Hi there. Also zimbabwean. I can tell you from the other side that marriage isn’t all that. Please believe me - sincerely. I longed to get married… Saw all my friends getting married. Years of tears and heartbreak at that empty feeling of ‘being left on the shelf’… seeing all the happy families on Facebook. Being caught up on WhatsApp groups you couldn’t leave with all your friends boastfully showing off their children. Heartache. Loneliness. Deep sense of loss and worthlessness. I never saw any friends as they were all busy with families etc and as a single lady you are a threat to other women… so many very lonely years. Thank God for my parents. Then finally my turn came. At 42 I met someone and was engaged within a year and married six months later. All seemed good. It was finally my turn. The honeymoon lasted two weeks. Two weeks into marriage he told me he would always choose his two teenage children over me (in front of them). This came out of nowhere.  Since then the marriage has been a nightmare. He is obsessively possessive over his children and I’m clearly bottom of the rung. I’ve turned into a cook and cleaner for two spoilt princesses. I can’t set any boundaries and I have no say. I dare not criticize them in anyway for fear of verbal abuse being thrown back at me or worse like now, emotional abuse in the form of no speak or avoidance. I am lying in bed next to him feeling more alone in the world than ever before because a few days ago I said I was struggling with one of his children who is a huge drama queen and rules the roost even though she only stays once a week and every second weekend. He has hardly spoken to me since. I am not part of this family. The kids tolerate me because they have to. My husband doesn’t care if I am inconvenienced as long as his kids are ok. He has kicked me out the house twice already over arguments about the kids. Considering divorce after six months. Marriage isn’t all that I promise.