I don’t care about your past

I don’t care about your past

Dear serwaa,

For the past week, I have been thinking about the question you asked when you got into your elements last weekend.

You got frustrated because I don’t understand you after all these years, and I made it clear to you that understanding you was not necessary. When my elder brother was getting married early this year, the Catholic Priest who officiated the ceremony ended his sermon with a remarkable admonishing that sent the congregation at the SS Peter and Paul Parish in Tamale shaking with laughter.

“Martha,” he called my brother’s wife, “if you want to have a happy marriage, try to understand Alex. Men want to be understood.” Then he turned to my brother.

“Alex, if you want to have a happy marriage, love Martha, but don’t try to understand her.” Well, I couldn’t hold back the laughter, but it was the greatest lesson I learnt during the ceremony and I have since stopped worrying about not understanding you.

So I find it normal if you complain I don’t understand you. There is a voluminous book being shared on Facebook with the title “Understanding Women.” You need to see the book in order to realise that it would be easier for me to swim across the Atlantic Ocean with a concrete block around my neck than to understand you.

But what hurt me was when you said I should have done enough investigations about you before proposing love to you. I don’t want to believe that you are implying I’m not dating the right person.

Serwaa, let me state that I didn’t conduct any investigations about you before approaching you. That sounds silly, doesn’t it? I don’t think so, and I will tell you why.

One reason I did not go about scouting information about you like a national security operative is that nobody knows as well as you know yourself. A good number of people out there may think you’re better or worse than you really are. And I may end up talking to some of them. It is human nature. We can’t control people’s perceptions about us. But we can decide, through our conduct, whether those perceptions are true or just misconceptions.

If I want to depend on information from others in order to make my decisions, some will whitewash you, while others will drag you in the mud. I care less about what others think or say about you. Apart from God, you know yourself better than anyone else does. That is why I confronted you.

Serwaa, the most important reason I did not bother to ask anybody about you, however, is the fact that I don’t care much about your past. We all have our pasts that hurt us to remember. And any person on the right course of life should have a present that is cleaner, more dignified and brighter that their past. It is who you are now, and not how you were in the past, that counts.

It is just like what the Bible says about people who accept Christ. The good book tells us that they are new. And you know humans change, don’t you?

Judas Iscariot had the rare opportunity to dine and wine with the Lord Jesus Christ himself. He was present when all the miracles were performed and he heard the Lord’s powerful messages with his pair of ears. He was one of the people whose feet the saviour of the world washed. But what later became of him?

Paul, on the other hand, was one person you and I would readily condemn to hell fire because of his murderous acts against the early Christians. But today, he is one of the most quoted individuals in the Bible. Today, Apostle Paul is a role model to billions of Christians around the world. How he became an ardent preacher of the gospel he condemned is well-documented, and I will not waste your time explaining the Damascus encounter.

Serwaa, the two men had different pasts and different future. It’s ironic, but that is the stark reality of life. And we are no exception. It will, therefore, not be a wise idea to duel on your past, even though in some situations, it determines their future. You may have slept with a hundred men before meeting me. But that does not mean that you’ll forever be the same.

And don’t be surprised to find people who marry virgins and such virgins eventually cheat on them. Human nature is unpredictable and I will not live in the past. What I care about is how you are today and how you’re trying to be better. That is what will inform our decision to tie the knot or not.

I did not want to enter into the relationship with a mind full of prejudice. But I think if you really love me, then you must discard all the “buts” of your life. They are inimical to your dignity and the health of our relationship. I don’t expect to change you completely on every aspect of your life. But I have told you that relationship, and for that matter marriage, is an eternal compromise, compromise in a positive direction.

I love you and I hope you get better, and not worse. It is on this hope that we shall build our marriage and the gates of divorce shall not prevail against it.

Your love,

Manasseh.