with the marriage list in hand. We all hoped and prayed that things will go smoothly for the marriage to happen but it didn’t. The man’s business started collapsing right after he had come for the list. They too started having the same problems I went through with my man. They started arguing a lot. Frustration ate deep into their relationship until they said goodbye to each other. After my sister walked away from him, the business started picking up again.
It was strangely similar to my own experience. I started thinking about everything. I started picking the issues one after the other with my mind’s eye. I saw repetitions of issues. I saw some patterns running through the affairs of the family. When women in my family get married, their husbands begin to suffer. They lose their businesses and whatever they hold dear. Things that sold in the past would stop selling. Profits would begin to dance agbaja without the agbaja music. Even when the lines were clearly drawn, I told myself, “It might be coincident. Probably the men we bring home are not good managers. There’s nothing more to it.”
Recently I was having a conversation with my father and the topic of marriage came up. I asked him, “I’ve noticed some trends in this family. How come everyone gets married in this family except us, your daughters?”.
My dad suddenly went quiet. The wrinkle lines on his face became prominent. He wore the look of a sad man. I wasn’t going to let him off the hook so I asked the question again. He said, “Let’s blame your grandfather. He’s the architect of whatever you people are going through today.”
My curiosity heightened. I asked, “My grandfather? What did he do?” He said, “It’s a long story but let’s see if I can make it short. When your grandparents got married they couldn’t conceive. They tried everything they knew. They took herbal and orthodox fertility treatments. None of it worked. They were becoming a laughing stock in the community and that made them desperate. Someone recommended a powerful spiritualist to them and your grandfather went to meet him. The spiritualist agreed to help him but before he showed him what to do he said, “You will have children but your grandkids will suffer the consequences of the journey you’re embarking on today. Your grandkids will not be able to marry. They will find good men who will love them but they will never be able to marry them. Some of them will get married but their marriages will not last. Those who will have lasting marriages won’t be happy in their marriages. Do you still want to go ahead with it?” Your grandpa nodded his head. End of story.”
My father went quiet again. He became very sober, like a man bearing apologies on his heart but his lips failing to utter the apology. We were both silent for a while but everything started making sense to me. I cast my eyes through the family line to assess and see if all the curses of the spiritualist came through. My sister and I became the grandkids who will never get married. My cousins got the unhappy marriage part of the deal.
It helped to know that it isn’t something we brought on ourselves. We are just the end results of a spiritual transaction our grandfather entered into for his selfish gains. Since that day, I’ve made peace with my situation. Problems become bearable when we make peace with them. We end up being sufferers when we try to fight what can’t be fought. To cut matters short. I won’t ever get married. Instead, I will play around with the loophole in the curse. If I meet someone who loves and cares for me, we will be together in a committed relationship without ever discussing marriage. I can’t let someone’s son go through challenges just because he has mad love for me. Love isn’t a crime we should be made to pay for. Love should be love so I’ll allow love to run through the relationship without marriage.
