Blog

💍“Marriage Is Not a Reward for Being a Good Woman”

The Truth We Don’t Say Out Loud

Can we just be real and say something uncomfortable?

As women back home, we were raised to believe that if you’re good enough, prayerful enough, successful enough or patient enough, marriage will come as a reward.

And this mindset has quietly eaten deep into many women and is breaking them. 

I’m here to set you free. 

See sis! Marriage is not a trophy for performance.

Let’s talk about the performance trap. How we were told to be submissive, accomplished, attractive but not intimidating, spiritual but not “too much’” and supportive but not demanding.

You see that spiritual one and the accomplished one, na im Dey vex me pass. 

What does it even mean to be accomplished but not intimidating or be spiritual but not too much. Azzin I should reduce my self because of I want to marry. 

Smh 

Let’s not even go there but we are there already.

So you heard all these and you optimized yourself. You got your degrees but hid some, grew in your career but your work outfit is more powerful that your home outfit. You attend church looking very humble and you force fitness routines on yourself, not because you want to be healthy but because you don’t want to be fat. Fat will scare the man away abi? 

Even your character is under constant microscopic scrutiny by none other than yourself. 

And yet you’re still single.

What next?

After a while, the next stage is activated. The silent shame. 

No one says it loudly oh but you feel it. 

You start having thoughts about what you might be doing that is wrong and you start over correcting. Your dress becomes even more humble, you tone down on your ambition, you hide your success and you just become smaller, not only to the world but to yourself. All because  somewhere inside you, you think marriage is earned.

My dear sister, It is not.

Marriage is actually about aligned values not merit. 

See I’ve observed this marriage thing long enough to know that two good people don’t automatically match, two “God-fearing” people don’t automatically connect and two successful people don’t automatically work.

Marriage is not a moral scorecard. 

It is compatibility + timing + emotional maturity + shared direction.

You can be your full self and the person available to you doesn’t fit. It doesn’t mean you’re a failure, it’s just what it is.

Now let’s bring it back to our abroad reality. 

If you’re dating in Europe, you’re navigating a smaller Nigerian community, cultural tension (traditional vs Western mindset), career -driven lifestyle, high independence levels and delayed timelines AKA biological clock ticking fast. 

It can be quite different from back home. 

So instead of trying to shrink yourself because you want to be hooked, how about you approach this differently, the way I did and got hooked by a solid man who adores me to the moon and back.

What if instead of asking yourself how you can become more marriageable, you ask yourself how you can become more emotionally available? You find out if you know what you actually want and you introspect to find out if you can recognise a man fit for you when you meet one. 

Because you don’t need to earn love, you just  need to discern wisely.

See sis, marriage is a partnership not a validation for your ‘good-girlness.’ 

By all means be a good girl. A great one at that but understand that marriage does not prove your worth, confirm your femininity or complete your identity

It is a partnership. 

If you enter marriage believing it validates you, you will carry pressure into it.

So take a different posture. Instead of waiting as a performance, build your life fully.

Heal fully.

Grow fully.

Become whole.

Then choose not out of fear, but from clarity.

Because marriage should be addition to you,

not proof of your worth. 

Selah!