DON’T DO IT! DON’T GET MARRIED!

I often wonder why someone in their right mind will willingly surrender their freedom, I mean who volunteers to live in a prison? No freedom, no privacy and plenty of limitations.

It’s just insane right? That’s what I thought too but can you imagine that all over the world and everyday people actually volunteer for life imprisonment?

It sounds too far-fetched right but it’s actually true, every day and barely every minute people volunteer to relinquish their freedom to join an institution, one that has a long history.

An history that has been embellished to make it look colourful and wonderful; so wonderful that people hearing it don’t think twice before volunteering to join the prison with the hope that the stories they’ve had about it is true; this prison is code-name: Marriage.

Now before you start calling the SWAT team on me just hear me out, give me a minute or two to explain myself.

Marriage is an institution as old as time itself. It is part of human history and ever since its inception it has been celebrated and idolized in many cultures.

Those already in the institution tell tales about how awesome it is, how wonderful it is to find a life partner someone you can spend the rest of your life with.

They tell the younger ones how a man is incomplete until he joins the institution, old women program and tailor their daughters to yearn and look forward to the day they join their husband and become one.

They paint the picture so vivid and beautiful and sometimes they even make it sound like a cult like if you’re not in it you don’t “belong”.

All that sounds amazing right but what if I told you they lied, what if I told you that nothing is as it seem, that everything they said is complete fabrication, that the institution called marriage is synonymous with a locked room with four walls and no chance of escape.

You’re confused and dazed right? Well welcome to the MATRIX.

Marriage is beautiful, yes, but like a well-designed cushion in a palace that is exquisite on the outside but full of dust on the inside, so is marriage.

I am sure the elderly wives don’t tell you that part of the story they only tell you how you get to be with someone you love and raise kids together, they don’t tell you how much work it takes to keep everything from falling apart, the sacrifices you have to make to make your man happy like dropping some male friends because your husband feels threatened by their presence in your life or dressed in a way you dislike because that’s what your husbands loves.

How about the fact that you have to be able to manage to take care of your children, your job and your husband without paying more attention to one at the expense of the other.

You can’t just go out and party with friends anymore unless your husband approve, which won’t happen often.

Don’t forget that you’re going to have to please your man sexually.

That means sometimes, doing the act even when not in the mood just to satisfy your man who is in the mood.

You have to wake up early not only to get ready for work but also to prepare food for your kids and husband.

Don’t let me get me started on the rigours of pregnancy; the morning sickness, nausea, body ache, weakness and mood swing, and you go through all that only for your man to start feeling less attractive to you because the figure 8 he used to love when he married you is no longer visible.

You’re now chubby looking with protruding stomach that refuse to go down. So now you have to starve yourself and workout extremely just to lose the added weight brought on by pregnancy and get back in shape so your man doesn’t start philandering.

As a man you’ve been looking forward to this day for a while now, you’ve been told that nothing is better than having a wife and raising a family.

Those old men probably didn’t tell you how hard it is, the sacrifice it takes to handle a family, they won’t tell you how marriage takes away your freedom, how you won’t be able to go anywhere aside work on your own without wifey asking you where are you going and why are you leaving her all alone.

Immediately you say I do you, better say goodbye to all those regular Friday nights/weekend of pure fun with your boys.

All those times spent watching a movie till the break of dawn with your boys are no more. No more game nights and even if you’re gonna hang with the boys it will be an occasional occurrence.

The old men probably told you that it’s better to settle with one woman instead of sleeping around and that made you think when you get married sex with be a constant that you’re going to have as much sex as you like.

You’re so wrong my man truth is you’ll probably have less sex than when you were single.

That sounds crazy right but that’s the truth and the older a marriage gets the lesser sex you’ll have.

How about the responsibility that comes with marriage, taking care of your wife, helping her through pregnancy and standing up to the task of providing what’s necessary to take care of both mother and child when the time comes.

Making sure you balance the affection for all your kids and through it all, keep the fire burning between you and your wife.

Those old men probably didn’t even tell you how your wife will change right in front of you after a kid or two and how you are to take her as she is after all she’s like that because of you.

You were not briefed about the struggle to stay faithful.

How single ladies nowadays admire and sometimes desire a married man because they believe you understand how to take care of a lady.

All this and much more is what marriage is about, it’s more than the sex, passion or companionship, marriage is like building a company from the ground up.

It takes blood sweat and tears to make it work.

You have to be ready to work hard at it with determination and perseverance.

If you can’t bare or deal with any of those things mentioned above, please don’t do it; don’t get married.

Makinde “Brainac” Teniola.