Thots on this thing called marriage

So marriage and relationships have been on my mind a lot lately. I have all these questions because when i pick, i want to pick the right person for me. I know there's no perfect person but you can find the person that's perfect for you (quirks, flaws, personality and all). I don't have a model for what a relationship between a husband and wife should be like. My dad moved to the States in 1975, way before i was dreamt up. He did move back to Nigeria, in the 80's for like 3 yrs but after that he moved back to the States. The whole time before and after that, my mom was by herself in Nigeria. From the late 80's until i came here in 2002, my dad came to Nigeria to visit once a year or once in two years for like 2 weeks at a time. The longest he ever stayed that i can remember was 6 weeks. Yes! The man was an "August" visitor. My younger brother at a time would say "excuse me sir" (like we addressed our teachers in school) when he wanted to talk to my dad. He wasn't comfortable saying Daddy.

So i never got the opportunity to see how a marriage worked, whether good or bad. I did see how the long distance marriage between my parents worked though and it wasn't good. Not necessarily because of the long distance, but because of a lot of other stuff i will not go into. So now i have all these questions, and i feel like i have to start from scratch to get answers. I have 5 older sisters and half sisters. 4 of them have been married, but only one is currently married. My immediate younger sister is married also, but that's relatively new. So, i think i have a good reason to be scared of this thing called marriage. As with a lot of things i do, i like to do my little research and ask questions and get hard facts. My opinion is constantly changing as i discover and learn new stuff.

I'm also trying to decide on what kind of marriage i want. I'm not naturally a submissive person and if i want to get married to a typical Nigerian man, how much of an issue would that be? The word submissive used to get on my last nerve. Maybe because my mom was more than submissive and it didn't get her anywhere. My dad took that and ran with it. I'm thinking though, that there might be a fine line between being submissive and being a push over. The only thing that i have heard that made sense to me about being submissive is to think about it like ur husband is the leader of a project, and you have to defer to him. I guess i could go with that. Sorry, nothing else works for me cos that work submissive is just negative in my mind. 

I'm all for the idea of the 50:50 partnership in marriage, but i am starting to question how realistic that is. What exactly does that mean? Does that mean he cooks half the time? Cleans the house half the time? What? Or does it mean do you divi out duties equally? How exactly does that work?

I think it's easy to have all these expectations about marriage that are so far from the truth especially for someone like me that has no model of how this thing should work, I don't want to fall in the trap. If i decide to take the plunge, i want to go in with my eyes wide open and not be looking at things through rose colored glasses.

Question of the day.
Is loving someone enough reason to marry them? Flaws and all?

My current opinion is that it is not enough at all. Love can only take you so far.  Friendship and compatibility mixed with love would be the perfect combination. Am i right or am i wrong?

It continues

Remember this guy? He sent me a message this morning and i don't know what to say, think or do.

I want u to know that i never stopped thinking of you and i still want you to be my girl.
when i was at home my dad asked a vital question about me and u that got me thinking....why should i give up on you????
i should still keep hope alive cos its clear i love you and i want to spend a very long time with you,like eternity.
Sting,i want u pls
sorry, i told my dad we are still on cos of the way he sounded.
he wants me to marry u when we are both ready
pls i cant leave you
i am willing to be patient
i've missed you dear


The main problem is there's nothing in me that wants to embark on a long distance relationship. Someone needs to just arrange a marriage for me and let all this be over with. As for Mr. Don't fall in love with me, i haven't done anything about that yet. After receiving this email, i am going to have talk with him, so i can figure out what the hell to do. Maybe i should go be a nun even though i'm not catholic. What do u think?

Men and Sex

As a female, i have always wondered what men feel as they have sex. Given the differences between the male and female anatomies I assume we don't experience the same physical sensations or whatever u want to call it. I have asked a couple of guys and frankly i have never been able to get a coherent answer. Maybe it's too (insert whatever u feel like here) to describe in words.

I'm guessing it must feel so ridiculously out of this world good that's why a man would sleep with his own daughter and try to ruin her life in the process.

If it doesn't feel like crack induced euphoria, someone please explain to me why a man would fuck his housemaid under his wife's nose, disrespecting their home and the sanctity of marriage!

It must feel pretty damn good to make a man leave all the other women in this world and decide to have sex with his wife/girl's best friend, or maybe he's just an equal opportunity fucker!

All men Cheat!!!

Talk about cynicism. I don't buy that statement for one second. There's too many men in this world for that to be true. Yet a lot of beautiful woman accept that as fact, and sit at home with a stiff upper lip while their men go around fucking the entire female population of whatever city they live in. I'm too smart to buy into that bullshit. Better go buy an iron sheath to lock ur penis in unless you would wake up one morning and it would be gone.

Seriously, what is it about sex that makes men risk their losing their lives as they know it. Look at Kobe Bryant.... How embarrassed he must have been been and i bet she wasn't the first too. He can't be that unlucky that he would get caught the first time he cheated. How about good ol' Bill Clinton. Awesome president who couldn't control his wiener. Sad!


Sex is overrated!

Nah, it's not. It is very well rated, thank you very much! But i don't see how it would make me lose my common sense like a lot of men seem to lose theirs.

Damn!

I'm freaking pissed!

1. Is it wrong for me to feel that i am equal to a guy?
2. Is it wrong for me to see red whenever i hear the word "submissive" especially when people quote the bible?
3. Why do i have to be the one to change my name?
4. Why do i have to be the one to switch church denominations?
5. Why is it my age clock ticking?
   
6. How come a 31yr old unwed man has no issues but a 31yr old unwed female has everyone praying and fasting for her? (No, i'm not 31)
   

I hate that word submissive. I don't want to hear it. Don't quote the bible to me. If u were such a damn good christian how come u've been fucking for all these years? Talk about hypocrisy! Don't freaking tell me I've abandoned my culture just because i expect you to view me and treat me as an equal. What made ur opinion count more than mine? Does the possession of a penis count more than having a fully functional intelligent brain? Why do i have to complement u? Why can't we complement each other? Why do u have to make me feel like a possession to be acquired? What happened to me? I have a brain too u know.

At the rate I'm going, I'll probably die a shriveled up old maid, or maybe I'll just say fuck it to all u narrow minded Nigerian men (if u're not a narrow minded Nigerian man, good for u!)

The M word

There are only three things in this world that actually put fear in my heart; rats, menstrual cramps and relationships. Yes oh, relationships are my number one fear these days. I don't encounter rats anymore, except when i venture into someone else's space in the animal facility (thank God my lab works with some other kind of rodent), and as for menstrual cramps, i have learned to heavily drug myself up with pain killers.

I'm at the point in my life where very soon my mother is going to start fasting and praying that i find a guy. I don't think I'm that old, but you know Nigerian mothers. Towards the end of last year, she came to meet me and was like, we have to fast and pray becos i feel that there is a reason why you keep meeting useless guys. She said she feels I'm the reincarnation of my grandmother and knowing my grandmother as well as she did and what she went through, she suspects that my grandmother probably vowed not to get married in her next life (my life?) and she thinks that's what's affecting me. I was just looking at the woman, like..... are u serious? Finally, i told her that i don't think i have a problem, and if she thinks i have a problem she can fast and pray for me and I'll support her mentally but I'm not fasting over that. Then a couple of weeks after that, we were shopping and she said something about wanting to carry my child, and i was like you would have to wait a long time for that. She was like, no... as soon as you get into medical school, you are going to get married. See me see wahala, this woman is just over there planning my life for me.

I have dealt with so many useless guys that at this point i am scared of being in a relationship. Worst of all there's the dreaded "M" word, marriage. I can't imagine myself being married. It's not something i dream of, long for, imagine myself being in. In 2006 some Indian girl asked me what would be the song that i would walk down the aisle to, and i was like what???!!!!. I have never ever thot of or imagined my wedding day. She on the other hand, had picked the colors and song for her wedding. Hmmm..............In the back of my mind i know I'm going to get married (african culture anyone?), but I'm not looking forward to it becos married to me equals lots of heartache and tears and dissatisfaction. I remember a few years ago, i was saying this exact same thing to a guy friend, and he was like you can say that cos you are still young, wait until u are like 24 and see if you'll still say that. Time has passed, all my class mates (in Nigeria) are getting married, one of my best friends, and another of our very close family friend just got married in December and I'm older than both of them, and still I'm not any more eager to get married. In fact one of my class mates is getting married today. I'm so scared of relationships i can't even begin to think of getting married.

Why am i scared of relationships/marriage? Even though my parents were "married", my father was never there while i was growing up. He has been based in this country since the early '70's way b4 i was born. I would see him once a year for about 2-4weeks and that would be it until the next yr or next 2 years. I was told he lived in Nigeria for 3 years in the '80's that's when me and my younger siblings were born, but i can't remember that. I watched my mother raise us on her own, and i saw her struggle seriously sometimes. I was the one who would go with her to the hospital in the middle of the night when my brother would get his asthma attacks which was frequently. Imagine driving at 2am in Nigeria, where there is no single soul besides armed robbers on the road at that time. I heard her say many times to herself "but i have a husband, why am i going through this alone". Of course, as is expected of a lot of (Nigerian) men, my father had a second family here.

The situation with my parents did not make me scared of marriage, I just never had an opportunity to know first hand what a married couple should look like. I thot it was weird whenever my dad came home cos it was strange to have a man in the house. Until i was about 15, i always looked at him like a visitor, i couldn't relate with him as a father. The same goes for my younger siblings. The last born was just the height, whenever he would want to address my father he would say "excuse me, sir", like we said to our teachers in school. I laugh now that i think about it, but then i didn't think it was funny. It was just sad. The good thing about my father not being around was that my mother was able to raise us to be independent women. I wasn't raised with the usual gender roles in place. From when i was little i was told that i could be anything i wanted. We did all the chores that boys were supposed to do cos my brother was the last born and there was nobody else to do it. Seeing her situation, my mom basically raised us with the belief that we had to make our own money and never depend on anybody else to take care of us.

So not only do i not have a good model of what marriage should be, all the stories i hear about marriage are discouraging. All the relationships I've being in leave a lot to be desired. One of my older sister's ex-husband (thank God) used to beat her. When she would call the police and have him thrown in jail, she was referred to as a bad wife by the Nigerian community here. He would cheat on her and do all sorts of nonsense, yet she was supposed to keep a stiff upper lip and console herself with her children. I know a lot of women go through the same thing and yet they stay in the marriage because divorce is frowned on. Well, i frown up being beaten to a pulp by a man who is supposed to love and cherish me above all others. My sister stayed in that marriage for 11 years suffering all that abuse becos she was trying to make it work. She's a better woman than i am. I was chatting with one of my friends in Nigeria yesterday and she told me that more than half of the married women she knows are dissatisfied with their marriage and would leave if they could, but they can't. The guys feel like they did the women a favor by marrying them in the first place so the women should suck it up and deal with whatever way they chose to treat them. She said 80% of men in clubs in Nigeria are married, and she cannot begin to count the number of married men that ask her out. The only consolation these women have are their children.

When she said that, it really resonated with me, cos my mother used to say that a lot. It got to a point where she would say she was married to us (her kids) and Jesus. Meanwhile, her supposed husband was still alive and breathing. Is that what i want for myself? NO! People would say if you looked carefully, prayed and picked the right person it wouldn't be that way. Tell me about it! I know people who thot they were marrying an angel, until he changed up on them after marriage. We were all shocked back in sec school when my best friend's sister's husband started beating her, right after they got married. He even beat her so much one time she had a miscarriage. He had never shown any sign of being violent in all the time they were dating. They are both "good" Christians, so they prayed about the marriage. So what went wrong?

Marriage to me right now, is like a trap of sorrow, and (insert whatever negative word). I know it's a horrible way for me to look at it esp since i would like to get married one day. I don't know how I'm going to meet the "right" person. Hopefully as i get older, i will become more positive about it. I think the worst thing would be to be married to someone who doesn't care about working on the marriage, is stuck in his ways and believes that anything he says goes just becos he has a penis. Nah!