Your Sister or Your Wife?

I hate to be the devils advocate, but I’ve been pushed to the wall and I see no other choice before me. I should give you some background first; I dated my husband for 2 years before we got married and I had minimal contact with his siblings as we lived in different states, when I finally met his family we seemed to get on quite well. His mom is a dream and his brothers are amazing, his sister is another story entirely. She seemed pleasant enough while I was still a ‘girlfriend’ but the moment hubby proposed she turned nasty. Throughout the wedding she was uncooperative and she even refused to attend the civil ceremony.

Imagine my discomfort when she decides to come spend Christmas holidays with us, I figured I could handle 2 weeks without getting into her hair. She never went back, she started her business and has been with us for 4 months and counting. She doesn’t chip in with house work, doesn’t buy any food, and she doesn’t respond when I say hello. My husband has noticed all of this and we’ve had a discussion where he begged me to keep being civil to her for his sake. This is all bearable, I can be a very patient person and I hate confrontations so I’d rather ignore a person than call them out.

Now our home is always full of strain, we act as if we’re walking on egg shells cos neither hubby nor I want to upset the delicate balance of peace we have. However the proverbial straw that broke the camels back came this morning. Hubby was down with the flu and I had been playing nursemaid all weekend, I got my cousin to come help me clean house and she shared the guest room with my Sil, who proceeded to tell her all my perceived faults. She has asked my Mil to come visit and see these faults firsthand. This I can’t deal with, it’s okay if you’re giving me attitude, but that she feels comfortable discussing my private issues with people. My Mil has been a little cold towards me, but I assumed she was just busy, now I feel like she’s already been turned against me. She talked about our spending habits, the way we eat and even our sex life! I don’t want that kind of scrutiny from someone who doesn’t have my best interest at heart. Our marriage isn’t perfect but we deserve the right to make our mistakes without anyone looking over our shoulder.

I’ve decided to give hubby an ultimatum, it’s his sister or me.

Great News!

So I got some fantastic news, from my last post I’m sure you could tell that I was battling depression and I had just about had it with all the reports of ‘doom’ from the doctors about us not being able to conceive.  I had a hysteroscopy done on the 6th of March and was asked to come in for a follow up on the 13th.  So I get to the hospital and my regular gynaecologist  had gone on leave so I saw  a different one.  She gave me an all clear, saying that the adhesions aware not as bad as they looked  in the HSG ! Bottom line is we can start trying right away

Now that we’ve been given the all clear I have decided not to think about TTC anymore, children will come when they will. We’ve done all we can to fix whatever was wrong so all we can do now is relax and let God be God.

 

I haven’t been able to read or write for a while, every time I try I break down in tears, this is new territory to me because I am usually very strong and I’d like to think of myself as a realist. So excuse any typos or mistakes as I’ve decided to write this and hit the post button without reading or allowing second thoughts.

I don’t want to try anymore, I’m tired of being  pricked by needles, prodded in private places by total strangers and getting looks of silent judgement from people who know nothing about mebento being able to tell anyone exactly how I feel about what’s going on with me. Sometimes I feel I brought this on myself so I need to suck it all up and just deal with it. Then I say God doesn’t inflict sufferring on his children as way of punishment. I’ve come to the conclusion that its just a case of action and reaction so I just have to deal.

I sexually abused as a child and no one ever explained to me what exactly had been done to me. All I know is tha ‘uncle’ was touching me and did bad things to me I the bathroom. guessed it was bad because he was always waiting for the house to be empty, no one thought that when he ago offered to baby sit he had an ulterior motive. Every time i tried to run a way from him or not talk to him was interpreted as rudeness and I was scolded for it. When I gathered the courage to tell  someone what had been going on, I was scolded for enticing men and locked I’m my room anytime uncle came around.

Getting into secondary school, and learning about sex I figured out what had happened, and thought to myself that I was no longer a virgin  so I decided to explore my sexuality  and was shocked to see blood on the sheets the first time I had sex. I found myself pregnant at 16, my mom threw a fit got me an abortion and sent me to live with am older aunt. There I was treated like the help and everyone knew of my shame. But I took as my punishment for being  bad, here another ‘uncle’ became my friend and was really nice to me and told me he loved me, so it was only natural I thought to sleep with him. Sometimes I tell myself I felt obligated to do it which is true, but to be honest I enjoyed it as well, it made me feel powerful that a man wanted me. In all of this I got pregnant about 7 times each time ‘uncle ‘ took me to get an abortion. Looking back now I wonder why I didnt know better.  Why I didn’t think to use  protection or anything. I still resent this man because he was 9years my senior, I shudder to think of what could have happened to me in that time, all the diseseas I could have caught all the damage  the quack doctors could have done to my insides. I want to blame this man, but I know that I should have been more responsible.  I should have taken better care of me.

I got into university, moved back to my mom’s away from ‘uncle’ and I found faith, I struggled with  low self esteem issues, and wondered if God could ever forgive me for all the bad I had done. I still looked for approval and a sense of self worth from the opposite sex. It felt good to enter a room and know that every guy wanted to sleep with me. I was extremely sexual and had a boyfriend break up with me because he said my libido was too high. Having sex was the only time I felt in control. Along the line  I also fell pregnant a couple of times  I forget the number, but all of them got taken out.  At this point like I said earlier I found faith, and I realised that true happiness wasn’t in the arms of a man. I tried my best to turn my life around and stayed celibate for about a year, fell off the proverbial wagon, but I never went back to what I was

Hubby just came in continue my story later

Times of Refreshing

Just finished my retreat for this year, took a couple of days off to just fast and pray and get direction for the year. I feel fantastic.

Last year ended on a low note kinda, with my Asherman’s diagnosis and Hubby’s low sperm count and then I was hit with the news that my sister in law planned to relocate and live with us.

I couldn’t bring myself to write and was very depressed. Felt like I couldn’t talk to hubby so I did the only thing I knew how, I prayed. Been praying and its been amazing right now I feel at peace. Things may not be exactly the way I want them to be but I know I’ll be fine. I found a strength that I had forgotten I owned. God is faithful.

I’m booked for my corrective surgery in a couple of days, and I start school for my graduate diploma next month. The sister in law is still in the honeymoon stage I’m hoping it stays this way.

Things are looking up
Would love to hear from you guys, how’s 2012 shaping up for you?

Happy New Year!

Hope you’ve all been great. Sorry I dropped of the face of the earth for a bit I’m back and better will give you all the gist soon.
What has everyone been up to and what are your plans for the new year?
I for one promise to update my blog at least twice a week no more long disappearances

New Word

Had a fantastic Eid celebration my first as a ‘wife’, hubby had loads of fun playing host and the house was filled with friends and family all day long. It was a little exhausting feeding all those people but at the end of the day it was so worth it.

Last weekend we had to learn a new word in our house, it has changed us and our relationship. New word: Oligospermia 
Low sperm count means that the fluid (semen) you ejaculate during an orgasm contains fewer sperm than normal. Low sperm count is also called oligospermia (ol-ih-go-SPUR-me-uh). We got hubby’s test results and we were bowled over by what we saw. We couldn’t talk bout it right away, I guess we both had to deal with the news separately, then we got talking apparently hubby had been waiting for me to raise the subject and vice versa. We first reassured each other that we were in this together and then we discussed our fears. Hubby feels like it’s better we didn’t know about it cause it changes things and I feel like now we know we can try to fix it. My results haven’t come through yet so we decided to hold out on making any decisions till we know all the facts and get a second opinion.

I’ve been surprisingly calm about accepting the news. I love my hubby to bits and my one fear is that this doesn’t erode his confidence. I cried a bit and haven’t been able to pray till this morning but besides that there’s a calm confidence that we’ll be fine and we will have kids. All the research I’ve done on the Internet says we have a slim chance I’m willing to bet on that. We see our doctor on Monday and I’m hoping for some encouraging news

The Grinch who stole Christmas

It all started with Sallah. This morning I asked hubby if he wanted me to do anything special for Sallah besides cooking the regular rice and fried meat, at first he was like nothing then he proceeded to add 4 extra dishes to the original menu I gave him. While we were talking I casually mentioned that I already had my Christmas lunch menu sorted and that’s how the topic changed.

Christmas is my favorite holiday and I’ve always dreamed of how my family would celebrate Christmas and how it would be fun creating my own family traditions. My earliest memories have been of my dad in his white shorts making ukodo (yam peppersoup) Christmas morning, then going to church in the new ‘Cinderella’dress and the shiny black patent leather shoes that was bought specially for christmas. As I grew older christmas became synonymous with work. Coming from a lagre family when everyone gets together you’re looking at cooking for about 50 people give or take. All the girls were recruited in the cooking force, so far you were old enough to be sent on an errand you were useful even if it’s only to pass maggi or salt. And we would make loads of food, like there was an unwritten rule that you must cook every kind of food, three different types of rice, stew, moi moi, plantain, coleslaw, salad, all kinds of meat and fish not forgetting the ‘christmas’ chicken. Generally the kind of feast that would put those medevial feasts to shame.all this merry making of course will be swiftly followed by a dish washing spree and if you were unlucky to be among the youngest (which I was) you were saddled with the responsibility. To this day I hate doing the dishes.

Anyways I digress. So I want a Christmas tree with presents underneath and hubby thinks it’s unrealistic, un Nigerian and based in pagan culture!  We went back and forth for a while but then I decided to let it go. I figured that in our marriage and with our different faiths a Christmas tree is a small thing to give up, because there will be other important issues that I’d want to score points. He wants the kids to be raised as Muslims so I’m guessing he doesn’t want us starting traditions that would confuse them. He said we can have a tree but no presents under the tree! I don’t understand it but I’ve accepted it. I knew when I agreed to marry him that I would have to make compromises but it feels like part of the charm of Christmas is gone for me.
I’m sure I’ll get my Christmas spirit back before December , but till then my hubby holds the title of the Grinch

Rant!

I’ve been too emotional to write anything thee past couple of days, so much has been going on and things came to a head this evening, hubby and I got into a huge fight and I just feel like I want to throw something and scream.

How much is too much as regards in laws cause I feel like our families are choking our marriage. We both have huge financial responsibilities towards our families and I’m beginning to feel like if we are not careful we won’t be able to save anything for ourselves of have proper plans for the future. I’ve been trying to think of a tactful way to talk about the issue but it all came out this evening. Hubby just kept saying I shouldn’t complain because God keeps blessing us as we give, I’m not complaining I just feel we should at least have savings for ourselves and once in a while be able to treat ourselves to something nice.

I’m not a selfish person neither am I unreasonable, but we can’t take care of our families and grow at the same time, we need to have money to invest and also save for the rainy days! I’ve explained to my folks that they should please give us some time to settle and I made it clear that I won’t be able to send as much money home as I used to for a while, is it too much to ask my hubby to tell his folks the same?

I’m sorry for the rant, I’m just really upset about the whole thing. Maybe I could have handled it better. What do you think? /p>

Back to regular programming

Sorry for the break in transmission, Hubby’s been very ill. So between taking care of him and running the house I’ve been uber busy. Also my Internet has been acting up I hope it behaves itself now.

I’ve missed blogging, so much has happened this past week, I hope I can get round to writing about everything. I promise a full post tomorrow, thanks for stopping by

What if?

Hubby asked me what I would do if the test results show that he can’t give me children. That stumped me, subconsciously I’ve always assumed that if for some reason we couldn’t conceive the problem would lie with me! I’ve spent the whole evening thinking about it, these are my thoughts.

I married him because of who he is and not for his ability to father children,that was supposed to be like icing on the cake. I have never had a problem with the idea of adoption so we can still get to raise a family together. I’m more concerned about what news like that would do to his confidence level than anything else. I know this is easier said than done, but the bottomline is I honestly do feel that children are children biological or not.

I know now that hubby is as anxious as I am about the results of our tests and I almost feel like I’m about to open Pandora’s box. Im so close to saying no more tests, we are better off not knowing and leaving room to point fingers, on the other hand what if we find something that can be fixed and we catch it in time? Right now I’m truly confused