My mom hated it even upon my 6 months of happiness
A True life story
For example, my dad doesn't talk to his in-laws, her parents or any of her family members and he sees nothing wrong with that. He also doesn't call me by my Yoruba name - he says its a 'bush' name, even though it's my second name and is on all my official documents. He even asked me to replace it with my ijaw name severally.
So, from as early as I can remember, my mum kept telling me that I should marry a Yoruba man, that he would treat me right.
However, I met this Delta guy from Asaba through a mutual friend. We started chatting regularly on Black Berry Messenger (BBM) and we became close. I was having relationship crisis at that time with one Yoruba boy (all this time, as per my mother's request, I was dating only Yoruba boys) and he was there for me. So when he asked me out sometime later, I thought, maybe this could work - and decided to give it a try.
We dated for about 6 months, but it was the best six months I have ever had with anyone. We were serious and good together. We worked! Sure we had issues normal for couples, but it got serious pretty fast, and we knew that it was very possible we ended up married.
When my mum found out, she threw a fit. She reported me to anyone who would care to listen - from her friends to my pastor - that I was going the wrong path. And they accordingly spoke to me, filling me up with stories of people they knew who had married men from South south and ended up regretting it. I started to get confused. Because truthfully, I had noticed some disparity in the way we approached issues based on the differences in our upbringing. But I thought everyone had those, I didn't think it was a function of tribe.
The pressure got really intense from my mum, and it didn't help that we started fighting over little things either. No surprises, I started thinking that maybe we should break up. But before I could, the unexpected happened.
I went to his place and found another girl there. I was shocked and it felt as though they were right to warn me, that it was true what they were saying. To make matters worse, he, instead of apologizing, made excuses and then broke up with me, saying that he didn't want to be in a relationship with me anymore.
Later though, he would come back to beg me and ask to be friends. He explain that he knew we were getting serious (we actually use to match our clothes many times!) and he wasn't sure he wanted to be married into my family.
So, from as early as I can remember, my mum kept telling me that I should marry a Yoruba man, that he would treat me right.
However, I met this Delta guy from Asaba through a mutual friend. We started chatting regularly on Black Berry Messenger (BBM) and we became close. I was having relationship crisis at that time with one Yoruba boy (all this time, as per my mother's request, I was dating only Yoruba boys) and he was there for me. So when he asked me out sometime later, I thought, maybe this could work - and decided to give it a try.
We dated for about 6 months, but it was the best six months I have ever had with anyone. We were serious and good together. We worked! Sure we had issues normal for couples, but it got serious pretty fast, and we knew that it was very possible we ended up married.
When my mum found out, she threw a fit. She reported me to anyone who would care to listen - from her friends to my pastor - that I was going the wrong path. And they accordingly spoke to me, filling me up with stories of people they knew who had married men from South south and ended up regretting it. I started to get confused. Because truthfully, I had noticed some disparity in the way we approached issues based on the differences in our upbringing. But I thought everyone had those, I didn't think it was a function of tribe.
The pressure got really intense from my mum, and it didn't help that we started fighting over little things either. No surprises, I started thinking that maybe we should break up. But before I could, the unexpected happened.
I went to his place and found another girl there. I was shocked and it felt as though they were right to warn me, that it was true what they were saying. To make matters worse, he, instead of apologizing, made excuses and then broke up with me, saying that he didn't want to be in a relationship with me anymore.
Later though, he would come back to beg me and ask to be friends. He explain that he knew we were getting serious (we actually use to match our clothes many times!) and he wasn't sure he wanted to be married into my family.
Apparently, he had concerns about the ethnic differences too and about my parents marriage. According to him, he didn't like how my parents were to each other and he felt like it was because of ethnicity. He thought it wouldn't work out between us because even though I'm mixed, I was raised Yoruba.
We are still good friends today because on the inside, all those ethnic labels aside, we actually like each other as people but we allowed other people's lives and opinions ruin that.
We are still good friends today because on the inside, all those ethnic labels aside, we actually like each other as people but we allowed other people's lives and opinions ruin that.
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