In a few days we make 10 years in marriage, its been a tremendous journey, and it seems like yesterday that it all started.As I reminisce about it and the things that happened towards that big day that still put a smile on my face

So I was 22( I know maybe too young but age is just a number not so) and had just finished campus, I was working in a call centre for Orange at that time. Actually I graduated in February and that’s when I got the proposal for marriage, I remember it was at a church retreat at the beach where he proposed, I first thought it was a joke but he was so serious and I got excited, but part of me was scared that I was too young to get married,( I had always imagined working for a while, getting my money before attempting this)I accepted of course but I knew I still had like a year to organise myself and get married.

My father was tough and I knew convincing him that I was ready was going to take time, especially since I was getting married outside my tribe oh that was an issue at that time,an issue I had never understood but anyway I decided I would tell him and whichever day or year he decided was what we would go with and we agreed about that but at the back of my mind I knew it would also help me prepare myself for the new season which I was excited about but dreaded at the same time because of the marriages I saw around me.

It took me a week to gather the courage and after pulling all the courage I had and even borrowing some from my ancestors since mine was not enough, I sat at the breakfast table waiting for my father to wake up and I tell him myself,I talked myself out of it like 10 times but I had to do it( traditionally this was done by a go between known as katerarume in my language) but being sure he was going to say wait i didn’t see why bother other people.

When I heard his bedroom door open I can swear my heart dropped to my stomach and I run outside ,I couldn’t do it, it was too hard. After 30 minutes I composed myself and came in and he was finishing his breakfast. I greeted him like 5 times as I gathered my courage and told him .”Daddy, I want to get married.” The silence that followed seemed like an eternity, if you were near me you could count my heart beat one at a time but eventually he asked me, do you love the man.I quickly said ofcourse I do and went on to tell him about my fiancé

The next words that came out of his mouth were the last I would expect, he said when do you want the wedding,remember this was something I hadn’t even thought about since it wasn’t a something I expected, I panicked and answered that August which was only 6 months away knowing he would say ofcourse no..but he went on to surprise me by saying its fine, if he makes you happy that’s good enough for me so August it is

I think I fainted briefly and once I was out of it I said thank you and literally run to my bedroom, I had to tell the man I had told most likely the wedding would be next year that he had 6 months to prepare a wedding…

Till tomorrow…

My friends had a birthday in the same month so we decided to make them a suprise party,we told the friends from kampala that they should come to mbarara for the birthday party. We formed a whatsapp group for proper planning and things were going well, eventually it was decided that these friends be told about the party so they can invite their other friends

The day eventually arrived and my mother was the one making the cakes, she gave them to me to take to the venue, I arrived carrying with me two heavy cakes and out of no where a dark guy comes up and offers to help me carry the cakes , ofcourse I allowed and we went in together and I was amazed by the courtesy

He introduces himself and I automatically recognised him as the person in the group called Herbert. That was 2014, ofcourse we talked alot at the party because he had been nice to me, the moment we left the party,he asked if we could keep chatting away from the birthday group and I allowed.we would chat for long hours and he would tell me everything about his day from what he ate to what he was doing the next day

Amazingly I was dating someone at that time, but I found myself taking up alot of my time, he was an interesting man and he really seemed to be interested in every word I spoke

Being in the same WhatsApp group for the birthday,he would inbox me about each comment anyone made on the group about me, we really talked too much and   grew to a point that he would call and play for me songs all night, he would call and play love songs and we would talk for 4 hours,  singing for me. He used to tell me he loves these songs but I think he was communicating something, I in turn told him I loved hip hop and he still kept playing the love songs anyway.

The man was so caring,  asking me about everything, giving me attention at every turn.
One day I came to kampala to shop and he insisted we meet and since I was enjoying his chats so I figured why not
He told me I looked more beautiful than the pictures I posted so I asked him what his deal was , he was too good to be true and he was too nice and that’s when he said the magic words, he asked me to date him. I didn’t even have to think about it , my heart was taken by him.

I considered how close we had become in a short time before dating and was excited about what the future held.
We talked alot and we still do 7 years later..the talking brought us so close that a  day without talking to him felt so strange.
2 years later we had our introduction, he is my friend and I tell him everything
We have had our struggles like any couple but our friendship has kept us together,  we talk about everything and are very intentional about keeping the flames burning.

We have movie night every night as a must,  it got harder when the babies came in the picture but we make sure we have our time alone if it means sleeping late we do so that we make time for our movie
It also eases the process of sorting issues when they come in because we have to choose a movie together ,put the children to bed and watch the movie so you have to forgive easily to make that happen.

Being married to him has been a great journey, and I know its going to only get better but I know the time we spent getting to know each other, bonding is why we are the way we are, he is my husband but above all he is my friend.

The question about being friends in marriage still lingers, do we have to be friends for a marriage to flourish? We meet another young couple today that has been married for coming to 5 years..Read on and enjoy their story

One Sunday afternoon at my aunt’s home, we prepared food for a couple of visitors she was expecting. After a long morning feeling exhausted and releaved that lunch was ready, seated in the backyard, a young, tall, handsome, happy and smart young man came down the steps from the kitchen door.

My heart melted, the feeling I had was new, exciting and some thing I had not felt before. I was in senior four vacation. He said “hello”, honestly I run short of words however I tried to compose myself in a bit and responded. We thereafter became good friends. Often in my advanced level we wrote basic letters checking on each other often. At University we attended the same campus and attended the same cell fellowship. To this point he kept the friendship very descent. I later happened to get into a “relationship” with a senior student at campus and therefore we lost touch.

I ended up being occupied by something that did not materialize ending on unclear terms. God did not forget me, James was still holding onto the friendship we shared. When we got in touch towards graduation it was as though we never lost touch for the past three years. He later on asked me to court a few months after graduation. Excited yet disappointed I asked him why now after all these years of friendship. His honest answer was my game changer “Patricia I did appreciate you then but my vision to where I was heading with you was quite vague. Right now my vision is clear and I believe it’s the right time for our friendship to advance.”

I had waited for those words to be spoken by him for 5 good years. In my heart I appreciated him therefore accepting his marriage proposal that followed. God did bless us with the gift of marriage four years ago. To sum up the journey sofar “beautiful and adventurous” are my words. I am humbled that the Lord blessed me with James. Todate we have been blessed with a baby boy and we are happy. The five years of friendship built us and we are able to go through many things together.

Thats them…what do you think?

So many people have said its all possible if you marry your friend. But here we meet another couple, hear her story and see

My name is Stella,I met my husband when i was in S.5, he was a teacher then at my school, he told a fellow teacher that he liked me and when that teacher told me i laughed because it was just unheard of.
He called me one day after class and told me he liked me but I wondered what was wrong with him, I had never ever thought of marrying a teacher, first of all I knew them to earn very little money yet my father always asked for so much money for dowry so no way would he afford it
Also he was so light and I never liked light men, to make matters worse I used to performer badly in his subject and I didn’t want him to remind me how I was not performing well yet I was very stubborn, so I refused. I left the school after my A level and that was it

3 years later, as I was going to church, my aunt tells me she knows a teacher who was looking for someone to date and on describing the man he was the one I knew. So she convinced me to call him, when she called him and he told her your daughter refused me and was too stubborn in school but anyway if she is interested let us meet. To make my aunt happy we decided to meet but I was still adamant.
He told me many girls had disappointed him and he wanted to know more about me, but deep down all i wanted was for him to be my friend, my reservations were still there and I also had a boy friend at that time so was just confused

He asked to meet my sisters and I let him but deep down I was not that into him and he noticed it but my sisters liked him so I decided to give him a chance, my mother liked him so much and told me to leave the current boyfriend i had, I just told God to let His will be done, He insisted on wanting to be my husband and everyone was on my neck, whoever would meet him would join the band wagon and tell me to marry this man. They insisted on how he seemed perfect and would make a good husband.

My biggest fear though was the fact that he was my teacher, wouldn’t he control me? Wouldn’t he constantly remind me that he was better than me ..how would we even share a bed? But he asked to meet my father and I realised that someone who could love me with all my errors, someone who knew how stubborn I could be but still wanted to marry me, I decided to allow him meet my father, and we got married. The first month was hard because I kept fearing him but he talked me through it, he was very patient with me and told me he was not my teacher but my husband, he held my hand and loved me unconditionally and I blossomed, we have been married 6 years now with 3 boys and we have learnt to be friends, we know how to make each other happy, you cannot believe that I once feared him, I befriended him and we tell each other everything now.

Wow..people really have amazing stories, If Stella could learn to let fear go and start a friendship..what is too hard…still your decision

Today we meet a young couple, through their story you get to know if friendship in marriage is helpful at all but as usual read and decide

Like a good Christian that she is she heard the call to teach children’s church and she took it up, she taught that Sunday and everything went on well, the next Sunday she meets another teacher that was absent on the day she started, she politely greets him and they go about their service, to her she didn’t give that encounter a second thought, but to him it left him with something to think about

He wondered how to get to her and finally looked her up from the church ministers whatsapp group and he reached out, they started to talk and a friendship blossomed. After much talking and interaction,the friendship grew and they were always together, getting to know what they liked and what they didn’t like.

One day as he was escorting her home he said that he liked her alot and would like to date her but only if she saw him as husband material, she quotes,”if you look at me and you don’t see a person who can be your husband, then we don’t bother dating but if you see that I can be a husband then we give it a try” She told herself she needed to think about it, it seemed too soon and she needed a couple of months to think about it and after thinking about it, she said yes to him

The first date they went for, there was an instant connection. They talked so much and the conversation was flowing all evening. She truly enjoyed his company realised she could see him as a husband and and they later on got married.

What amazed her was the way he was organised, he proposed in 2017 and he knew which day he wanted to do the visits to the parents,the day he would do traditional marriage and had even booked church already. Later she asked him what would have happened if she had said no, would he have canceled the specific dates he had booked for church, he said well, “everything works out according to God’s plans.”

“I got married to my friend 2 years down the road and still counting, we are free, and we can talk about anything. From what is foolish and what is wise, from what hurts me to what excites me, marriage has been an exciting journey because we are friends and its worth every minute.” She told me with a smile

Isnt it beautiful, its up to you to decide to be or not to be friends .

Today we meet another amazing couple, they tell us their story of how friendship has been part of their journey to where they are now

“My name is Grace, I met my husband through a friend, he had come to meet his friend who was then my friend, he says he liked me at first sight though me I didn’t notice him at all from there we used to spend so much time together and we became very tight.
Along the way he asked me to be his girlfriend and I said no because I knew him inside out,and i didn’t want to interfere with our friendship because we knew too much about each other and he didn’t object, he accepted my explanation and we remained friends.

But truth be told we were too close and inseparable, where he was I would,and everyone including his family knew that wherever I was so was he, Lo and behold we had an encounter and I got pregnant, he was excited about it, and wanted to make it official but i had my hesitations, yes we had a baby together but we were only friends. As I was trying to study the situation he got a job and we got separated abit, so the making things official was forgotten for a while but we stayed friends, we kept talking so much as usual and he would tell me everything from how his day was to how his colleagues were treating him at work but we never let the child become a reason to be tied down.

Since we were just friends we decided to try dating other people but we would end up coming back and still discuss the new people amongst ourselves, its then that we realised we were wasting time so came together, we couldn’t keep away from each other and wanted to be more than friends, we had  bonded so much that we could not see ourselves with any other person so after 8 years of friendship we decided to get married. We are now 5 years in marriage and still going strong, our marriage is fun because we know each other so well, i know when he is lying and he can also know when am not being true and this helps us keep strong

With 3 babies we still go out together and his friends sometimes complain since they never come with their wives but he always tells them am his friend before being the wife…”

Thats their story, amazing journey of friendship, but still its up to you to decide, is it worth it marrying your friend or it should be a no go area. See you tomorrow with another story

Should we be friends or not, here is another story of a couple that were great friends and got married right out of university

My name is Joan, I met John at campus, he was feared by many by the way he held himself , he was so handsome and all girls liked him but they feared to approach him and he spoke to no one, one day I went to him and said hullo and a friendship started there, we were friends all through campus until the last semester when he asked me to date him.

I first feared that it would mess up our friendship but with promises of treating me well i allowed, we dated for 2 years after campus and got married. We were a beautiful couple, so in love, inseparable, and even used to dress up in the same colour of clothes. It was like a dream or a fairy tale, we were a couple that left people wanting to leave their spouses because they felt unsatisfied with them. Because we were comfortable with each other the public display of affection was inevitable, our relationship seemed straight out of a movie possibly the Notebook and this scared me abit but I prayed for God to preserve us

Five years down the road after we had a lavish anniversary, and 2 amazing babies,I was shocked to hear that my husband was cheating, ofcourse i couldn’t believe it because we were inseparable, but to my dismay i confirmed it, he apologised but i refused to forgive him, i felt betrayed and couldn’t believe that my friend could do that to me.We tried to talk to our friends about it but all their pleas fell on deaf ears. It would have been easy to forgive if he was not my friend but he knew what it meant to me to keep faithful, why would he still go ahead and cheat on me?

A few months later, still inconsolable I asked for a divorce,my friends pleaded with me to go back to my husband but i wouldnt burge. They didn’t know why I was refusing but my problem was if my best friend could hurt me that way, why bother being with him, i knew men cheat but mine was not an ordinary man, he was my friend who always had my interests at heart, the person who knew and understood me, if he could do that then what was the whole point.

This is a person married to her friend but things didn’t work out, you are still the judge, To be or not to be friends in marriage, see you tomorrow for the next story

As we continue with our series, today we look at another story, this one is by a lady called Esther, remember you are the judge, does it help to be friends or not

Am mugabi Esther kisakye,a mother of three lovely boys and a loving,caring husband. My married life is quite funny, unbelievable name it.I met my husband at my brother’s place in my A-level,that was around 2007 but before becoming partners we were good freinds if I say good freinds I can term it as best of friends.I hardly noticed that he was into me but he was 😂😂.And I believe all the people who lived nearby knew it yet I didn’t know.We could chat and talk am a type of person who is so jolly and happy always,so when I had completed my senior six,things turned around😂😂

He’s one shy man so that day I can’t even ever forget it,one Sunday evening all the people left and to me it looked akward,i kept asking myself wat had happened 🤣,so he invited me in his apartment to play Scrabbles,🤣🤣 as we were playing he pooped the word,he wrote it down “I love you”I couldn’t believe it but he had said it😂😂 I. thought about it and I also loved him back because he was a good friend and he had all the qualities I wanted in a man. We moved on together but our friendship wasnt a smooth road to walk,like my parents and his hindered it because we came from different religious backgrounds and him being a footballer you couldn’t imagine him being a calm man he is.But as for us we knew what we wanted and we treasured out friendship alot.

I remember him telling me that Esther read hard and pass highly to prove all those that think am a bad influence to you wrong, luckily I passed highly my bachelor’s degree but still my parents were rigid,they never wanted me to be with him.

One day I came with a decision I knew pregnancy would only be the solution for me to make my parents allow us get married,it did happen and we introduced.still his parents had not given a blessing to us but as a woman of dertermination I never gave up.I remember on our introduction we all cried because it was like a miracle that had come true,I remembered all the hardships we passed through, both of us alike, insults I got when I became pregnant but I thank God because he had given me a freind my one and only husband who stood by me.Our first baby came,our gift from God,then a year later we had our wedding,by then my parents were so happy because they had finally realised that my husband was the best option for me😂.Our wedding was a struggle we were so young without any money but because we had faith it did happen.But again his parternal side didn’t show up,but we didnt mind after all we had had made the best decisions of our life.

Six years down the road and we’re still together and still pushing till death do us apart.I always advise people to marry their friends,marriage needs people who have a strong connection and freinsdhip because if you’re freinds you all know what to do to calm your partner if you have had a disagreement.I believe if we weren’t freinds we would give up because we passed through alot but finally our friendship calmed down the storm that surrounded us.

Finally we got a blessing from his dad,I remember him telling me that am a perfect daughter in-law he always wished for his son.
To all people preparing to get married freindship is the most important thing in all, because if you are freinds love is around and everything follows. I remember during the preparations of our wedding I worked tooth and nail for it to happen because all the bridal Entourage were so busy,and finally it did happen and everyone was so shocked because some people thought it wouldn’t happen.I won’t say marriage is something so easy to handle no,but if you have a freind besides you,with prayer and love you surpass all the disagreements and situations that come you way.If you have a freind as a partner your always happy and free to do whatever you do without you fearing that you’ll be judged.I always hear my freinds saying that when am speaking to him it’s like am talking tto my friend,and yes he’s my best friend. He believes in me and always pushes me to go on.

Well that’s Esther, how about you ,would you rather go through this with a friend at your side or just someone you are in love with. Catch me tomorrow for another story from another couple. Till then