He Wants Marriage But I Don’t Want Anything Serious With Him Because I Don’t Love Him

It all started last December when I met Yaw and he proposed to me. The proposal didn’t come alone. It came with a lot of goodies; talk about money, gifts, groceries, constant support. As a fresh graduate still living with my mother, it was hard not to notice the security he represented. I didn’t feel anything for him—not love, not excitement, nothing close to desire. Still, I said yes to his proposal. I thought the relationship would be temporary. I was only going to chop his money and go.

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From the beginning, he made his intentions clear. He wanted marriage, not games. I was equally clear that I wasn’t looking for anything serious. He was worried, but it didn’t stop him from spending on me. He spent on me like a man determined to prove something. If you saw a grown man carrying groceries on his head through the neighborhood, just know it was coming to my house.

Two months into the relationship, I told him the truth. I told him plainly that I did not love him. “I’m trying everything possible to develop feelings for you, but the more I try, the more it feels impossible,” I said. He responded, “It’s not a woman’s place to love. Your role is to submit.”

But how do you submit to someone you don’t feel safe with emotionally? How do you submit when your spirit is rejecting the situation? When it comes to argument, he’s the woman in the relationship and I’m the man. You’ll see him all over the floor apologizing for what he hasn’t even done. Everything about me screams that I don’t love this man, yet he refuses to hear it.

What scares me most is this: I know men like him don’t come easily. A man who spends, who shows up, who is ready for marriage is not sold at the shop. In just six months, both families are already aware and are involved in our relationship. The last serious conversation we had, we were talking about the knocking rite. Marriage plans are forming around me, but my heart is far away. No one is willing to listen to my fears and understand me. My mother tells me to endure. She tells me, “As far as a man is ready to take care of you and call you his own, there’s nothing more to fear.”

I feel like I’m signing a death contract with a smile. When it comes to intimacy between us, I don’t want to go there. It feels like I’m doing it under captivity, something I endure instead of enjoy. I’m pretending everything is fine just so he won’t break, just so my family won’t accuse me of foolishness.

Is There A Man Out There Who Doesn’t Cheat?

So now, I’m asking with all honesty, is there hope that feelings can grow from nothing? That one day I will wake up to find myself in love with him? Or I’m only deceiving him and destroying myself in the process? Right now, I feel like the villain in everyone’s eyes, while slowly becoming the victim of my own silence.

—Bridget

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