Abantu ave bethanda ukukhuluma (people just love to talk) and they will never stop this I know. Since we have let people know that we had a private wedding, the reactions we have received have been interesting. Some people were genuinely happy for us, others felt left out, others like we owe them a wedding day (we are still having one), others send lovely messages of marriage being a gift and others started dishing out the marriage advice. I love the fact that my husband and I are doing this our way and at our pace. We decided to get married a year before lobola negotiations took place, spoke to parents about moving in together just after lobola 10 months before we did, had pre-marital counselling just after lobola, had two traditional events as required and then the private wedding. We havent done anything without discussing and thinking it through. We both come from homes with both parents still married and fully present in our lives so we both have a good understanding of what a blessing and how tough a marriage can be firsthand and based on our discussions, both our parents marriages were very different.

Now back to the advice givers, I don’t mind the normal, mainstream advice on how to handle mother-in-law, how the wife is always right and handling the pressure to have children (eg.  A friends of ours swears that dishwashers are the key to a happy marriage, it’s so funny!). I also welcome aha moments discovered in marriage and positive experiences that could help me see things from a different perspective. What I don’t like is being dictated to about what kind of wife I should be, how to run my home, how to talk to my husband, who pays for what, petty nuances by people who have been married for all of less than five years, girl please! Every marriage is different because people are different and we come from different backgrounds, what you may think is the gospel won’t necessarily work for someone else. In some cases this advice does more harm than good when people try to be something they’re not. Please can we just focus on our own marriages and relationships before we go preaching  to the world on what we think is right yet back home you and your significant other barely speak or look at each other!