BY TOBI YUSUF
Akeem met Juanita on the streets of New York and fell head over heels in love with her. After a couple of drinks and dates, he verified that she was the one, and their love was the most romantic one ever. Until…
“I promised to love you forever, and I will keep my word to the very end. Just come home and stop breaking my heart, please,” Akeem pleaded over the phone.
It had been three months and three days, and it seemed like the separation this time was going to be final. Akeem and Juanita had never been apart for that long in their two-year marriage and the distance was breaking both their hearts badly. Yet, the ghost from the past few months kept them apart. The gory news of the few months that just flew past which went from, “I’m sorry Mrs. Ashish, but it’s safer to treat this before you try to conceive again; the risk is too high,” to “Now that you’re living positively…,” was, and is still too much to deal with.
The news rocked Juanita’s world so badly that she was hospitalized for about a week afterwards. How can someone who had promised to love you till your dying day be so callous as to put you in such a precarious position?
“All I have done since the day we met was love you, Akeem. What did I do, and how did I deserve to be put in this situation? Why did you do this to me?” Juanita heard herself saying over the phone for the umpteenth time since she discovered she was HIV positive, after testing positive to several other STIs almost weekly in her two-year marriage. How do you expect me to carry on…?”
“That is why I want you to come home so that we can brave this together hun,” Akeem cuts in before Juanita could finish her statement. She sensed manipulation but was too weak to fight today. All she wanted was a home – her man, her, and her children. What she got instead was a cheating, disease-parading man. Her dilemma is in those sacred but now abused words –“Till death do us part!”
“Really? Do I continue to stay?” she asks herself, her eyes red from crying uncontrollably.
Rather than being an exception, Juanita and Akeem’s story is gradually becoming the norm. You find married couples remaining obstinately in life-threatening situations because the perpetrator is the one they have committed to be together with ‘till death do them part’. In some cases, the suffering partner eventually dies.
Should this be so? Should promising to stay on with your spouse no matter what comes be a death sentence or an invitation to be treated obnoxiously? I disagree. While I am not a divorce proponent, I also do not encourage any man or woman to remain with a partner who is inflicting physical, mental, emotional or any other violence or evil on them. By all means, seek spiritual and human intervention for your misbehaving partner, but do not remain in a harmful relationship till untimely death or irreversible injury do you part.
We must remember the wisdom of Scripture:
“Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.” — Proverbs 4:23 (NIV)
Juanita’s story is a painful reminder that love must never come at the expense of your life, health, or sanity. Guarding your heart is not betrayal—it is biblical wisdom.
“There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens… a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing.” — Ecclesiastes 3:1, 5b (NIV)
Sometimes, love means stepping back to live. As the saying goes, he who fights and runs away lives to fight another day. Love should never be the reason one dies a preventable death.
Tobi Yusuf, founder of RIAH Events & Weddings, Relationship Mentor, convener of Love Connect – a community empowering couples and singles to build meaningful connections.
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