Journey to Marriage 10 - Scaling the hurdles

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My status as a girlfriend was short lived. No we didn't break up or anything like that. Before we made it official, BH had started painting pictures of the future of us... Home, career, children, etc. He had referred to his dad as my future father in law, and dropped several innuendos here and there.

So I didn't have the luxury of being a girlfriend for long.

That week we made it official, he asked me a second time. "When do you want to get married?"

This time, I didn't lie. I said I wanted to get married towards the end of the year. I asked him when he wanted to get married.

He said "yesterday." I mean BH was high on euphoria, he couldn't even hide it anymore. He said he wished we could get married immediately but it won't be possible because of stakeholders.

Long and short, I was no more a girlfriend, I was now a fiancé. We knew people would think we were crazy cos we hadn't known each other for very long.

I told Berry about it, how her friend was in love with me, and how we were already talking about marriage. Of course, she was shocked.

She was even more shocked a week later when I told her we had decided to attend the next premarital counseling class in my church.

And that was when we knew we had a whole lot of hurdles to cross. Unlike BH, I don't roll on cliques. But his friends will wonder when he even started seeing a girl, talk less of marriage. His business partner would eventually ask him over and over again if he was sure of what he was doing and advise him to take it slow. It was just hard for everyone, including me to wrap one's head around what was going on.

We set a date to see my pastor, his pastor, travel to see his mum and then my mum was last on the list of stakeholders that must agree for the marriage to go on.

I prayed for God's will to be done. In my past, I was rejected by the family of my ex fiancé for whatever reason best known to them, and I couldn't afford to go through that experience again, neither would I want to be the reason why someone would have that experience. It's a terrible thing.

He told his mum about me, and how we were already planning to marry and all. From his account, his mum seemed pretty okay with it.

In my mind, these were the major hurdles

1. My pastor - wasn't really an issue cos they were with me on the journey right from the very day I was going to set my eyes on BH for the first time and through the emotional ups and downs. They knew every single detail and were in support

2. His pastor- who's also his elder friend. I had no idea who he was and I was uncomfortable being introduced to him to scrutinize me.

3. His mum - I wasn't looking forward to meeting her because of my past experience. Affliction shall not rise a second time.

4. My mum - the major principality. We had been warned not to bring a non Yoruba home, and I was about to spring up information that I want to MARRY someone she's never heard of, who is not Yoruba. And she never even knew I was seeing anyone. Major disaster!

5. Premarital counseling interview- I felt they would turn us back because it was a really short courtship. And they'll also require the written consent of the above 4, which we might or might not get. The good thing was that the interview was two months later, which would give us time to build on our courtship portfolio.

All in all, number 4 was the major one, and here's where God would prove Himself to be the author of my relationship with BH.

How did He do it? Well, next edition will tell.