Halimah Ahmed@ahmedhalimah02
One of the things that nearly collapsed my marriage within its first five years was silent treatment and malice. At some point, my husband even proudly mentioned that he once kept malice with his sister for an entire year 😳
To me, this was strange because I came from a home where we are throwing punches at each other this minute, eating from the same plate and jump on each other’s backs the next minute like nothing happened. I genuinely thought that was how every family functioned.
As a natural overthinker, silence used to torture me badly. I would become restless and emotionally unsettled, and most times I would end up apologising just to restore peace, even when I was the one who had been wronged.
Mind you, throughout all that silence, we would still exchange Salaam every morning. I would cook his meals and he never rejected them. He would continue carrying out all his responsibilities, including pulling me into his arms every night because he knew I slept better there 🤭
It was just conversations and our normal banter that disappeared.
Until one night.
We had not properly spoken for almost two weeks and my mouth was beginning to smell to me from the silence 😭 so I woke him up and said:
Me: Divorce me.
Him: Hmm? What did you say? (clearing his eyes sharply)
Me: You heard me. Since you don’t want to talk to me, kuku divorce me and let me go back to the people who would happily talk to me endlessly.
Him: Just go back to sleep. We’ll talk about it in the morning.
Me: Got down from the bed and started packing my clothes into a box.
Him: You are serious?
Me: Oh, you think I’m joking? Just watch me.
Him: Oya come here…
That night marked the end of silence and prolonged malice in my marriage because we talked till daybreak. We addressed a lot of things honestly and established ground rules for communication, conflict resolution and problem-solving moving forward.
For days after that, all I kept hearing was:
“Don’t you ever utter that word in this house again. It is prohibited.”
My husband is still not as expressive as I am, but he has made very significant efforts since then, and honestly, that effort matters a lot.
Last last, one of the most important things in marriage is being with someone who genuinely wants to be in your life as much as you want to be in theirs.
