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Title: When the Honeymoon Ends
Episode 4: “Between Us and the World”
Word Count: ~1,150 words
Amaka’s POV
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There’s a special kind of pressure that creeps into your marriage—not from within, but from outside. The world starts whispering in corners: comparing, suggesting, questioning. And if you’re not careful, those whispers become voices in your head.
It started on a Saturday afternoon. Chike and I had just finished washing clothes and were sitting outside with our bucket of soaked clothes drying under the reluctant Enugu sun. Then Sandra—my friend from university—pulled up in a Toyota Corolla with loud music and long lashes.
She stepped out like a Nollywood bride, her designer handbag swinging like a trophy.
“Amaka!” she squealed. “You live here?”
I forced a smile. “Yes o, welcome.”
Chike stood and greeted her politely, excused himself, and went back inside. I envied his escape.
Sandra glanced around, wrinkled her nose. “You and your husband don’t have generator? Or at least inverter? This heat is something else.”
I chuckled awkwardly. “We’re managing.”
Then she added, like it was a casual joke: “This marriage you entered sef, I hope it’s worth it. Because no offense, babe, you don soft before. Now e be like say you dey fade.”
That night, I cried in the bathroom.
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I didn’t tell Chike what Sandra said. I didn’t want him to feel inadequate. But the words stayed. They followed me to work, lingered in my thoughts when I opened our fridge and found it empty again, or when I counted coins for pepper and garri.
That week, my phone buzzed with Instagram stories of classmates celebrating anniversaries in Dubai, baby showers with professional photographers, husbands gifting iPhones and Prado jeeps.
And here I was—married, broke, and borrowing salt from the neighbour next door.
One night, while eating boiled yam and red oil, I asked Chike, “Do you ever feel like we’re not doing enough? Like everyone is far ahead and we’re stuck?”
He paused. “I used to. But now I just focus on us. Social media na lie most times.”
“But what if it’s not?” I pressed. “What if we’re actually failing?”
He looked at me. “Then we fail forward. Together.”
That answer should have comforted me. But the truth was, it didn’t. Not fully.
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The next blow came during a visit to my family home.
My mother had called, urging me to come for Sunday lunch. Chike had church activities, so I went alone. I hadn’t seen them in over a month.
Over the meal, my eldest sister Uju leaned in.
“Amaka, are you okay?”
“Yes, why?”
“You’ve lost weight. Your husband, he’s providing well, abi?”
I smiled tightly. “We’re fine.”
She exchanged a glance with my mother.
Mama sighed. “Marriage is not only about love. If your husband cannot take care of you, it’s not a sin to speak up.”
I kept quiet.
Then my younger brother, Nonso, who never minds his business, said, “If na me, I for never marry with that kind salary. Wetin una dey gain?”
My face burned. I felt like running away.
I left earlier than planned and cried the whole keke ride home.
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Chike noticed immediately.
“What happened?”
“Nothing.”
He didn’t believe me, but he didn’t push.
Later that night, I turned to him.
“Chike… are we doing okay?”
He looked surprised. “Why are you asking?”
“Because everyone around us seems to think we’re suffering. And maybe they’re right. Maybe we rushed into marriage.”
His face fell.
“Amaka, I may not have much, but I’ve never regretted marrying you. You’re the only thing I’m sure of in this chaos.”
Tears filled my eyes.
“I’m tired, Chike. Tired of pretending, of managing, of always being the strong one.”
He pulled me into his arms.
“Me too. But we’re building something, Amaka. It’s just taking time.”
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To distract myself, I threw myself into side gigs—writing, tutoring, and even baking small chin-chin packs I sold at school. It was exhausting, but it kept me sane.
Chike too worked harder, sometimes returning home with scraped knuckles from electrical work, but he never complained.
One evening, I got a call from a private school in Independence Layout. They wanted to pay me N15,000 weekly for writing weekly class assessments & Weekend lessons for three classes.
It was more than my monthly salary.
I said yes.
That week, Chike and I celebrated with a small plate of jollof and two chilled plastic bottles of Coke.
In that moment, I felt peace. Not because we had “arrived,” but because we had refused to break under the weight of other people’s expectations.
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One night, after rolling out a batch of chin-chin on the floor of our kitchen, I sat beside Chike on our bed.
“Can I tell you something?”
He smiled. “Always.”
“I think I’m learning to be proud of this phase.”
He raised a brow. “What changed?”
“I stopped listening to the world.”
He chuckled. “Took you long enough.”
We laughed.
Then he added, “Let’s promise each other something. No matter how hard it gets, we’ll fight the world together. But never each other.”
I nodded. “Deal.”
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Sometimes, the world doesn’t need to understand your journey.
It just needs to see your resilience.
And for the first time since our wedding, I no longer felt ashamed of our one-bedroom flat, our borrowed blender, or our secondhand fan.
I wore our struggle like a badge—because it was real. And it was ours.
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To be continued in Episode 5: “Love in the Middle of Lack”
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