YOUR MARRIAGE NOT WORKING, REBOOT OR OFFLOAD?

Icheoku says regrettably many couples today are merely putting up appearance of being "happily" married, while in-fact "married" in name only. To the watching world they are married but to them they are not. They are physically present in their marriage but are mentally absent, gone and emotionally divorced from each other and just bidding their time. 

Often times each partner would spend their time daydreaming and bemoaning a lost love which they wish they had married; but regrettably ended up with someone they wish never crossed their path. Icheoku says imagine the long prison sentence that could be, coming home everyday to still find yourself sharing the same space with such a turnoff. What a life of reject such an unfortunate spouse, who finds him or herself yoked in such an undesirable forlorn union, would have. A situation made worse if divorce is not an option such as in a culture that frowns at divorce which sees a man or woman walking out of a marriage as an abject failure who did not try hard enough to save the marriage? Icheoku says but how long is long enough for such a damn trying, especially if it is an irredeemable union or their differences are so glaringly clear and irreconcilable that it is not even worth making any effort to save or sustain it. 

Icheoku asks why does society usually compel parties to continue to suffer the intolerance of each other, especially  of  someone they would rather he or she just walked off and never returns. They unceasingly pray that their partner walks off the cliff, disappeared and never turn up again; but lack the courage to facilitate such quick exit. To say that they privately celebrate the moment "brief illness" or accident comes to their aid, is to say the obvious. Instances abound where spouses, while engaged in their private moment and on reaching plateau, accidentally screams out the name of another person, usually the person living in their head, instead of their partner with whom they were physically achieving their ecstasy? There are also stories where at moment of surprise, shock or such other unguarded exhilaration such as sneezing, they drop the name of that person who has not left their hearts or whom they refused to let go despite the fact of the reality on the ground of their being married to someone else? 

The question therefore remains, why does any person have to live under such a permanent zoned-out sad situation or remain therein entangled when he or she knows that it is not good for their mental health and/or psychology and sometimes even their physical well-being. 

Sometimes, such overbearing load of psychosis starts to manifest heavily on the physicality and spouses have been observed adding needless weight due to binging or they become alcoholics or addicted to some other substances in their effort to build a psychological wall between them and their marital affliction? Icheoku says neither "Doctor Love" nor "Mr Marriage" would have planned such unintended consequences to be anyone's portion when it brought them together and made them one through marital union. Therefore, why would anyone so situated torture his or her soul in such a way that it becomes a desperate fight to stay alive and remain sane; and in this very short life? Query, is anything worth living such a lie, living in denial and in a deprived happiness? Why would anyone live in such a pretended bliss, just because society frowns at other available options including at worst eloping with your heart's desire, if he or she is still available and willing to be an accomplice? 

Why would any sane person become so domiciled and condemned to such an adversarial fate when there are some available options? A victim of a society, which is not wearing the painful shoes themselves, yet meddles and interlopes in people's lives and dictates to them what is expected of them? Unfortunately, majority of people marry out of necessity, induced by  time and availability, so they usually find themselves not having any choice in the matter but to comply and conform just to maintain a semblance of normalcy? Most people do not marry due to love, they marry largely because it is "time" to get married. It is usually either because their friends and mates are all married or getting married; or like in women, that the biological clock is running out, so they must just jump at whichever Joe or Jane that shows up at the door and there begins their life of misery? Some people also just do it because the proverbial Knight in shinning armor or Princess Cinderella just effervesced, without asking if this particular knight or princess is good for them and jump in regardless, only to later regret their impetuous action. 

Icheoku says but should this be so? Must people just imprison themselves in marriage with someone they do not really like or love or care about, just to fake it or satisfy family or society's demand that is simply fatalistic by nature? If, for how long must this unhealthy life in deceit subsist and at what prize? Little wonder many spouses often die premature due to "brief illness" occasioned by heart attack or develop unnecessary high blood pressure which they blame on genetics and heredity instead of the killer-spouse in their midst which forced the debilitating situation upon them? Why marry, if you must marry at all, to someone you do not feel complimented with or proud of and to the extent that you would rather he or she is not around you? 

Why marry someone just for the heck of it if your heart says otherwise, is not there? Why marry just to satisfy a society's expectation that a man or woman must marry and at a certain age, otherwise he or she would be seen as a leftover menopausal old hack or an overgrown playboy? Icheoku says any self-assured individual must never allow him or herself to be railroaded by the dictates and demands of family, peer group and society into marrying if he or she does not want to or to anybody just because of what is available. No, people should marry only people who duly compliments them; and who makes them feel  bigger, better and brighter - three imperatives of any good relationship. 

As a rule of the thumb, never marry someone who puts you down, talks you down or makes you feel inadequate or who never misses any opportunity to belittle you before his or her friends, especially in public or who badmouths you at your back. Like Jesus said do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers, so please do not be yoked with someone that is not your type as regrets will become your companion down the road. Icheoku says little wonder many marital "bliss" fizzle out barely soon after their ceremonies are over, as couples eyes suddenly open to realize the mortal mistake they had made, rushing into an uncharted territory, with a total stranger masquerading as an ally? 

Like with anything and everything not deeply planted, wanted or desired, frequent irritation takes over, fights and needless quarrels take center stage and before one could say Jack Robinson, the marriage hits the rocks or one of the spouses forces the other over the cliff so that he or she can finally have the peace of mind desired and craved for? So decide today whether your own contraption is worth saving and then reboot accordingly; and if not, just firm up your resolve and do the needful. Life is for the living and you have to be alive to live life; so why remain in a union that passes for a long prison sentence when you did not commit any crimes to warrant that. Your call.