It has been pointed out to me lately that it is time I “find someone and settle down.” Pffff… I wish it was just like that. I just don’t want to settle down, I want to have a relationship, an affair, a union, a companionship, a family, a playmate, and a partnership all with the same person. There are things I consider sacred. One of them is the institution of marriage.
Unfortunately, this institution, like those of learning, is slowly turning into just a necessary consequence. This is an unfair comparison but allow me to use it only this once.
You see, learning institutions are a necessary consequence because the less privileged hope to use it to advance in life, the privileged use it to advance life. In a nutshell, the former pursue it step-by-step to their highest abilities with the hope of using it to make their lives better. The latter…well, let’s just say they can show you proof of pursuing it without ever actually pursuing it to maintain their better lives. The ease is, a man need only splash a piece of paper and we know he’s educated. The challenge is, a man will have to speak for us to tell whether he’s knowledgeable. Education is cheap. Knowledge is quite expensive.
Similarly, proof of having a spouse can be told by just a ring on the finger or a marriage certificate. That’s easy. Proof of marriage is a bit technical. We have to listen to partners speak about each other to tell if they are in a union.
Forgive me but I need to point this out; Oxford Dictionary defines marriage as, “The legally or formally recognized union of two people as partners in a personal relationship (historically and in some jurisdictions specifically a union between a man and a woman).”
My keyword is UNION. The rest of the words can be given to Nairobi Business Community for further interpretation.
While others get into marriages for posterity, others do it for other selfish reasons including sex, business arrangement, just loneliness, mother/father figure for my kids, family wants me to, peer pressure and most interesting, get rid of another spouse. Many people have written articles on the things that are likely to destroy the union of two people. Well, I have never been married so am not going to sit on a high ground and give lectures. My biggest fear with marriage is being able to MEET EXPECTATIONS of each other. I shall leave out the qualities of a partner for next time.
It starts from the time you wake up in the morning. How do you leave the bed, what do you wear from bed, who makes breakfast, how do you leave the kitchen, how do you take your breakfast, do you shower before or after breakfast, what to you talk about in the morning, what do you watch or listen to, where do you drop your earrings/belts/cuff links/necklaces/bracelets/socks et al… The questions roll over to the next morning. These are things you probably will never agree on even if you get the guts to talk about them, yet they are affecting each one in a special way.
So if there is anyone out there with the right ideas of meeting each other’s expectations, get in touch. Many young people are advised to settle down but they are never told how to settle down with someone they meet when they’re both grown. If you grow up with someone from a tender age, you both get to adjust your ways to fit each other’s because you want to get along. Before long, your preferences conform to each other’s. But it can’t happen overnight when you’re a grown man/woman. This is why marriages look like they work but in reality, partners are not in union. They are constantly learning to tolerate each other’s ways. I wouldn’t want to be tolerated in my entire adult life. I can do that all by myself.