Why did I get married?

REGRETS are a part of life, they come after we’ve made choices we wish in retrospect that we hadn’t, and for the most part regrets serve as life lessons that we’ll learn along life’s journey. But while we’re able to move past some regrets and accept the lessons learnt, there are others that, for some people, they’ll live with for life, as they are unable to extricate themselves from their regretful situations either because of legal bindings, or because they made promises.

The people below, who entered marriage with all the right intentions, will tell you now that their lives are filled with regret over saying I do’s, and worse, they can’t see a way out.

Lance, 31:

We are both in the church, so marriage was a natural thing. I had liked her and she had come off as a decent person, but no amount of pre-marital counselling could have prepared me for the devil she turned out to be. She is selfish to the point of narcissism, she refuses to be intimate for weeks on end, refuses to cook me meals or do anything for me at all. It’s like she got married just to prove something to the church, and in the meantime I’m miserable. Worse, our church is ’till death, so even if I was to get a divorce, I’d have to wait until she dies before I could find happiness with someone else.

Melissa, 47:

Why did I get married? It’s a question I ask myself everyday. I had a child when I met my now husband, and was pregnant with another when we wed. It seemed like the right thing to do. We had another child during the marriage, but it has been downhill for most of it. He is much older, and treats me and the children like dirt. He was accused of molesting a young neighbour. We haven’t slept in the same bed in five years, and he has his woman and I have my guy. I’d divorce him but I can’t afford it, so I’m hoping that God will see it fit to rid me of him in the natural way.

Josh, 38:

I liked, loved this girl but we were unequally yoked. She wasn’t interested in joining my faith, so I had to break it off, at the request of my family. I met another girl in church and we have been married over nine years. She’s OK, but I still think about my soulmate, who has just come back to Jamaica after years living in other countries. Nothing has changed about my feelings for her. I ask myself everyday why I made the decisions I made, and I’m terribly unhappy because I can never be with the person I truly love.

Keino, 27:

My wife is the definition of two-faced. To the world she’s a kind, doting soul who loves her man, but once behind closed doors she’s a nag, a shrew, all the ugly names you can think up. She has e-mailed and texted all my friends and told them that I’m no longer available for friendship; she has visited my job and told my employer lies about me; she even took out a protection order against me once, because I dared to raise my voice at her. We’re still living together, and she has told me that she’d rather kill me than allow me to divorce her. Why is she this way? Because she’s crazy! I feel like I have aged so much in the time we have been together.

Marie, 36:

My mother warned me against marriage but I wouldn’t listen. I just had to have a ring, and no amount of cautioning would have swayed me. Well, I’ve been married seven years, I have a daughter who is five, and she has two sisters, courtesy of my husband, who are five and three. I wish getting out of a marriage was as easy as getting in.