THE PRESSURE TO BE A BRIDE

To be a bride is just for a day, being a wife, is a lifelong experience.

Seeing as I have crossed over to the twenty’s league, and my age mates have started getting married, marriage no longer feels like something in the far future, it has become all too real. As a Nigerian girl child, we all have those aunties (it is always the aunties) that are so eager to plan OWAMBE, and they start asking you for “the guy”, or that family member that is ready to match you up ASAP, 7 out of 10 times I talk to my grandma, she says “ah my pikin if you see husband, leave school o, school no too dey important, you hear me so, no say because of school you no wan marry o”.

I am just twenty and I can already feel the ticking seconds of marriage o’clock. My question here is “WHY DO WE FEEL THE NEED TO RUSH INTO MARRIAGES?”. It is almost like you are worthless and incomplete without marriage and I can understand the need for companionship and procreation, but what I really cant understand is the timestamp we have placed on it. (especially for women)

In my head, marriage is a lifelong friendship without the benefit of cutting the person off, have you ever thought what if there was nothing like a divorce, then what? My mum every now and again says to my dad “I never knew you had this attitude” and they have known each other and been married for a long long time and yet each day the other comes up with new “attributes”, so there is no “knowing someone completely”, and there is no Hollywood style happily ever after kind of marriage, the one where you have the one big fight and then you settle it and ta-da, you wont fight again. You need to be emotionally and mentally ready to know how to deal with a \”life-long-no-going-back-till-death-do-us-part-situations\”.

Now before you say ah what if your spouse cheats, that’s a deal breaker or he lies or something, well I do not know, I am single as well and I can hold a grudge for Africa, I easily cut people off, picking up a phone call is a struggle, so I am not mentally or emotionally ready to deal with the ups and downs of a relationships talk more of a marriage hence why the whole pressure thing seems to burst my brains.

We forget that not until you get a first class front row seat into the lives of others, all you see are the projections of your wishful thinking and the filtered image they want you to see. I do not know anything about being married but I do know that you cant rush into it, don’t let anyone tell you how perfect a guy or girl is for you, because at the end of the day, when the words of their mouth have been peeled back and you are faced with the nakedness of their true personality, it is you who gets to deal with it.

Those who tell you “ah at this time you are still single” are the same ones who will say “ah why didn’t you take the time to know him properly before you married him”.

Don’t let people push you into marriage. Take your time, develop yourself, because marriage is a peculiar thing, what worked for \”Mr. & Mrs. A\” might not work for you.

It is not the lack of love but the lack of friendship that makes unhappy marriages. – Friedrich Nietzsche

Be careful and watchful.

Ps. This is me lowkey telling my family members that when I graduate they should not start the \’when you go marry\’ song on me, please thank you for your understanding. 😀

Stay Shining Lovelies 🌹

To view more pictures from this shoot, click HERE

Photography by: The Blackscribbler

Model: ZOEY