“It’s like this is now a trend”.

The last two persons I told my divorce story said this immediately I told them I’m no longer married.

I don’t know about trends. However, I have noticed that many people my age are now leaving their marriages. Easily.

This is not an attempt to answer the question of why marriages are failing. This is me telling you what I experienced.

My marriage ended in its seventh year. Suddenly, I went from having many friends to one childhood friend. It turned out that all my supposed friends were borrowed from my husband. Naturally, when the marriage ended, they stood in solidarity with their friend.

Before marriage, I had friends. Not very many, but they were my ride or die. You should also know that they were also, mostly men. Which is not a good thing when you’re married (that’s how it felt at the time).

For everyone, my marriage ended suddenly. But for me, it ended right in the middle of its duration. The rest of the time was spent in hopeful anticipation that the glue that held things together will stay.

My male friendships had to go, for my marriage to thrive. I willingly sacrificed said friendships.

Now that I look back, he never asked it of me, unlike the other men who ask it of their wives in the stories I have heard. In my case, I gave it as a gift of loyalty to my husband. In return, he kept some of his female friends, as the man of the house. Little did I know that I entertained my husband’s mistresses on the dinner nights we would have with them to refresh our acquaintanceship.

You must think I’m silly. Why did I allow my husband to keep his female friends when I couldn’t keep my male friends? Actually, I never saw it like that. There was never a big picture moment when this disparity was clear to me, until things had already fallen apart.

He was very good at looking honest, my Dozie. He did all the right things, until he stopped. Maybe the façade proved too difficult to keep up. He could have actually fooled me for much longer than he did.

On one of our shouting matches, he told me he regretted telling me, the first time he cheated. Right now, I also wish he hadn’t. “His friends” would have still remained “our friends”.

They wasted no time in making it clear whose side they chose, even when I was the one who had been terribly wronged.

Fortunately for me, my personal friendships were built on solid foundation. All it took was a beckon from me, and we were right back where we stopped – as if almost a decade hadn’t passed. For this, I am grateful. I also acknowledge my luck in having friends that never abandoned me or let space and time come between us.

I wish I could say it’s because I am a good person. But no, there’s a little of that, but more of the love they have for me. Truly, love doesn’t hold grudges and covers a multitude of sins. I have seen love at play in different contexts, but this is by far the one that saved me.

On the night it became clear my marriage was over, I called one of my estranged male friends. Sorry, it wasn’t a female one. I am one of those women that female friends don’t get. I have stories for days on this. Some of it has already been shared on this blog.

My male friend was at work when I called but he made time that night to hear me, and every other night thereafter. As I write these words, I think that’s one of the biggest actions that saved me from self destructing. A lot of other people banded together to keep my mind sane, because Oh! Em! Gee!

For months, I teetered at the edge of sanity. My health suffered massively and somehow, even when it felt like “this is it, you’re going to drown”. I had someone whispering in my ears, virtually holding my hands and telling me to keep paddling. My head managed to stay above water.

Months later, when the turbulence had slowed, one of them would remind me of how important friendships are, even in marriage. Our partners are our partners. They can only do so much. We cannot give them the burden of fulfilling all our emotional needs when it is work that’s cut out for a community. Maybe that’s why there’s so much expectations in marriages. And maybe, this contributes to why marriages are failing.