Monogamy

Chapter 2

Dr. Zhane sips her drink and then turns her focus and attention towards Ivory. Dr. Zhane says to her "Ivory? Take me back to the reason you agreed to be his fiancé and then his wife." Ivory looks at her ring  and rubs it before answering; she then responds saying "well I agreed to marry him because I really loved him. We had a child already on the way, he promised that he'll take care of us; us meaning me, him and our first born. No man proposed to me before because they weren't ready for marriage. I would tell them that I want to get married, but they took it as I'm trying to get married right away. I never said when I wanted to, I just said what I want. When I met Melo, he had that charm about him, he had things going for himself and he didn't rush anything, he didn't force anything to happen, it was just natural with him. We were in a relationship for a year before moving in together." Dr. Zhane then cuts her off to ask "who asked who first about moving in together?" Ivory responded saying "it was me who asked him first." "What was the response you were given at the time?" "He was down for it." "Did you find it odd that you had to ask first versus the man asking first?" "No I didn't find it odd but I was curious to see what his response was." "Why the curiosity?" "I thought 'what if he doesn't want to move in right now? What if he's dealing with somebody else and I don't know about it. I had my concerns about it. However, he caught me off guard with the response and once we made the move, that's when things happened fast." Melo started to smirk because he knows what she's going to say next. Dr. Zhane asked Melo "what's with the smirk?" Melo sips his drink and says "I'm smirking because after we got settled in our new place, we had sex and next thing she pops up pregnant." "How did it make you feel to know she was pregnant?" "I was happy to hear the news but then reality set in like 'you're going to be a father; time to hustle harder.' I ended up proposing months down the line because I couldn't bring her to my parents pregnant without the ring." Dr. Zhane was interested into knowing more to that statement; she ask Melo "why couldn't you?" Melo tries to get comfortable in the chair and then says "because they don't believe in getting pregnant out of wedlock so I knew I couldn't bring up the news of her being pregnant so like the engagement and wedding was very fast. My parents had their doubts but it was what it was." Dr. Zhane then looks at Ivory and says "did you know that?" "No. This is just coming to my knowledge." Ivory looks at Melo with a surprised look and asked him "so is that the real reason you married me?" Melo gets up from his seat and walked towards the window, with his back towards both Ivory and Dr. Zhane, he then turns around and says "don't get me wrong, I loved you and really did, I wanted you, if I could've married you when I was ready, I would have but I had to marry you so I wouldn't have to face judgement. I did lie about the quickness of getting to the wedding fast but some shit I couldn't tell you because I don't think you would understand." Ivory with hurt and pain in her voice says "so you didn't give me the chance to think about any of that? I would've wanted the opportunity to think about if I was ready at that moment or not but you took that part away from me. Fuck it now, it's already done."
       Dr. Zhane changes the topic, she asked Ivory a question to have her reveal some things about herself; she ask "Ivory? When growing up, did you encounter any healthy relationships that could've influenced your feelings about marriage or relationships?" "Well when I was in my teens, I lived with my father. I would be with my mother for summer breaks and winter break but while living with my father, I seen my father with different women. I wondered why he don't get married to any of them and his response was 'I don't like to be with just 1 woman. I understand that you probably don't like what you see but my best advice to you is whatever you see that I'm doing and you don't like it; do the opposite of it. I can't teach you how a man is supposed to be towards a woman because I'll be contradicting myself, I never had anybody show me how to be a man when it comes to women, plus the thought of just putting all my eggs into one woman just don't sit right with me. When one woman can't be there for me, I got another one who can when I need them to be.' So after he said that, I knew what I wanted and that was the opposite of what he had to give to women. I made sure I didn't end up with any man like him." "So what about your mom?" "My mom was all about being independent and wanting more for myself. She wanted me to make sure I put myself first and don't sabotage who I am as a person to make another person happy because I might lose sight of who I am as a person." "Did you take both of their advice to form who you are today?" "Somewhat I did. I just had to figure it out on my own because I had no other choice." Dr. Zhane got up from her chair to go and get herself some candy to eat while still talking to Ivory and Melo. Dr. Zhane then asked Ivory "do you feel like your children will follow in your footsteps or his?" Ivory confused on the question, she says "what do you mean?" "I mean with the arguing and the behavior y'all display within the household, do you think the children will eventually become a splitting image of both of y'all or one of y'all?" Both Melo and Ivory looked at each other while trying to process their thoughts and reflect back on their behaviors that they've shown towards the kids directly and indirectly. Melo responded by saying "I believe that if we continue to show the behavior between man and woman in a situation where emotions are shown negatively; they will eventually pick up on that and that will reflect on us as parents." Ivory nodded to agree and Dr. Zhane had said "I like your response. That's very responsible of you and shows you know that you will need to have accountability because your actions and behaviors reflects and effects your children. Let's take a moment right now. Take a 5 minute break."