Growing up, Abu*, 39, watched his father stand by his mother through difficult moments and learnt the kind of husband he wanted to become. 

In this week’s Marriage Diaries, he shares how his parents shaped his expectations of marriage, why he has never doubted his choice of wife, and what he’s learning about respecting her boundaries with family

This is a look into his marriage diary.

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I learnt what love looked like from my parents

My parents have a really good marriage, and one of my clearest childhood memories is of my dad standing up for my mum when she had issues with his siblings.

I can’t remember exactly what happened, but words were exchanged. When my dad came home, he told us his siblings had accused my mum of feeding him charm. His response was something along the lines of, “They said she has fed me charm. Let her charm me. I like it like that.”

I was probably in secondary school, but those words stuck with me. They showed me how much my dad was willing to stand by my mum, regardless of what other people thought. He also took my siblings and me to school when my mum had a demanding job. He did it happily, without making it seem like a favour.

My mum can be troublesome sometimes, but my dad loves her all the same. Watching them made me want to be a kind husband who stands by his wife, even when things aren’t perfect.

My wife made it easy to become the husband I wanted to be

When I got married, I wanted to give my wife the kind of love I’d watched my dad give my mum. What I didn’t expect was how naturally it would come with the right person.

My wife is exactly my spec. She’s tall, light-skinned, easy-going, a great cook and ambitious. If someone gave me a 60-leaf notebook to write about her, I’d fill every page and still have more to say.

She brings peace to my life, so there’s very little I wouldn’t do for her. If it’s within my reach and I’m capable of doing it, I’ll do it. Having a woman like her has made it easy to become the husband I always wanted to be.

I know how fortunate I am because some of my friends haven’t been as lucky in their marriages. Whenever we meet, there’s usually one complaint or another. One friend kept insisting that my wife couldn’t possibly be as good as I said she was. He would press me to identify her flaws, as though there had to be a hidden problem.

Eventually, I distanced myself from him because those conversations made me dwell on things I’d already accepted about my wife. Of course, she isn’t without her flaws, but I’ve learnt to love her with her imperfections. I don’t need to manufacture problems because someone else finds it hard to believe I’m happy.

That certainty also shaped how I approached marriage. I wasn’t waiting for my wife or our circumstances to become perfect before committing to the life we wanted together.

We started small, but I never doubted my decision

I met my wife after NYSC, while I was still in a relationship with someone else. That relationship was abusive, and I stayed longer than I should have because I was afraid to leave. I still have her bite marks on my body.

From our first conversation, I felt a kind of peace I hadn’t experienced before. We didn’t start dating until two years after we met, but I’ve never been more certain about a decision than I was when I chose to marry her.

My only real concerns were financial. I’d experienced humble beginnings and knew building a home came with responsibilities. But my wife reassured me that we didn’t need to have everything figured out before starting our lives together.

We spent our first year of marriage in a tiny self-contained apartment. Today, we live in a decent flat and are almost done building our own house. Looking back, those early years remind me that we didn’t need to start with much to build something meaningful together.

I was confident about the woman I’d married. What I hadn’t fully considered was that marriage would also bring me into a family whose expectations and behaviour were very different from what I knew.

My in-laws brought challenges I hadn’t anticipated

There’s a Yoruba saying about white pap coming out of a black pot, and I think about it whenever I compare my wife’s family with the one I grew up in.

Her relationship with her parents has always been difficult. Her father can be problematic, and her mother has her own issues. My wife often told me how relieved she was to be away from them, but nothing prepared me for dealing with them myself.

They constantly call us to do one thing or another, and their visits often come with problems. I’ve had to be careful about how I deal with them because I don’t want to make things worse.

Last year, at a family event, my father-in-law got into a fight with one of my uncles over beer. It was embarrassing. I couldn’t exactly lash out at my father-in-law in front of everyone, even though I was unhappy with what happened.

My wife has considered cutting her parents off, but I’ve often encouraged her to maintain some relationship with them. I believe family is family, and I’ve always thought it’s better to establish boundaries than sever ties completely. I didn’t fully appreciate, though, that my wife’s reasons for wanting distance went beyond the disagreements I witnessed.

Trying to keep the peace sometimes put me between my wife and her family

Because I believed my wife should maintain some relationship with her parents, I often tried to mediate when things went wrong. She, however, felt she had finally escaped the environment she grew up in and didn’t want to keep exposing herself to it.

When we had our first child, she insisted that her mum shouldn’t come for omugwo. Her mother called me sarcastically and asked, “Are you the one telling my daughter that I shouldn’t come?”

I ended up bringing her mother over for a week, even though my wife hadn’t wanted her there. I worried her family would assume I was behind her decisions, so I tried to manage the situation myself. But I sometimes overstepped and made my wife feel I was choosing her family’s comfort over hers.

It became a recurring source of tension. I would try to mediate, my wife would feel I wasn’t listening, and we’d argue about a situation that started with her parents.

I’ve since realised I can’t keep inserting myself into their relationship and expect things to improve. These days, I still call her parents and do my part as their son-in-law, but I’m more intentional about staying out of decisions that are my wife’s. If she says she doesn’t want them involved in something, I respect her wishes.

Love has to be supported by patience and understanding

After eight years of marriage, I still don’t know everything my wife experienced growing up. She rarely talks about it, usually just saying it was rough and explaining that it’s why she relates to her parents the way she does.

I try not to push her to share more than she’s comfortable with. But when her parents do something upsetting, I sometimes understand why she prefers to keep her distance.

I also think her upbringing affects how she parents our children. She’s a loving mother, but sometimes I feel she overcompensates for what she went through by being too lenient with them. I’ve encouraged her to consider therapy and reminded her that she can be loving while still correcting the children when necessary. I try to be patient because I know there’s personal work she’s still doing.

Experiences like these have reinforced my belief that love is essential to marriage, but it can’t do all the work on its own. People who struggle in their marriages often love each other deeply. They may once have found it impossible to eat or sleep without thinking about each other, but that feeling alone won’t resolve every problem that comes with building a life together.

Love needs patience, kindness, respect, tolerance and trust to sustain it. You have to be willing to understand your partner, even when their experiences differ from yours, and recognise when your idea of helping might be making things harder for them.

I still believe love should come first. But after eight years of marriage, I know it’s the everyday choices we make around that love that help it last.

 *Names have been changed to protect the identity of the subjects.

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