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"Till
death do us part?" You be the judge
Saturday,
January 07, 2006
By Tewroh-Wehtoe Sungbeh
Agnes, (not
her real name) and her new husband, John (not his real
name, either) had just gotten married when they
decided to travel to the United States for their
honeymoon.
When it was time to return to Liberia, Agnes
decided against returning for reasons known only to
her. John had no choice but to return home alone,
because he didn’t want to live in the United States
anymore.
Zoe, (not her real name) and her husband,
Daniel traveled to the United States together to
continue their studies. When they completed their
studies, Zoe balked at the idea of returning home. Her
husband, Daniel returned to be with the children they
left behind.
Martha (not her real name) and her husband,
Solomon decided to visit the United States to spend
time with their two adult children whom they had not
seen in years.
When their visitor’s visas came close to
expiring, Martha, facing the possibility of returning
home tried hard to convince her husband against the
idea. When Solomon rejected her plea, Martha decided
to go it alone and remained in the United States.
The families in the story don’t know each
other. What they have in common is what another
frustrated husband who’s going through the same
crisis refers to as “abandonment.”
“A wife or a husband,” my anonymous friend
said, “who puts his or her selfish desire over a
marriage and a spouse just to live in another country
betrays the holy and matrimonial vows both of the
individuals made on the day they tied the knots before
God, friends and family.”
These women, mostly the wives of lower, middle
and high-level government cabinet ministers who have
power, and can travel anywhere in the world because of
their husband’s influence prefers living in the
United States rather than in Liberia, and will quickly
gave justification for their actions. Non-government
workers - ordinary Liberians are guilty of this
behavior also. Some of the
reasons cited are:
“The country’s not safe, and too much
violence. The country is underdeveloped.” Some of
the women want their kids “to live and grow up in a
good environment in America and attend good
schools.”
Some of them don’t want to live in Liberia
for their husbands to continue to “disrespect and
share them with those young girls; spousal abuse, zero
rights and the lack of opportunities for women in
Liberia,” are some of the reasons.
The husbands see it differently. Many of them
who once lived here for years, and perhaps are in the
twilight years of their lives claimed they want to go
home to contribute to the development of their country
in any way possible.
The men don’t want to live in the United
States anymore and survive on no respect, dead-end
jobs, or the so-called good-paying jobs that are all
taxes, heartaches and no meat after the mandatory
federal and healthcare deductions.
Living in one’s own country, to them is
respect and peace of mind. They would rather suffer,
died poor and be buried in Liberia than “live
good,” pay exorbitant and endless bills, be unhappy
and died broke in the United States.
Even though most people often blame the women
for the desertion, the men are equally to be blamed
because they would rather prefer their wives to live
in the United States away from them so that the
husbands will be able to conveniently work, some will
say, steal from government and sleep around with every
available female in the country, while the women, at
times will also engage in their own open or discreet
relationships abroad.
The price most couple pays for abandonment or
that voluntary separation is pain, emotional trauma,
out of wedlock children, the tawdry act of maintaining
and supporting two homes out of a meager monthly
salary of about $10.00 or $20.00 a month, corruption
and divorce.
That salary which hardly comes by at the end of
the month is insufficient to support two homes, a
wife, girlfriends, and children. As a result, and in
most cases, the husband ends up stealing from
government to support his lifestyle.
This is what marriage (I hate to say) resembles
in most Liberian relationships, when the possibility
of coming to America or living in America enters the
picture.
Let it be clear that not all of the couples who made
it to the United States or met here and got married
end up in divorce court. In fact, many of them are
happily married today.
However, a loving husband and a devoted wife who once
stood by each other for years, say, in the jungles of
Liberia, or the city can have a problem marriage once
they are in America.
The superstitious blames it on the water –
the water one drinks in this strange and complicated
land called the United States of America, they claimed
can cause a one-time solid relationship to falter.
Others blame it on stress, cultural shock –
that is the influence American culture and the
environment has on a marriage, and the effects it has
on emigrants’ relationships.
No matter what the problem is, a marriage
supposed to last forever, or until death.
A marriage that falls apart because of the
perceived taste of some drinking water in another
land, cultural shock, rain, sun or America is not a
solid marriage, and not love-based in the first place.
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