#Issue 5: The Problem of Marital Loneliness.

“We were crossing a dangerous road. I wanted you and the girls to hold on to me. But my hands were missing. All I had left were stumps. I’m sliding around in soft sand. I can’t get ahold of you. You’re all up there on the road and I can’t reach you.”

Finding This essay. 

Two months ago, I came across an essay by Agness Collard when I was about to make a very important love decision. It was an eye-opener, one I did not want to have. For someone who is an advocate of truth and openness, I found it embarrassing that I was being presented with a truth about my reality that I did not want to acknowledge. For long, I wished that I had not come across the essay.  I wished I could have gone ahead with my love decision with sincere and true ignorance. But the moment I came across this essay on The New Yorker, I could no longer pretend as though I had not. It had become crystal clear that something was wrong with the love situation I found myself in and I needed to address it. And I did. 

Chemistry in Love.

Today, while taking an evening walk, I thought about what the consequence of sharing an essay like this would be. To be clear, in this essay, Agnes Collard reviews the HBO show Scenes from a Marriage but honestly, that’s not why we are here. In her review, she talks a lot about how a marriage falls apart. How you wake up and realize that you do not quite connect with this person that you love, that you have sworn to spend the rest of your life with. When people ask you why, you don’t know why. It just seems as if you two are totally different persons. But then you love them, don’t you? Yes, you do but still, you can’t quite figure out what’s going on. Something is missing.

It is like eating a saltless meal. It smells nice thanks to the numerous spices used in cooking it but something doesn't quite fit. Something is missing. And ultimately, you realize that that something is salt. In the case of love and relationships, people often call this Chemistry. This is not in any way a sexual connotation. Chemistry here means a certain inexplicable bond or connection you have with someone. When people ask how you’re so connected, you can’t even figure it out. This connection often exists between people with similar interests. There are of course rare exceptions. 

Compromise in Love.

Last month, I wrote a Twitter thread that blew up. With four thousand likes and over two thousand retweets, my DM was filled with people sharing personal stories about the thread and how they could relate to it. Most of them talked about their love life and how they are currently compromising in their present relationships. If there is anything I never want to do, it is to compromise on my core values or desires. I understand fully well that in a relationship, compromises have to be made. But not the type that leaves you with eternal regret and longing. I do not want that ever. I would rather remain single and unmarried for life than sacrifice my joy for a semblance of love. Here is an excerpt from the essay we are reading today where the writer talks about her relationship with her husband.:

Occasionally, the point he wants to explicate magically lines up with the one I want resolved, but much of the time there is a decidedly unmagical lack of complementarity between his love of clarity and my love of confusion. Of course, we compromise: by taking turns, and by putting up with the fact that one of us is, to some degree, dragging the other along for the ride. But we can also tell that we are compromising, and that makes each of us feel sad, and somewhat alone.

Finding a Partner is Difficult. 

I did not know how hard it would be to actually find someone to connect with until I started trying. I had always thought it would be simple. For a year, my response to the subject of love had always been, ‘I’m not ready’ because truly, I was not. I wanted to take a one-year break from any romantic commitment and that I did. However, I soon realized that the fact that someone is ready does not mean they would get what they want. Because when I eventually became ready, I was faced with the reality of love and how hard it is to find someone you love and connect with on a deeper level. 

It was during this period of realization when I had thought I had hit the jackpot, that I came across this essay. If you are in love, in a relationship, or married, this essay will raise questions and you will have to answer them. If what you have is not strong enough, this essay may shake it. It will probe and ask about what you call love, ‘Is this really the kind of love you want?’ If you’re not ready for this kind of confrontation, you should stop reading now. 

But if you are true to yourself and you are willing to have an honest review about your love life, then read this essay by Agnes Collard. Send it to your partner or loved ones. Discuss it with them. If there are fixes to be made, make them. If there are exits to be taken, take them. If there are commitments to be made, make them. But what you should not do is ignore the core message of this essay and pretend as if a problem that exists does not exist. 

A conclusion.

When it comes to love, if you’re looking for something short-term [a fling, a sexual arrangement, a something], you’ll most likely find it in no time. But if you’re looking for something long-term [for love, for a serious commitment, for a love-filled marriage], you will have to take the time to find your own person, someone you connect with so that when you read Agnes Collard’s essay titled The Problem of Marital Loneliness years from now, you won’t sit down in the kitchen and cry while the children, the products of a loveless and disconnected marriage, run around the house shouting ‘Mummy, mummy! Daddy, daddy!’. 

If you enjoyed reading this, please share it on Twitter so others can see it. To read the complete essay titled The Problem of Marital Loneliness by Agnes Collard, press here. If you have some thoughts to share or an essay you think we should read, you can write back to me by replying to this email or tweet about it using the hashtag #TheERClub so we can find it.

Happy holidays. 🇳🇬