A J.J.C In Marriage Needs Help. I’m Miserable And Happy At The Same Time

He was in school abroad when he proposed to me. I didn’t say yes. I didn’t say no. I didn’t tell him I was thinking about it. I just laughed the proposal away. A day later, he started calling me, “My love.” Anytime he called me that, I laughed but inside me, I was very happy. I didn’t know my actual feelings towards him but I was glad he had taken the lead in loving me.

He called every day to check on me. He texted and each time he texted, he ended it with “I love you with all my heart.” When he felt too lazy to write it in full, he wrote “ILYWAMH” With time, I came to call him ILYWAMH. He loved it but I still didn’t know my true feelings towards him.

If he was in Ghana, I would have loved him right from the time he told me he loved me. He was abroad and I wasn’t sure how love was going to be like. The stories I’ve heard about guys abroad didn’t favour him and what a friend went through with her guy who was abroad also didn’t favour our relationship. I was sceptical, always sitting on the fence but he was over the seas loving me with all his heart.

A year later, I still wasn’t sure but I responded to everything he said positively. I didn’t have a boyfriend but if someone came along and he was serious about me, I would have given him a chance. I didn’t want to gamble my life away or throw the little love I had in me away to a guy over the distance. But two years later when he kept at it, calling me every day and texting at dawn to see if I was sleeping well, I decided enough was enough. I gave my heart away and allowed it to fall for him.

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When he told me he loved me, I responded with “I love you too” and this time it felt real. I was the girl who was initiating intimacy and asking him to stay connected with his heart and soul. He felt the difference. He asked what had changed. I asked what he had seen to assume something had changed. A year later he told me, “I’m coming back home. Get ready for marriage. We don’t need to waste any time because we’ve wasted three years already.”

He came back home and we got married five months later.

On the first night of our honeymoon, I told him, in fact, I pleaded with him, “You told me you love me with all your heart. Please don’t change. We both have taken a huge leap of faith with this marriage. If you remain the way you were while abroad, we’ll be fine. I’m too young for surprises and my heart can’t stand the shock of changes. I love you this way so remain this way.”

He laughed at my fears but he didn’t strum it with his fingers. We hugged. He told me he loved me with all his heart so I shouldn’t have any fear. I know true love has no fear but I couldn’t help it. I didn’t know him too well to trust our future together. Yes, I’d known him absently for three years but there is a difference. Knowing someone physically is always better.   

We are three months old together. Everything is still the same. We are brand new. We go everywhere together. He’s my ride or die and I’m loving it. He touches me at every given opportunity. He shows me off to his friends. Our sex life is over the roof. He consults me over every issue. He’s in the kitchen with me when he has to. When I play the drum, he sings the tune. When I sing the tune, he dances to it.

I don’t want anything to change but change is bound to happen and that makes me scared. If he changes, what won’t he do again? Will he leave the drum and singing for me to do alone? I don’t want to be alone. I want us to continue to be a two-man band, travelling together and playing shows together.

Everybody tells me I should be ready for the change because marriage is not always rosy. I’m here asking, what can I do to maintain this phase of our marriage? Am I asking for too much to want things to remain the same? To continue being the love of his heart?  But in case the change I don’t want happens, which they say is inevitable, how am I supposed to deal with it?

We Met At El-Classico Match | Rich & Derby

Because of these questions, I’m not able to enjoy what’s before me wholeheartedly. When I’m happy, I look over my shoulders to see if change is coming. I’m happy and miserable at the same time because I’m new to this thing called marriage. The experienced people here, please help a JJC in marriage.

—Alice

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