The Family We Inherit
When I was a child,
family was a map already drawn. There were parents at the centre, solid and
unquestioned. Grandparents orbited with stories and memory; I even had a
great-grandmother into my twenties. Siblings came later, not quite close enough
to grow up alongside, as it was to fight with and lean on in the same
afternoon.
As I grew, the map
widened to include aunts, uncles, cousins, and distant relations whose names
carried branches of a tree I had not planted, but to which I undeniably
belonged. Nowadays, a name from that stock carries some resonance but no clear
recognition.
Family, in those
years, was inheritance. You were someone’s son, someone’s brother, someone’s
nephew, someone’s grandson. You did not choose your place; you occupied it.
An Unspoken
Expectation
The expectation,
though rarely spoken aloud, was that one day you would recreate the pattern.
The heteronormative construct was laid out as tradition, without any
consideration that you might be differently inclined. You did not create
yourself; you became yourself, but you were still required to represent them as
part of that genealogical framework.
You would find a
wife. You would have children. You would extend the line. The structure felt
inevitable, almost architectural: generation building upon generation, each
layer confirming the last. The scaffolding stood there as a template, but what
sort of building would emerge once it was removed?
The Expected Script
In adulthood, society
tends to follow a predictable rhythm of questions:
“Are you married?”
“What does your wife do?”
“Do you have children?”
Closer to the
traditions with which I have some affinity, the question is inevitably:
“How are your wife
and kids?”
These questions are
not malicious; they are rituals. They affirm that you are participating in the
established arc, that you have stepped into the role once held by your parents.
Marriage, in that
script, is not just about love. It is about continuation, about replication,
about becoming what raised you. In fact, the word used is “responsible”, and
you are apparently not responsible if your image of adulthood is not framed as
husband and wife, home and children, the next branch growing from the familiar
tree.
My Reality
My name is Akin, and
the centre of my adult life is Brian. Brian is not my wife. He is my husband.
He lives in Bulawayo,
Zimbabwe. I live in Manchester, England. And regularly, as often as we can, we
both travel to Cape Town, South Africa. We met in South Africa and meet there
because it was the first country to recognise and legalise same-sex unions.
Cape Town is not just
a city for us. It is a promise, a rehearsal for the life we are building. It is
where time feels concentrated, intentional, and fiercely protected.
Measuring Life in
Countdowns
Everything we do is
designed to maximise the hours we have together. Flights are booked with
military precision. Calendars are negotiated. Work is arranged around reunions.
We measure life in countdowns: how many days until Cape Town.
We have been together
for over seven years. Seven years of distance. Seven years of choosing each
other. Seven years of making geography bend as much as it possibly can to
commitment.
The Conversations of
a Marriage
When people speak
casually about spouses, they often describe the ordinary:
Morning coffee
conversations.
“Darling, what shall we have for dinner?”
“Love, how was your meeting?”
“Babes, did you sleep well?”
“I mean, how are you in yourself?” [I smile at this question.]
Brian and I have
those conversations.
I speak to him first
thing in the morning and last thing at night. That is not symbolic; it is
simply how life works. He is the first voice in my day and the final presence
before sleep.
The Fabric of Our
Bond
We talk about
finances, health, frustrations, politics, and our families. We argue
occasionally. We reassure constantly. We plan relentlessly. We discuss where
furniture will go in the Cape Town home, we have not yet secured. We imagine
neighbourhoods. We calculate costs. We picture morning light in rooms that
exist for us only in hope.
These are the
conversations of spouses. They are not lesser because they occur across time
zones. They are not diluted because they travel through screens. They are not
temporary because they are stretched by distance. They are the fabric of a
marriage, the centre of what tugs at our hearts.
Recognition and
Silence
Yet the world does
something subtle.
A man mentions his
wife and is met with easy follow-up: “What does she do?” “How did you meet?” “Do
you have kids?” The questions flow naturally, as though the script has already
been agreed.
But when I speak
about Brian, there is sometimes a pause, a recalibration. Not hostility, not
necessarily rejection, just a slight disruption of expectation. And often, no
further questions come.
While I appreciate
that some people need time to get used to that construct, in other cases it is
those who give no consideration to that reality who make this conversation
necessary.
This relationship
will not fade into insignificance or irrelevance; the indifference of the
original setting I was born into will not obviate the consequential position of
Brian to me and in my life.
The Unfitting
Template
It is as though the
conversation does not quite know where to place us. We do not fit into the
inherited template of husband-wife-children-grandchildren. There is no
automatic branch extending from us into the next generation.
We have no children.
Our relationship does not replicate the structure we were born into. But it is
no less central, no less serious, no less real.
We as individuals
might have deigned to conform, satisfying the cultural expectations of
tradition whilst complicating the lives of those who, in my view, would have
fallen victim to a lavender marriage, one in which our intimate desires were
met elsewhere, where a wife could not compete.
We chose instead to
be who we are, without scandalising others through the revelations that might
have emerged from the liaisons we had proclivities for.
The Myth of
Continuation
Much of how society
recognises marriage is tied to reproduction. Parenthood acts as proof of
adulthood, of stability, of contribution to the future. Children become the
visible extension of a couple's bond. Yet even people within those constructs
may not have children, for all sorts of reasons.
Without children, a
relationship can seem, to some, self-contained. But what if continuation is not
only biological?
Brian and I are
building continuity of another kind: continuity of devotion, continuity of
shared planning, continuity of showing up, again and again, despite visas and
airfare and the blunt inconvenience of geography. Our lineage may not be
genetic, but our commitment stretches forward just the same.
Cape Town: The Dream
Cape Town is the
convergence point. I fly from Manchester. He flies from Bulawayo. Two separate
lives narrowing toward the same coastline.
We walk the same
streets each time as though tracing the outline of a future. We talk about
where we will finally set up home, not as a fantasy, but as an inevitability we
are patiently engineering.
The Sacred Mundane
That is our dream: to
close the distance permanently. To wake up in the same space without
calculating time zones. To make breakfast without screens. To argue about which
cupboard the mugs belong in, or the clocks on the oven, for which I have been
accused of having OCD.
Domesticity is not
mundane to us. It is sacred.
The Centre, Not the
Periphery
Whether others like
it or not, Brian matters. He is not an aside in my story. He is not an
interesting footnote. He is not an exception to a rule.
He is my husband, my
partner, my integral and significant companion. The person I consult first. The
person whose opinion steadies me. The person who knows the texture of my
thoughts before I fully articulate them.
The absence of
children does not shrink that reality. The absence of a wife does not make it
incomplete. He is my full responsibility, before all others.
The Family I Choose
As a child, I
belonged to a family I inherited. As a man, I have formed a family I chose.
It may not look like
the one that raised me. It may not produce grandchildren. It may not trigger
the standard conversational questions. But it is no less a family.
Brian and I are
building something deliberate, intentional, and resilient. Every mile
travelled, every reunion planned, every late-night call is a brick in that
foundation.
Family is not only
about bloodline. It is also about allegiance, about persistence, about saying,
across continents and years: “You are my person.”
And that, however
quietly the world acknowledges it, is marriage. That is just the way things
are.