If your marriage were to end today, would you still know who you are?
And before my Christian community cringes at that question, call me whatever you need to call me for a moment, but I really want us to have this conversation.
I am not only talking about divorce or separation. What if the separation came through death? What if the person you have built your life with for ten, twenty, thirty or forty years suddenly died, and after the enormous grief of losing them, life required you to continue living?
Would there still be a you underneath the title of wife?
Would there still be a you underneath the title of husband?
Do you know who you are outside of we?
And no, asking that question is not speaking divorce, separation or death over anybody’s marriage. It is not encouraging people to prepare escape routes from perfectly healthy marriages.
It is a question about identity.
Because I have been thinking deeply about how easily we can become the titles we carry.
Wife. Husband. Mother. Father. CEO. Director. Pastor. Boss.
Beautiful titles. Important roles. Some of them roles we have prayed for, worked for and waited years to carry.
But what happens when the title becomes so intertwined with your identity that you no longer know where the role ends and you begin?
And sometimes we don’t realise just how much of ourselves we have deposited into a title until life removes it.
That thought takes me back to something I witnessed years ago, when I was still a young intern working at a parastatal…
There was a period when a number of senior managers and executives suddenly lost their positions.
And I remember hearing about one particular person who, shortly after receiving communication that they were to step down from their position, suffered a stroke and, sadly, passed away not long afterwards.
Who are you when the title disappears?
Who are you when you are no longer General Manager?
CEO?
Director?
Pastor?
Councillor?
Chairman?
Who are you when the office, company vehicle, executive meetings, people standing when you enter the room, invitations and authority suddenly disappear?
It is a question I have carried into other areas of life too.
And lately, I have been thinking about it particularly in relation to marriage and relationships.
Who are you when you are no longer someone’s wife?
Who are you when you are no longer someone’s husband?
Who are you when the relationship that became the centre of your world changes?
Because I think there is a very thin line between loving a role deeply and becoming the role.
Marriage is beautiful.
Being somebody’s wife can be beautiful.
Being somebody’s husband can be beautiful.
Motherhood can be beautiful.
Fatherhood can be beautiful.
Career achievement can be beautiful.
Leadership can be beautiful.
But none of these things should have to carry the entire weight of answering the question:
“Who am I?”
And I think some of our cultural language deserves examination here.
We hear things like:
Ndinofira pano.
“I will die in this marriage.”
“This is my home. I’m not going anywhere.”
“Whatever happens, I will stay.”
And sometimes those statements are expressions of commitment, resilience and a genuine determination not to abandon a marriage because life has become difficult.
There is something admirable about commitment.
But commitment and self-erasure are not the same thing.
Even within Christian spaces, I think we need wisdom in how we speak about marriage.
We can speak so much about two becoming one that, if we are not careful, somebody begins to believe becoming one means ceasing to exist as a person.
It doesn’t.
You can become a wife and still be you.
You can become a husband and still be you.
You can love your spouse profoundly without making another human being the entire foundation of your identity.
You can build a home together without dismantling the person who entered that home.
Because there is a dangerous question that eventually comes when we build our entire identity around one title:
What happens if I lose it?
What happens if the company restructures?
What happens when you retire?
What happens when the children grow up and leave home?
What happens if your spouse dies?
What happens if somebody walks away?
What happens if betrayal enters the marriage?
What happens if divorce happens?
What happens if the business collapses?
What happens when everybody stops calling you “Boss”?
Loss is already painful.
But I wonder whether loss becomes even more destabilising when what has been lost wasn’t merely something we had; it had become everything we believed we were.
Perhaps that is why some people don’t only experience the end of a relationship as heartbreak.
They experience it almost as an identity collapse.
If my entire identity became “Mrs _____”, who am I when that marriage ends?
If my entire identity became providing for my family, who am I when I lose my income?
If everybody’s need for me became the source of my worth, who am I when my children no longer need me in the same way?
If my title was how I knew I mattered, what happens when somebody else occupies my office?
These are not small questions.
And I don’t think the answer is to love less.
Love deeply.
Build the marriage.
Serve your family.
Raise your children.
Build the company.
Pursue the promotion.
Become excellent at what you do.
Fight for things worth fighting for.
But somewhere underneath all those beautiful roles, there must remain a person.
A person with values.
A person with a relationship with God that doesn’t depend entirely on another human being.
A person with friendships.
A person with interests.
A person capable of learning.
A person with a voice.
A person who knows what they believe.
A person who can sit alone in a room and still know who they are.
And perhaps this is particularly important for marriage because we sometimes romanticise losing ourselves in another person.
I cannot live without you.
You are my whole world.
Without you, I am nothing.
They sound beautiful in songs.
But I am not convinced they are always healthy foundations for real life.
I want to be able to say:
“I love you deeply. I have chosen to build my life with you. Your presence has changed my life. Losing you would hurt me tremendously. But my existence still has meaning because my identity was never yours to carry entirely.”
That is not preparing for divorce.
It is not loving halfway.
It is understanding that another human being should not have to carry the impossible responsibility of being your entire reason for existing.
And perhaps that is where I now hear Ndinofira pano differently.
Commitment? Yes.
Perseverance? Yes.
Working through difficult seasons? Absolutely.
But literally losing yourself to preserve the title of wife or husband?
No.
There has to be a boundary somewhere.
Because perhaps the goal of a healthy marriage isn’t for two people to disappear into each other.
Perhaps it is for two whole people to build something beautiful together without either person having to cease existing.
So every now and then, beyond your titles, ask yourself:
Who am I?
Not whose wife. Not whose husband. Not whose mother. Not whose father. Not which company’s executive. Not what position. Not what surname.
Not what salary.
Not what people call you when you enter a room.
Who are you when all the titles are removed?
Because life can change titles very quickly.
And I think there is wisdom in building an identity strong enough to remain standing when one of them does.