The unforeseen joys of getting hitched

They say that every woman dreams of a husband who is romantic, sensitive to her feelings, a good listener and one that adores her. I need to pause here and allow the married girls a moment.

The last time we received the flowers, chocolates and handwritten love notes was before the kids joined nursery school. We know he is not listening more than half the time to our interesting story about our drama of a day in the office. We know that he will not take our advice about career, until months later when he adapts it and claims it was his aha moment of inspiration that birthed the idea.

There are, however, numerous hitherto unforeseen benefits of marriage, the immeasurable surprise, to borrow Philip Larkin’s phrase. So to the single girls out there, you might consider revising your marriage dream to some of these blissful realities.

The mechanic headache will be a thing of the past.

When I first took my new car for service, as a single girl, I came back hours later, only to find it dusty and neglected in some corner of the garage. Within minutes, the condescending mechanic had changed the oil, slapped a Sh15,000 bill on me and said, as he handed my shocked self the car keys: “Cars like these are better serviced at petrol stations.”

PLUMBER AND BANKER

It took years of headaches, with mechanics squeezing me dry in the name of fixing unpronounceable parts of my car before finally, after marriage, hubby took over the motor car issues. Deliberately and blissfully so, I forgot how to change a tyre, and most joyfully, have no inclination to ever visit a garage. If there ever was male chauvinism, it is in those garages.

Next in line after the mechanics are plumbers, electricians, carpenters and all those vocations largely populated by male practitioners. When hubby is not doubling as a plumber, he at least knows which hardware store stocks the type of cistern and has the sense to buy it before calling in the plumber. Before marriage, I expected the plumber to show up with his tools of trade and purchase the missing item. Trusting the price he gave me, I would pay for it, only to  learn later that he had more than doubled the cost of the item and exaggerated the labour cost.

You get more spare change in your wallet.

I did not complain when hubby decided that, as the man of the house, he would take head the bigger bills head-on. Now, that is when I like the African man part of him. Granted, when business is tough, we pool resources for the big bills like mortgage and school fees, but when business is particularly good, he is happy to ignore the fact that I, too, have an income.

And I have no inclination whatsoever to remind him of the fact. Which girl doesn’t like spare cash for that classy jewellery or expensive, hardcover biography? As a single girl, my already meagre earnings were stretched to the limit, paying grossly overpriced rent, transport and sparing money to help family.

You truly get to understand what biblical living in forbearance of one another’s faults means.

So you like personal space? Guess what, he will roll onto your side of the bed, or on you. He will use your towel and leave it all wet, because, as he says,  “I had soap in my eyes and thought it was mine.”

He will shave and leave those tiny hairs all over the sink, leave the toothpaste cap open, throw the dirty clothes, not in the laundry basket, but next to it. He will be surprised that your cycle does not keep you in the mood for sex the whole damn time! Yes, you will become an epitome of the fruit of the Holy Spirit.