Don’t regret the choice you made

Cartoon by Atukwasize Chris Ogon

I stared as she massaged the ring on the fourth finger of her left hand. Emmanuella was lost in thought.

She kept ordering for more drinks. I walked to her table, and as I waited for my milkshake, I tried to speak to her.
“Hey, is anyone picking you today or will you drive yourself?” She gave me this piercing look that reminded me to mind my business.

I kept trying until she got tired of the mute mode. Before the night ended, we were the best of friends. Emmanuella was pondering whether to elope or call a lawyer to officially end her marriage.

She whined about her sister who hadn’t supported her marriage to David, a few of her other uncles also thought she would have chosen a tribemate. But she loved David (then) and the tribe wasn’t a thing to stand in her way.

After two years, Emmanuella got into a serious fight with David that she wanted to close that chapter. She always knew the guy wasn’t perfect but then, she never expected it to get to this point. “I wish I had married Moses” she abstractedly murmured.

“Who is Moses?” I asked. She smiled, “Moses was one of my friends. He loved me but David and I have been there for each other, we are each other’s shoulder…” her voice dropped and sadness filled her eyes. She sipped her drink as she tried to hold back the tears.

I did not know what to do, I am not a counsellor and I don’t know David but somehow I wanted to help. Luckily, the beer got to her stomach and she rushed to the bathroom. I picked up our purses and followed her.

I locked the door behind us and asked her to go ahead and cry. Believe me, I regretted this advice. She cried like a baby and I could feel her pain. However, I didn’t know what to say afterwards.

We kept quiet and I was stuck with her for the night, I couldn’t let her drive in this condition so I offered to drive her home. As we sat in the car, I remembered what our high school senior woman told us. We are all victims of our own decisions. Our decisions will either pave way for our success or they will torment us for life.

Much as you don’t need a week to think about the kind of food you want to eat, you might need more time to think about marriage, the number of children, career and business among others. All these are not emotional decisions. You are required to be sober while making them but that doesn’t necessarily mean they are the best choices.

“Happiness is a choice. You can choose to be happy. There’s going to be stress in life, but it’s your choice whether you let it affect you or not.” Valerie Bertinelli said. Some choices we make in an effort to correct our wrong decisions might be more harmful.”

What Emmanuella needed wasn’t to end the marriage but time to rethink whether David is worth to be thrown out of her life. When we arrived at the gate, the security guard opened the gate and a man rushed out of the house…”Oh, my God, where have you been?” His concern proved to me why she had called him her shoulder. I whispered as she gave me that drunk childish goodbye hug… “Everyone needs a shoulder to lean on, don’t ever let yours go.”
Christine Nakalungi

Twitter: @kalungixtyn

If he cheats with you, he will cheat on you

Cheating is not a mistake, it is a choice and a game that an individual willingly subscribes to. No one is born a cheater but it’s a habit that keeps growing.

Most times a person will cheat not because he is tired of his wife but just for the sake of ‘exploring’. Someone will give you a million reasons to justify his/her actions but in the end it comes back to greed.

A cheater is someone who is unable to appreciate what he/she has and allows the desire to have more becomes a motive to ride on.

He is so consumed by the act that he doesn’t have time to appreciate true feelings. He has mastered the heart of a woman, knows what to do and say.
He accepts to set aside his ego just to get what he wants. He can spend all the money just to catch the prey.

His ‘I am not happy with my marriage’ speech is so touching that you are tempted to believe him when he says; I will leave my wife and marry you.
Most men claim that sex outside marriage isn’t cheating. As long as he still comes back to his wife and children. Well, that’s not how a woman will define cheating.

Cynthia switched off her phone for more than a month and we were tempted to pay her a surprise visit just to make sure she hadn’t locked herself in the house and drank poison.

When we knocked at her door, she peeped through the curtain but refused to open. “Go away…” she shouted. We threatened to sit at her balcony and eat the pizza we had brought for her. She likes pizza so she gave in to the blackmail.

She had lost a few pounds and her hair was in the wind, her eyes were swollen and she looked dehydrated.

Her house was a mess; popcorn allover and her fridge was running out of groceries. She had put a few photos of her and Stephen in the kitchen but she had cut out his eyes.

How do you deal with such a mess? Stephen had promised to marry her, she hadn’t known he was married. After she broke the news that she was pregnant. Stephen also broke the “I am married’ news.

It was too late for her to walk away; she was already carrying his baby. For the first three months, Stephen behaved well but afterwards, he cut off communication and sent his sisters to break up with her on his behalf.

With all the stress, Cynthia got a miscarriage. She felt the disappointment and had no idea where to run to. She loved Stephen and wished she could get him back.

A man who is capable of cheating on his wife will not think twice leaving you bruised. I mean, if his conscience didn’t stop him from defying the ‘for better for worse’ vows…nothing can.

Careful when you fall for a cheater, to him you are just a stop over and not the final destiny. He will jump on the next hot girl on board and leave you with a bleeding heart.

Christine Nakalungi