Small things that can ruin your marriage

Since you married a few months ago, you have noticed that you are now displaced in your own house. Carol, quite a shameless woman, has taken every space. In the bathroom, you can’t find space to place your bath soap, much less hang your inner wear.

Your shoes are now in the balcony, since the shoe rack is not enough for her 1,000 pairs of shoes. She has taken nearly 100 per cent of the wardrobe and your miserable two coats and a few shirts are tucked in some corner. But you have never complained.

Recently it hit you that you can’t even watch the family TV for more than a minute. You will be barely tuned in, in the middle watching a serious debate on the state of our terrible politics, and Carol will ask you.

“You watching the news?”

You always want to be sarcastic about it and tell her, “I am admiring the black colour on the TV,” but Carol takes these things too personal. She will tactically nag you and you will find yourself resigning to the bedroom to read sports news on the web. Your house is very imprisoning. You understand why so many married men prefer the bar to their homes.

At home, Carol complains about everything, from the half-read book under the table, the unread newspaper on the table, to speckles of toothpaste foam on the bathroom mirror. It is like you need to float around the house, do nothing, and exist in gaseous form, if you were to obey her every demand.

You would think this is enough compromise, but you are dead wrong. Carol wants to get away with everything. Last week, she bought a cat... of all things (and the way you hate cats. Viscerally.) She did not even consult you. You have thought about poisoning the damn thing. Indeed, you are still shopping for the best poison. Carol has this thing of buying stuff without consulting you. She buys glassy furniture that she breaks after a few weeks, silly electronics that do not have warranties and tend to break down almost as soon as they are dismantled. You have warned her, but that woman, has a hearing or understanding problem.

But as soon as you spoil yourself with a good gadget, or something, she will either covet it, or call you extravagant. What is wrong with her?

Carol also has a problem with some of your prized possessions. She hates the books in your library. She hates all your material possessions that look older or those that ruin the shape of ‘her’ house. You recently found her unpacking your campus suitcase that you have moved with through six houses in the last few decades without unpacking and she wanted to throw away everything, saying nothing was relevant.

She couldn’t understand the sentimental attachment to the pictures you took while in campus, the cards from your exes, lecture notes that you valued and thought wise enough to be kept for posterity, and old trophies that you won while playing in the campus soccer team. All valuable stuff. But Carol wanted to torch the whole suitcase, had you not arrived home in time.

Now, she wants the suitcase be taken to the countryside or be stored somewhere in an non-existent attic. Anywhere but in the house. You have asked her to either accommodate you, or divorce you. She wants neither. Now what do you do?

@nyanchwani [email protected]