Who cares about Marriage?

Who cares about marriage?” Gregory said this to his wife Joy. He knew exactly how those words made her feel. Joy and Gregory had lived together for fifteen years and had two beautiful children; Joy fell pregnant while she dated Gregory and both decided to keep the baby; they had planned to get married after the birth of their son, but shortly after his birth Joy got pregnant again, they had their daughter and it was one excuse after the other from Gregory over the wedding.

Joy’s parents were not happy that their daughter lived with a man who she was not married to and they did all that they could do to make them do the right thing, they called both parties many times to speak to them on the importance of legalising their union before God and before man but all seemed to have fallen on deaf ears and especially, the deaf ears of Gregory for Joy wanted nothing more than to walk down the aisle with the man that she loved. Maybe Gregory was not bothered because both his parents were late and he had no one to oblige. (That would have been very selfish of him)

Joy’s father passed on in the tenth year of Joy and Gregory’s union, he died without walking his only daughter down to the altar; this affected Joy so badly that following proper diagnosis, she was placed on anti depressants. Joy is calm, quite unassuming but very strong willed, getting Gregory to wed her legally was one thing that her strong will failed to get for her; but when she takes a decision she hardly ever changes her mind. 

Some years later, Joy’s mother had a stroke, although she recovered fully, Joy feared that the stroke could hit her mother again, she also feared that her mother could also pass on without seeing her in a wedding gown. Joy also gave it a long thought and realised that it was dangerous to continue living in sin.  She gave Gregory a deadline to pick a date and to formally inform her family of their wedding date or consider the union over. Gregory did absolutely nothing about her threat and Joy gave him the surprise of his life.

She moved out of their home and went to live with her mother; she changed her phone number and Gregory could never speak to her on the phone. She wanted nothing to do with him ever again. He could only drive to her mother’s house if he wanted to speak to her, at first, he prevented her from seeing their children but when it became too much for him to handle, he had to relax on that issue, the children started to visit their mother and even spend some holidays with her. Gregory tried to win Joy back but her mind was made up and she wouldn’t even stay to listen to him. She asked her children to just consider that she had both of them out of wedlock. Her mind was made up and not even her mother or her two brothers could make her have a re-think. She dedicated more time to her interior décor business, attended courses and improved her skills.

To cut a long story short, Joy met Danny who recently relocated to the country; she was engaged by his sister who was a new friend of hers to furnish his home.( They had met in one of the seminars that she attended) Dan was a pastor; they became friends very quickly and enjoyed spending time with each other. Joy was speechless on the day that Danny proposed to her, they went to the stores on a weekend, she was helping him get some things for his home and when they passed a jewellery store, he stopped suddenly and asked that they looked at the rings.

While Joy was busy showing him lovely rings for men, he was looking at engagement rings, she had no idea what Danny was up to, he proposed to her right there in the jewellery store and asked her to pick her ring (OMG!); this was eight months after they met. At first she was speechless but when she got her voice back, she started crying, she cried all the way home, Danny knew everything about her and so he understood why she was so emotional. He was happy to have made her very happy. They got married six months after in a beautiful exclusive wedding ceremony with Joy’s children in attendance playing major roles, her mother and two brothers all walked her to the altar and it was a dream come true for her.

Gregory is still very much single, in case anyone has a mature single woman (MSW) who needs a man to co-habit with. Lol

This sounds like a fairy tale to me; I am super happy for Joy and wish her all the best!

(Please note that all the names used in this story and other stories on Lilea”s blog are fictional names for the sake of privacy and please send your interesting stories to amakanwosisi@yahoo.com I do stories well *wink)