Retired schoolteacher, Alhaji Musa, kept a habit that puzzled his neighbours. Every Friday after prayers, he bought two small bags of roasted groundnuts from the same roadside seller and carried them home to his wife, Hauwa, who would pretend to scold him for spending money. Neither of them ever called it romance.
But when Hauwa fell ill one rainy season, the groundnuts became the thing Musa could not stop talking about, because they were the thread his whole marriage had been sewn with.
Marriage is not a stage performance for onlookers, and it grows best when you stop watching other people’s chapters and start writing your own. It is about choosing, deliberately and kindly, what your love story will actually be made of.
14 Things Worth Knowing:
1. Understand that you are only seeing the highlights. What reaches your phone is a carefully chosen few seconds of someone’s life, edited, brightened, and set to music. You never see the quiet evenings, the unpaid bills, the tired silences, or the ordinary Tuesday afternoons that fill most of any marriage. When you measure your whole home against a stranger’s best minute, you are bound to feel short. Remind yourself regularly that every polished clip hides a long, unpolished week behind it.
2. Name what actually makes your wife feel loved. Many husbands guess, or copy what they have seen others do, and then wonder why the gesture falls flat. Ask her plainly and without pressure what moments make her feel cherished. For one woman it is a phone call at midday, for another it is a husband who quietly fills the water drum before she wakes. Her answer may surprise you with how small and affordable it is. Love becomes easier to give when you finally know the language she speaks.
3. Notice the story you are already living. Take a slow walk through your own years together and look for the small rituals that belong only to you, such as the argument about who snores, the shared joke nobody else understands, or the way she saves you the best piece of fish. Hamisi never counted his evening tea on the beach as romance until he saw it from outside. Your marriage may already be richer than you admit, and gratitude is simply the act of reading what is already written.
4. Be careful what you feed your mind. The more time you spend scrolling through other people’s displays of affection, the more your own home can begin to feel ordinary by comparison. This does not mean you must throw your phone into the river. It means noticing how you feel after you scroll, and choosing less of whatever leaves you restless or unsatisfied. Protect the quiet part of your mind where contentment grows, because a husband who feels poor in spirit rarely loves generously.
5. Let your wife be the author with you, not the audience. A love story written by one person becomes a performance, and the other becomes a spectator who claps politely. Invite her opinions on how you spend your weekends, celebrate your milestones, and even what traditions you want to keep. Ask her, “What would you like our life to feel like this year?” and then listen carefully. When both of you hold the pen, the story belongs to both of you, and neither feels watched.
6. Define success in your home before others define it for you. Every community carries unspoken ideas about what a successful marriage looks like, whether it is a certain house, a certain car, or a certain kind of celebration. If you never decide what matters to you, those ideas quietly decide for you. Sit with your wife and agree on a few things you both truly value, perhaps peace, health, school fees paid on time, and a laughter-filled table. Let those values become your measuring stick, and let borrowed ones fall away.
7. Celebrate small things without waiting for a big occasion. Jean-Paul eventually began marking tiny victories, such as a good harvest from Claudine’s tomato pots or the end of a hard work week, with a simple shared meal. Big events are rare, but small ones arrive every few days, and they are where affection actually grows. Buy her favourite fruit for no reason. Say “well done” when she handles something difficult. These ordinary celebrations stack like bricks, and over time they build a house that feels warm to live in.
8. Do not compete with someone else’s budget. Money is often where comparison hurts most, because it is so visible and so easy to count. Someone else’s lavish party may be funded by debt, by a sponsor, or by one single extravagant year. Spending beyond your means to feel equal will only add stress to the very home you are trying to enrich. Love that grows within honest limits feels lighter, and your wife would almost always prefer a calm husband over an impressive but anxious one.
9. Give attention, which is the one gift that never runs out. In many homes, the husband is physically present yet mentally elsewhere, answering messages, planning tomorrow, or half listening while the television runs. Attention is a quiet form of tenderness, and it costs nothing but the decision to turn toward her. Put the phone face down when she speaks. Look at her while she tells her story. Alhaji Musa’s groundnuts mattered because they said, week after week, “I was thinking of you.”
10. Protect your marriage from outside commentary. Everyone has opinions about how a husband should behave, from colleagues to neighbours to relatives, and some of those opinions arrive uninvited and loud. You do not have to obey them all, nor do you have to argue with them. Listen politely, take what is useful, and let the rest pass like harmless wind. The details of your home, your disagreements, and your private affection are not public property, and guarding them is a form of loyalty to your wife.
11. Learn to be content without becoming complacent. Contentment does not mean you stop growing, and growth does not mean you stay dissatisfied. You can appreciate what you have while still wishing to learn, improve, and plan. The healthy middle sounds like, “I am grateful for today, and I am curious about tomorrow.” Hamisi began saving gently for a better boat, but he never stopped drinking tea on the sand. Hope is wonderful when it walks beside gratitude, and exhausting when it runs ahead of it.
12. Handle your own disappointments honestly. Sometimes you will feel that your marriage lacks something, perhaps more laughter, more closeness, or more shared plans. That feeling is human, and it is not a betrayal. What matters is where you carry it. Speak about it gently with your wife instead of silently comparing her to a stranger’s highlight reel. Say, “I would love for us to do more together,” rather than hinting that something is wrong. Honest wishes can be met, while silent resentments only harden.
13. Make room for imperfection and humour. Your love story will include burnt rice, forgotten anniversaries, arguments about directions, and days when both of you are simply tired. These are not signs of failure; they are the texture of real life. Laugh at yourselves when you can. Claudine and Jean-Paul keep a small jar on their shelf, and whenever something goes comically wrong, they write it on a slip of paper and drop it in. Reading them years later, they find they have a very funny book.
14. Remember that the story is still being written. You do not need to have everything figured out by next month or next year. Each morning offers a fresh page, and each kind word, patient pause, or shared meal adds a line to it. If the past has been rough, begin where you stand and write forward without shame. Your wife is not asking for a flawless husband; she is hoping for a present, sincere, and growing one. That is a story worth finishing together.
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