Before I got married, I would ask my married friends, “Is it any different?!” Does marriage feel different from dating? Do the words “I do” hide fairy dust and melanin magic??! Or do things remain largely the same? #WhompWhomp.

In my experience, things change. I wonder if I would say the same thing if we lived together before we got married. With marriage, your lives are fused in a way that…let’s just say I can see how old couples die right after each other. Lol. I plan to talk about my experience in that regard in a separate blog post soon, so watch this space.

In the mean time, I found these really cute paintings that depict marital bliss. Or not. Lol. They’re done by this artist Yehuda Adi Devir, as part of the collection One of those Days, Collection 1. So funny, I showed Obi’m this one:

It’s of the lady eating directly out of the Nutella jar when she’s supposed to be working out? I showed him this about 4/5 months after giving birth to K, when I was always on about my weight and the need to excercise for weight loss. So, I saw the photo, started laughing and showed him and he asked in surprise, “Is it me and you?! How did you get them to draw the Nutella?!” Lol that’s how eerily close to depicting our lives this stuff is. Lol I am the Nutella fiend, I will lovingly cradle a jar in my handbag and battle Monday blues at work, one chocolatey scoop at a time! Ha! So, here are 20 photos that depict my version of married life, thanks to Yehuda! It’s so interesting to see how similar love is expressed across cultures and borders! You should definitely check the rest out here. If you’re dating/married/living together etc, which ones are you and your Significant Other/Love/Bae/Boo/Poison of Choice lol?

1.Passing out on the couch in the middle of This is Us…
Check.

2. Marriage is…the massaging of many an ego! LOL…and this honestly goes both ways, before aggressive feminists come for my fistula. I feel most of us enter marriage with so many insecurities and our spouses deal with the worst of us. So, I think it is vital to deal with each other gently: to help with our spouse’s insecurities, manage egos, assure away vulnerabilities with empathy and kindness. Healthy support and love can build or re-build self-esteem. I was looking back on our Whatsapp chats when we first started to become friendly and I found a message where my now husband called himself my “shrink…and cheerleader.” And I think that perfectly sums up what we ought to be to our spouses. A shrink to search and analyse, unpack and de-clutter, release and relieve deep emotional baggage. And cheerleader to root for, support, encourage, build up, catch one another.
   Our home is our safe space. The world is already so brutal, judgmental and unkind. I think my spouse should want to return home because it is his place of safety, the way it is for me…and it’s both our responsibility to create that sanctuary for each other by any means necessary. Including, praise for the effort even when the result is wonky. Like in the photo. Lol.

3. Self-explanatory. Hormones, maybe?

4. This is us…on our way clubbing particularly, singing merrily off key and missing lyrics

“He gives His beloved sleep”
-Psalm 172:2
5. Let’s just say He loves me. Lol. I should be submitted for research by sleep experts.
My husband on the other hand performs optimally with 4 hours of sleep or less so he’s the one with the finger in my ear muttering, “Wake up”. Then, “Oh, good you’re  still awake!”
Negro. You. Woke. Me.

6. Wendelyn. Every time we travel more than ten minutes. #Ugh

7. *SCREAMS* Loooool this is Obi’m & I…and my many, many, oh so many questionable experiments in the kitchen.

8. He’s taken to just not starting to dress-up until I’m at the make-up completed stage…yet somehow, I still end up making us late!! Lol, my husband says I, “…have no sense of urgency.”
This might be true. I wake up at 4am to get us (baby & momma) ready for creche & work at 7am. Three hours and I still go late.

9. My body has changed, to me substantially, after child birth. This is very unsettling for me because I have been pretty much the same size and weight since I was 16. My style identity is built around that size. If I am honest, some of my identity has always been built around my body, my size. All of a sudden, I find myself bigger and legit thrown for a style identity. I found myself not wanting to go out the other day because even though my closet looks full, the number of things I feel I can comfortably and beautifully wear just seem minute! So, I brought out everything in my closet over the Muslim holiday and just did- by my foiiiine self- a full fashion parade, mixed and matched clothes and gave myself assurance that, I STILL GOT IT, BOO!

10. LMAO! This morning, in the midst of getting ready for work, my weave was skewed, holding on for dear life and hanging off the back of my skull by tenuous threads. My husband looked at me with genuine confusion and said, “Did you do a pony tail at night?” LMAO. I don’t even know if it’s something that only black people get (because we love our fake hair, mm’kay?!) but I swear it was hilarious. He just couldn’t understand how I went to bed with a whole head of flowing locks and woke up with half of my corn rows visible under the weave.

11. Hi, my name is Inconsistent. And you are?
Lol I have these brain waves and suddenly insist on a health food binge for us. A compulsory diet. Lucky for him, they never last long…because the way my laziness is set up…

12. Unfortunately, this is just me not Obi’m. It’s crazy how critical of our bodies we can be when this is the machine that never sleeps and is always doing it’s best to keep you up and running! I tell myself all the time to be kinder to my body but we have a love/hate relationship usually. I wish I had my husband’s body confidence. Hell, his general confidence. Trying to sap some of it by osmosis and praying our kids get it from his gene pool or something.
    It is powerful. And magical.

13. People  yet to marry, listen, marry someone whose main focus in your marriage is to make your life easier. Your spouse should desire to make your days better, your worries lighter and your soul happier. Truly. And more importantly, you should have that same desire for the other person. I can’t carry heavy groceries for Obi’m but every single day my desire is to make his life easier and so I do anything I know will make him happy. He carries my burdens, physically and emotionally. He said to me on Sunday, “I just want you to surpass every dream you’ve ever had for yourself.”
    A what?
    A man.

14. BETRAYAL! Nothing more heart-breaking or guilt inducing (if you’re on the other side), than seeing that little tick indicating an episode has been watched already.
    Are you a “How could you?!” or “How could I?” in your relationship?! Loool

15. Me. Every other night. I’ve told you before.

16. “A friend loves at all time. But a brother, a brother is born for adversity.”
-Proverbs 17:17

17. It has a name. It is called, SUNDAY.

19. I am old. Leave me alone.
I think men and women have a totally different reaction to aging. For men it’s more responsibility and the opportunity for increased respect, especially in Nigeria.
For women, it’s…I don’t know, I am old. Leave me alone. Lol.

20. I am a lightweight. A little Campari in my Chapman and the world is spinning. I think it’s because I only recently started drinking and even then, barely and rarely. I just don’t like the taste of alcohol, it’s so harsh and gives me a headache almost immediately. So imagine my drinking attempts on our honeymoon in a bid to test uncharted waters. LOOOOOLLLL Obi’m forever having to carry or steady me lest I quietly lay down in foetal position and fall asleep…on the road.