When (re) taking the plunge makes you lose your footing (1/2) March 29, 2026
For many, remarriage is a risky bet. The fear of reliving failure and still open wounds can disrupt your entire life, making you fear the worst. While some remain deeply affected by this disillusionment, others decide to take the plunge with the hope of infinite happiness at the end of this tumultuous tunnel.
“They lived happily and had many children.” This ideal “happy ending”, read in stories and romantic novels, makes us dream after the marriage of the main characters. But in real life, the epilogue is not always the same. Certain disruptive elements can disrupt the peace of a home and disrupt the dream of a fulfilling family life.
This is the case of Matar Sy (assumed name). The carpenter was not lucky enough to experience marital happiness. For him, family is not just a concept. Like his parents, the 35-year-old young man has long cherished the dream of living a harmonious married life. For him, marriage was the only thing missing from his life, and looking elsewhere for a wife was out of the question. “I am someone very attached to family values. I firmly believe that these unions help to strengthen family ties,” maintains the ebony-skinned man, a bitter smile at the corner of his lips.
The slender man therefore decided to marry one of his cousins in 2019. “I lived five years with my first wife. But it was far from being a long, quiet river. My wife was very easily influenced and listened a lot to her older sister,” he admits. According to him, the latter was not for this union, because her work as a carpenter could not provide for her sister’s needs. “It really saddened me, because I did everything for the happiness of my wife,” he reveals, moved.
Read also: “The suffering endured represents an obstacle to any new attempt at remarriage”
The couple therefore continues arguments after arguments. One day, his wife told him of her wish to go visit her loved ones. This trip, which was supposed to last a week, is extended. “I went to pick her up from her parents. But she told me that she wanted me to release her for good,” he confides, disappointed.
Matar Sy understands that what was supposed to be a short trip was a plan hatched by his wife with the help of his sister-in-law. “But I didn’t let myself get discouraged. I did everything to bring her home. However, I realized that there was nothing left to save from this story,” he reveals with bitterness.
Mr. Sy discovers that his wife is having an extramarital affair. “It was at that moment that I realized that she had just come back to silence family pressure,” he confides, his voice hoarse with emotion. Taken by pride, the carpenter ends up putting an end to this union. “I was both sad and disgusted. I couldn’t imagine that she would betray me like that. When I discovered the messages, it was as if the sky was falling beneath my feet. I finally decided to release her in front of the whole family, without going into details,” he says, resigned.
But this heartache is far from demoralizing the man who describes himself as an eternal romantic. He married another cousin three months later.
Disenchantment
Rebelote! “I had no particular apprehensions when embarking on this adventure again, because I told myself that it was a question of destiny”, underlines our interlocutor with a frank look. But, according to him, it was far from an easy task. “I went into it with a lot of hope. But I quickly became disillusioned,” he confides.
Matar Sy admits to having dealt with a “belligerent and problematic woman”. According to him, his wife made no effort to make things work between them. “She didn’t take care of me. I took it upon myself because she was family,” he laments. “I really thought this time would be the one. However, the situation was getting worse day by day,” admits Matar, looking crestfallen.
The arrival of a pregnancy should help to unite the couple. But the thirty-year-old barely had time to savor the news. “As soon as the announcement was made, she did everything to terminate the pregnancy. I then took her to the hospital, but it was too late. She had taken a good dose of medication, enough to end the pregnancy. She cited her fear of dying in childbirth as the reason,” he explains with a disappointed look.
Finally, Matar Sy ends up freeing his cousin for, he justifies, her inner peace. Nevertheless, the sieur remains marked by his two experiences.
Lures
For him, getting remarried is not one of his priorities. “I’m afraid of remarrying for the third time. Because the wounds are still gaping,” admits the one who prefers to remain single.
Mamy Diokhané (not her real name) also had a lot of apprehension when it came time to remarry. Like Matar Sy, the 45-year-old woman was married for the first time to one of her cousins. “It was an arranged marriage. But I really had hope that it would work between us,” she recalls.
The housewife quickly becomes pregnant. “Despite my efforts, I was not in love with my husband. I did everything to be an impeccable wife, but my heart wasn’t in it,” she says, immersed in her memories. Still painful memories, according to Mamy.
The light-complexioned, callipyge-shaped woman also admits that her husband didn’t make much effort. “He didn’t take care of me or our son,” she confides. Exhausted, she ends up speaking to the parents to end this union.
During a trip where she goes alone to visit her relatives, Mamy exposes all the suffering experienced in her household and puts on the table her main motivation: she simply was not in love with her husband. Her parents support her and she ends up getting a divorce after a long standoff with her cousin. “He ended up freeing me. But he kept our son with him and, to make me suffer, he took him to a Koranic school, far from me.”
After this painful episode, Mamy Diokhané resigns herself to giving up on love. “I remained single for several years. I didn’t want anything to do with men anymore. This arranged marriage had disgusted me a little. I was more focused on my professional life,” reveals the cleaning lady.
Mamy Diokhané admits to having stayed for a long time before opening her heart to love. “After my divorce, I had four marriage proposals. But I always said niet. Introducing a man into my life again terrified me,” she confides bluntly.
But she ends up taking the plunge again, following a meeting with her future husband.
A light at the end of the tunnel
However, it was not without fears. She asked herself a lot of questions before telling her future husband about her son. “How was my son going to experience it? Would this man accept my status as a divorced woman and mother? How would his family react? These were the questions that tormented me every day,” she recalls.
Despite these worries, she ends up trusting the future and takes the plunge. “We got married in 2021. He accepted me as I was and made me discover love, true love,” she maintains, a beatific smile on the corner of her lips.
“I found love after a painful marriage. My husband showed me that it was indeed possible to be fulfilled again. You just had to be with the right person,” adds Awa Diatta (not her real name).
The fifty-year-old is in her second marriage. The entrepreneur is in a polygamous household. “My husband is based outside. But he often comes back to the country,” she confides. Today, Awa says she is fulfilled after the “dark years” she lived with her ex-husband.
At the time, Awa earned his living as a sales agent in a local company. Beautiful, bubbly and generous, she enjoyed life to the fullest and waltzed between professional life and family life. But this balance will be disturbed by the meeting of a man who will become her husband. “We had become friends and he quickly told me of his wish to marry me,” she says, immersed in her memories.
Reluctant at first, she eventually accepted, following family pressure. But Awa quickly realizes that this marriage was an “opening marriage”. “A marabout told him that I was the one he needed. After three months of marriage, he began to rise through the ranks. Her professional life was a real success,” she says.
But the entrepreneur confides that she was never able to fall in love with the man she always considered a “brother”. “Her life had changed and I was not included in that change. He barely spoke to me. I was visibly wasting away. I was in psychological pain. I finally spoke to my loved ones and he granted me a divorce after a long battle,” she shares.
Some time later, she comes across one of her childhood friends via the networks, and he introduces her to love. “He proved to me that nothing was over and that you could find happiness again after a first marriage. As a Wolof proverb says: Sëy nexul, seyaat mo nex (nothing is more beautiful than getting married for a second time),” she exclaims with a smile, revealing a magnificent diastema.
So nothing is ever lost!
By Arame NDIAYE
