Me, As a Wife

For me a good marriage was a dream come true. Ever since I was a little kid I dreamed of having a large,
may be 12 children, loving and caring family. I am a great believer that family is the most important
thing in anyone’s life. All that matters is having a good family. Anyone’s success is measured by raising a
great family, having a good relationship with one’s spouse and children.

I am Muna Jemal, 24, Muslim girl from Ethiopia. I have been married for the last 3 and half years. My
marriage has nothing to do with early marriage or arranged marriage thing. It was completely out of
love, after all a Buddha said “marry for Love”. I was so much in love with my husband still I am. Even
though we were so “young” we had a good relationship with one another.

When I was married I was a university graduate in computer science. I didn’t have any clue of marriage
rather than believing that I should marry someone that I love. My parents were married for 27 years and
I think they were good examples for me eventhogh they get divorced in the last minute. There was no
such thing called pre marriage counseling’s or something like that, thank God that I am not in bad
relationship. After graduation we start living together.

The first two years were like “I can’t breathe without you”, i mean we were together like 24/7 , i didn’t
do anything that me hates so did he, we didn’t argue so much, we were just like couples in a romantic
movie. Believe me even I don’t remember a day I spent without him, I didn’t even want to see anyone it
was all about us, our children our future. Life was so good!

Now here comes the reality!!

In my life I am a kind of person who likes to manage and control everything, I am perfectionist in
Myers’s personality test. I hate such thing called conscidence , everything should be done in plan and
order. And I think that is what my husband loves about me in the beginning! Literally I like to take of
everything in my house, actually I was happy about that because it makes me feel like “okay I am good
at everything and strong enough to handle anything”. So ever since we start sharing a same roof I was
everything. I clean, cook, do shopping from his pants to house furniture, take care bills, work as
governmental employee. It was all on me. Here I want to make an emphasis that my husband was really
helpful and caring in some situations. The problem was me being controlling and seem like a freaking
mother. So after living happily for 2 years things started to change.

As I said I am perfectionist plus a Virgo. Down the way I got in to depression and anxiety. I was in stress.
All I cared about was my house and my husband. I totally started to lose my self. Just doing the house
chores and watching TV that was all about. I didn’t even care about my looks and dressing as a woman. I
thought that as long as I am married I don’t have to worry about myself. I feel like as long as he is happy
with the sex part it is not that much worth it to take care of myself. I was busy planning his dress codes
and meals for every single day. I don’t even remember two consecutive days that I serve him same
dishes. I even thought about committing suicide. My husband had caught me doing it so many times.
God I was so foolish. But after a while all these depression, anxiety, stress, attempted suicide led us to a
divorce. As he said it was all beyond his capacity.

To be continued