Their husbands have refused to wed them, they keep postponing walking them down the aisle to say “I do”,

By TONY MALESI

KENYA: It’s an open secret that most men dislike weddings. To most men, a wedding is pretty much a woman’s affair in which they (men) are nagged to participate. Men’s lackadaisical attitude at weddings speaks it all.

Knowing what weddings mean to women, men, being sly and cunning as they are, engineered a scam that has (and still is) going on without women being any wiser. Men promise women weddings and to make the deal sweater, they engage them. Unfortunately, that is where it ends. They struggle to live happily ever after without necessarily going the whole hog to say ‘I do’.

Unknown to many women, perhaps, is the adage that a man who can’t lie, can’t marry!

December, a month in which many weddings take place, came and went. Many weddings took place but a couple were postponed not for the first, second or third time, but for the umpteenth time.

A friend to this writer shocked him with details of a frustrated woman, Nduta, who has been duped into an ‘engagement marathon’ for 23 solid years. However, when contacted for a phone interview, she never confirmed or denied the allegations. But implicitly gave credence to the allegation by her careful and well thought-out answers as she shyly turned down an interview request.

“Some things happen in life and there is nothing you can do about them. In fact, I had even forgotten that I’m still engaged, you have just reminded me. You can’t force a man to wed you. I’m afraid I will not reveal private things to a nosy journalist I have not even met,” she said.

 Cynthia has been engaged for close to 21 years. Apparently, 21 years ago, at a swanky hotel in Mombasa where they both lived then, her man went on his knee with a tiny box in his hand and proposed, complete with a speech. In his speech, Cynthia’s husband waxed lyrical about how much he loved her; how he wanted to wed and spend his entire life with her, make babies and whatnot.

Cynthia, smitten and excited, immediately got into a frenzy; informing her friends, showing off her engagement ring and planning for her wedding. In a strange turn of events, when the planned date approached, she was expectant. The wedding was called off, indefinitely.

Two years later, there was no wedding, and no date had been set yet. After a while, her husband bought a house and that spelt doom on her wedding plans. He had taken a mortgage loan, which meant she was to wait for approximately 12 years for him to finish repaying the loan before coming up with any wedding plans.

In the process, she got her second and third child. After he finished repaying the loan, her husband had conveniently lost interest in the wedding and kept on coming up with excuses not to jump the broom.

“Despite him being financially stable, he kept evading and coming up with lame excuses. Every time I brought up the topic, he showed no interest and when I insisted, he sulked and even refused to eat. For the sake of peace, I always kept quiet and stopped nagging him,” says Cynthia.

As time went by, Cynthia stopped talking about the wedding and this is her 21st year since she got engaged — with no wedding plans yet.

Cynthia, however, has a consolation; she is not alone in the engagement limbo!

Anita, a secretary in a publishing firm in Nairobi, too, has been in for the long haul. She reveals that she has been engaged for close to 16 years with no wedding forthcoming. Upon her engagement, her husband had promised to marry her in six months time, but that never came to pass. Her husband’s mother, after learning about the planned wedding, opposed it.

“Immediately my mother-in-law learnt about the wedding, she refused to sanction it claiming that her son was not ready, considering he had just finished college.

“Never mind he had been working while in college and he is from a well to do family thus, financial stability is not in doubt,” says Anita.  She has been waiting for long, and she is now increasingly getting impatient.

“I‘m tired of waiting for his mother...I mean, I’m I getting married to his mother? What if she refuses to sanction the wedding for ever? He claims I have to wait for his mother’s blessings. And I wonder, for how long I have to wait yet my biological clock is ticking away.

“I have given him the best years of my life and four children, but he has been dilly-dallying and I fail to understand what was the point of engaging me, in the first place?” she rhetorically poses. 

Jack, an army man and a self proclaimed rogue bachelor, chuckles and expresses his disdain for weddings claiming they are overrated and vows never to have one.

“Why do women insist on weddings? I thought marriage is all about family, babies and being happy?” he asks. He further claims, as much as weddings mean a lot to women, he feels they are unnecessary and sees no need to walk down the aisle and saying “I do” when you can still “do” without necessarily saying it publicly.

“So long as two adults come together and agree to bring up a family together, they must not parade themselves before others publicly proclaiming their love for each other. It’s much ado about nothing, if you ask me,” he says.

He says he has three children with two different women who live on their own, but provides them upkeep and pays school fees.

“I have two women. I don’t live with them, but I provide for the children and educate them. I visit them differently and live by myself at the barracks. I have engaged both of them, but the truth of the matter is, I might not wed any of them,” he reveals. 

“Once a woman gets you babies, provides regular sex, cooks and cleans, why should you wed her? I mean, you have no incentive to go that extra mile — to wed her!” he further claims, as he shrugs up his shoulder.

To women, getting engaged is known to be such a big deal. They flaunt the engagement ring to friends at work, at social gatherings such as parties and even on social media. They never let an opportunity to give blow-by-blow account of how the proposal and engagement happened.

A wedding is a milestone that boosts a woman’s social status. A standard engagement should last 12-16 months according to Catherine, a wedding guru and planner  at Samantha Bridal.

Three months

She says most engagements take long because of financial constraints but with money, the period can be as short as three months.

“Men are never ready for weddings. They have to be pushed but it has to be tactfully done. Those who keep postponing weddings are never ready psychologically. And some engage women as a ploy to keep them around,” she says.

Ideally, she adds, an engagement should not take too long. If the partners are young, say between 21-27 years old, their tastes and preferences are likely to change when they hit late 20s. To avoid the heartache, she advises women to agree on reasonable, but relatively short deadlines when the wedding has to take place.

“Women should ensure that planned weddings take place...weddings are sort of binding contracts that psychologically make men have a sense of commitment and responsibility. It also stops other women from coming in the picture,” she says.

She adds that despite the fact that engagements come with some fan and enjoyment, they have to be very short. Because once children, needs such as owning a house, establishing businesses and other activities that demand more money come at play, weddings are always relegated to the back burner. 

Susan got engaged seven years ago, and her wedding has been postponed thrice. Her boyfriend developed cold feet and called off the wedding citing financial constraints.

“I’m not sure why my boyfriend with whom we live together has postponed the wedding three times, but he always blames it on money. I’m now pregnant and I know with time, I’m afraid my ‘value’ will start depreciating.

“Our parents have been introduced to each other, and part of the dowry paid, but my man has refused to wed me.

“I haven’t demanded an expensive wedding per se, all I need is a simple wedding; to be walked down the aisle before friends and relatives, take photos in my wedding gown and make me feel special by being taken on honeymoon. To me, that will mean a lot,” she says.

Decidedly downbeat

Susan doesn’t understand why her husband-to-be is decidedly downbeat about walking down the aisle. She wonders whether he is taking advantage of the fact that they live together and a wedding will be a waste of money.

“I’m not sure whether he is behaving this way just because we live together and all seems OK. I am just confused. I’m now embarrassed about this long engagement.

“I even had to remove my engagement ring I had put on Facebook as my profile picture because my single friends have turned me into a laughing stock,” she sobs.

Jacinta is also caught up in this territory, she has been engaged for more than eleven years but, unfortunately, her man lost his job and that prompted the cancellation of her wedding. She confesses of having some money, which can fund a befitting wedding, but she just won’t let that happen.

“I was to wed long ago, but since my husband lost his job, and has been struggling with finances, the wedding was called off, and thus, I have remained engaged since then. I have some cash, but I feel funding a wedding is a man’s prerogative.

“Since he lost his plum job, he totally lost interest in the whole idea about wedding. We have a good family; two lovely kids and we are relatively comfortable. I have no option but to wait.

So if your wedding has been postponed for umpteenth time,   likely it has absolutely nothing to do with coincidence or lack of finances, your man hates weddings; he can’t do it and won’t do it.