In 2015, Loyiso and I tied the knot. He made me the happiest woman in the world that day. Though I was sad that Avela and Asive, the only best friends I ever had, couldn’t attend my wedding. After graduation we promised to keep in touch, but we had gone our separate ways and lost contact.

The faces I had last seen in high school attended my wedding. Some of the girls who used to ‘slay’ at high school and had looked down their noses at me were full of complements as they ate our wedding cake.

Sadly, the happiness in my marriage was short lived. The Loyiso I had fallen in love with, the nerdy sweet Loyiso, changed.  When I got my driver’s licence he never let me drive our car. He told me what to cook, what he liked me to wear, what music we should listen to. He found fault in every little thing I did. I was clearly not the girl he had once adored.

At first I thought it was what all newlyweds went through as they got used to living together. It was classic – fighting over the TV remote, over the dishes, over how each of us slept.

Then he started hanging out with friends after work, not coming straight home. He had never been a drinker but now he bought his new friends rounds of drinks and they all got drunk. It was as if he didn’t want to come home or spend time with me.

“Babe, I’m having drinks with my colleagues. I’ll be home late,” Loyiso called me one Friday evening. It was already late. His supper was cold. It sounded as if they had been drinking since they left work.

I put his food in the fridge and watched TV. I had fallen asleep on the couch by the time Loyiso opened the door around midnight. He threw himself on the couch, not caring that he squashed me. The smell of alcohol had replaced his usual cologne. He reeked.

“Where’s my food?” he demanded.

“It’s in the fridge,” I said. I pushed his leg off my lap and stood up. I didn’t want to talk to him in the state that he was in. He was so drunk his speech was slurred.

“Bring me food, Zizipho,” he shouted as I walked to our bedroom. He never used to order me around, I thought. What had happened to him? Was this how his new friends treated their girlfriends and wives. Did they brag about what their wives did for them and complain about what they didn’t do?

I heard his footsteps behind me. I thought he had come to sleep because he was too drunk to go to the kitchen to fetch his food. But he slapped me hard from behind and I fell on the bed.

“Yhuu! Wenzani Loyiso? Why are you beating me?” I screamed.

“Didn’t I tell you to bring me food?” he said. He threw a punch but I quickly rolled to the other side of the bed.

“Ok! Sorry. Sorry, Loyiso I will bring you your food. Please don’t beat me,” I pleaded. I ran to the kitchen to fetch him his food.

I had never seen such anger in his eyes. He had turned into a monster. Maybe if I  had just brought him his food the first time he asked none of this would have happened. My mother had told me to respect my husband at all times.

Loyiso was sitting on my side of the bed when I woke up the following morning. We both did not work Saturdays.

“Hey! Babe, I’m really sorry about yesterday. I don’t know what came over me,” he said. He looked at me with innocent and apologetic eyes. The monster that I saw yesterday was no longer there. There were glimpses of the old Loyiso.

“Just promise me you will never lay hands on me again, Loyiso,” I said.

“Come here.” He hugged me, “I promise you, my love. I will never hit you again.”

And just like that I forgave him without asking questions. He apologised and he said he was not going to beat me again. That’s all that mattered.

***

Tell us: Why do you think Zizipho looks for reasons to excuse Loyiso’s behaviour? Do you agree with her thinking?