I Took a Love Potion
On the road, at the farm, in the kitchen, and in different corners of the house, the conversation came up many times. My siblings were often around when I would say to my mother:
“Please, Mother, when I get married, and you visit at any time, and see me washing dishes or clothes for my wife or children, do not think anyone has given your son a love potion, you hear?”
She would look at me, puzzled. I was only about 11 or 12 then, in JSS 1 or 2, far from adulthood, far from independence, and certainly far from marriage.
I saw things early.
I saw husbands beating their wives in real life, in movies, and in stories. I saw mothers-in-law, unprovoked, drain the joy out of their sons’ wives. I saw men mock other men for openly loving their wives, calling them weak, “woman-wrappers,” and saying they were under some charm.
I also saw men proudly declare that they could never be caught doing dishes or any chore they had already labelled as women’s work. And I saw women support these patterns, sometimes out of survival, sometimes out of belief, and sometimes simply because it was the life they had come to accept.
Each marriage is the solitary one of its kind, radically distinctive and having no equal for any form of equation.
I spoke to myself about the kind of life I wanted to live as a man, as a husband, and as a father.
I did not care whether my thoughts aligned with the realities around me. In truth, they did not. I did not have real-life examples of the kind of husband I wanted to become. Still, I chose it.
I can’t exactly say how, but even at that age, I understood something. I understood that each marriage is the solitary one of its kind, radically distinctive and having no equal for any form of equation.
So I decided mine would not be a copy of what I was seeing. People make that mistake.
I told my mother that if love potions ever existed, I had already taken one on my own.
No woman gave it to me. I did not even know who my wife would be. But whoever she was going to be, I had already chosen how I would love her.
I would not be the reason she becomes less of herself. I would be part of the reason she becomes more.
So I told my mother again, “If you visit and see me doing chores in my house, do not blame whoever I marry eventually. If there is any fault at all, it is mine. I took a love potion for her long before I ever met her.”
She would laugh. Whether she believed me or not, I cannot say now.
Marriage is a wonderful union, so sweetly special, like a rose, whose thorns are present, only as guards to the flowers, so whosoever approaches the roses will always be careful, careful not to get hurt and careful not to hurt, so the fragrances can safely reign supreme.
Long before marriage, I planted something deep within myself.
I chose the kind of love I would give. I chose the kind of husband I would be.
Because I believed then, and I believe even more now, that marriage is a wonderful union, so sweetly special, like a rose, whose thorns are present, only as guards to the flowers, so whosoever approaches the roses will always be careful, careful not to get hurt and careful not to hurt, so the fragrances can safely reign supreme.
That belief stayed with me, and in many ways, it still guides me.
And in marriage, life has now taken its own natural shape. The expression of that early decision does not always appear in chores or visible acts alone, but it remains present in how I choose, how I respond, and how I build with my wife.
It is still the same decision, only now lived rather than imagined.
Image ai by Gagan2246 from Pixabay
