divorce | Zikoko!

Tokunbo’s* first marriage began to crash barely a year after the wedding due to infidelity and constant arguments. He married his current wife while processing his divorce in 2017 and thought he’d finally found a shot at happiness.

Seven years later, he’s struggling with regret and hopes to reunite with his first wife.

As told to Boluwatife

Image source: Freepik

I married my first wife, Yetunde* when I was 27 years old, but I’d loved her since I was 10.

We were childhood friends. Actually, she was my childhood bully. We lived in the same estate and we met when my dad bought me a bicycle as a reward for getting the first position in JSS 1. I rode the bike to the farthest part of my street that day, and as expected with children, other boys came up to me and asked me to let them ride for a bit.

I allowed a few boys, and Yetunde came to ask for a turn, too. I refused — not because she was a girl, though. I had a very small stature growing up, and Yetunde, who is two years older than me, was taller and generally bigger than me. I was scared she wouldn’t return my bicycle. She thought I was just being mean and forcefully dragged the bicycle from me. She did return it later, but we became sworn enemies after that day.

Like I said, we lived in the same estate, so we always ran into each other. Whenever Yetunde saw me, she either mocked me by calling me “Stingy koko” or knocked down whatever was in my hands. I’m not even sure how we later became friends. I just know I reported her to my elder sister, and she made her stop bothering me. We became inseparable, and I thought she was the prettiest girl ever.

We started dating in SS 3 and tried continuing in university, but we schooled in different states, and our love didn’t survive the distance. We only communicated occasionally via Facebook and only saw each other thrice over the next nine years. We always had a one-night stand kind of “reunion” each time we saw. One of these reunions led to Yetunde getting pregnant in 2014.

The pregnancy came with serious issues for both our families. Yetunde’s family insisted we had to marry because it was taboo in their village to give birth outside wedlock. My own family said she was older and physically bigger than me, and that meant she’d control me in the house. In the end, Yetunde and I felt we still had feelings for each other, so we married.

It’s safe to say both of us didn’t know what to expect in marriage. We didn’t even really know each other. We’d loved each other as kids and were attracted to each other sexually, but that was about it. Living together opened our eyes to the fact that it took more than childhood love and sex to keep a home.

We fought over the smallest things. I remember how we kept malice with each other for three days because I farted in the sitting room, and it led to a huge fight. Parenting strained our relationship even more. I spent long hours at work, and Yetunde expected me to take over the baby’s needs once I returned because she’d done it all day. But I didn’t think it made sense for me to come home tired at night to start babysitting.

Yetunde resented me for that, and we fought endlessly. We also stopped having sex after our child was born. She just stopped letting me touch her. This was barely a year after marriage.

So, I started cheating. I know I should’ve put in more effort to solve our issues, but I took the easy way out. It was just casual sex, honestly. There was this babe at work who I knew liked me. We got closer when Yetunde and I stopped being intimate, and things just got out of control.

Yetunde found out six months later after going through our chats. She threatened to leave, and I begged for weeks. She only agreed to forgive me if I tested for STDs. I did the test and came back clean, but she said we’d still have to abstain from sex for three months so she could confirm I didn’t have HIV.

I was annoyed at that. It was like she thought I was a child who didn’t know how to protect himself. I still did the test again after three months, but I decided I wouldn’t approach her for sex again. If she really forgave me, she should also make the first move. She didn’t make any move.

I couldn’t cope, so I went back to having affairs. I think Yetunde knew, but she never confronted me again. We grew apart even more, and our conversations reduced to ordinary greetings or if she needed to ask me for something our child needed. I still sent her monthly allowances to care for the home as she wasn’t working. I wasn’t completely irresponsible.

In 2017, I met the woman I’m currently married to — Comfort*. I initially intended to keep her as a girlfriend, but I fell in love with her and stopped seeing other women. Comfort didn’t know I was married.

By now, I was tired of my marriage with Yetunde. I came up with every excuse possible to convince myself we weren’t meant to be together. I thought, if she hadn’t fallen pregnant, I wouldn’t even have had to marry her. Did I have to resign myself to a sexless, loveless marriage just because of one mistake?

RELATED: I’m Asexual Or Just Not Attracted To My Husband

I decided to put myself first, so I told Yetunde I wanted a divorce. Surprisingly, she didn’t argue. She just said she wouldn’t move out of the apartment, and I had to keep paying the rent. She also said she’d never give up custody of our child, which was more than fine with me.

So, that same year, I married Comfort. I had to convince her we didn’t need a court wedding because I was still in the middle of divorce proceedings (which she didn’t know), and I heard I could face jail if I tried to remarry legally while still married. We even did the traditional marriage quietly because I didn’t want Yetunde to know and probably tell the court. My family knew about my issues with Yetunde, so it wasn’t difficult telling them of my choice to remarry and keep the whole thing quiet.

I only told Comfort after the court finalised the divorce in 2019. She was angry, but my family joined me to apologise to her, and all went well. I also tried to introduce her to my child, but Yetunde relocated out of the country with her.

I’m still shocked that she didn’t tell me beforehand. If I hadn’t texted her to inform her of my marriage and ask to see my child, she probably wouldn’t have told me they’d left. I mean, I still paid the child’s school fees for the previous term, so it wasn’t like I wasn’t doing my part. I wanted to drag the issue out, but I just told myself it was for my child’s benefit.

In my head, I was finally getting a new shot at happiness. I’d tried marriage, and it didn’t work out, but I had a second chance. I was also on civil terms with my ex and didn’t need to hide anything from Comfort again. I could now be happy without feeling guilty or thinking of another woman outside.

And I was happy. Comfort even encouraged me to attend church more, and I gave my life to Christ in 2021. Since then, I’ve been serious with God and feel like a new person. But I’m now navigating a new kind of guilt: regret over divorcing Yetunde.

I listened to a sermon in 2022 about how God hates divorce, and since then, I’ve been struggling with feeling like I made a grave mistake. The Bible says, “Whoever divorces his wife and remarries has committed adultery — except the wife was unfaithful”. Yetunde wasn’t unfaithful. She didn’t even do anything to me.

No matter how I try to reason it in my head, I feel like I’m constantly living in sin by staying married to Comfort. It’s even affecting my walk with God. I feel like I call myself a Christian, but I’ll still go to hell because of this one mistake. I’ve never discussed this with Comfort.

Some church elders I’ve spoken to about my concerns have suggested reconciling with Yetunde and probably letting Comfort go since we don’t have children together yet. But first, I don’t even know if Yetunde wants to come back. I know she isn’t married, but she might not want to have anything to do with me again. Second, what do I tell Comfort and our families?

I wish I’d made better decisions and generally been a better person, but I can’t turn back the hands of time. I just know I need to make a final decision soon because I can’t continue living like this. Comfort already thinks I’m cheating because I’m constantly acting distant. Maybe I’ll gather the courage to beg Yetunde and hope she forgives me and returns. Or maybe I should just let Comfort go and live alone for the rest of my life. I don’t know.

*Names have been changed for the sake of anonymity.

NEXT READ: My Husband’s Family Has Attacked Me Spiritually for Years

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Tife Oni

July 5, 2024

Ships

divorce, guilt, Inside life, marriage, relationships
Every week, Zikoko seeks to understand how people move the Naira in and out of their lives. Some stories will be struggle-ish, others will be bougie. All the time, it’ll be revealing.

What’s your earliest memory of money?

One morning, when I was five years old, my family and I returned home from church, and there was no money or food to eat. I asked my mum what we’d eat, and she said, “Jesus will provide”.

Then, she told my siblings and I to dance and praise God. We did that, and she went out and came back with food. I really thought an angel dropped the money for the food on our doorstep, and I was so excited that my prayers worked. Money was a frequent topic in our house, and situations like this food incident were regular.

Why was money a frequent topic?

We didn’t always have the money we needed, so we used a scale of preference approach to spending. Whatever wasn’t important had to wait until there was money to spare. My late dad was a lecturer, my mum was an accountant — she built a school later on — and with five children, money was never enough.

Inevitably, I grew up believing that money could never be enough, which manifested as a constant urge to make money.

When was the first time you acted on this urge?

2009. I was in my second year in uni when I started taking ushering gigs. The first one I ever did paid ₦5k instead of the ₦10k I was promised. I didn’t even mind. The organisers had covered our transportation, so I had nothing to lose.

I also did some market promotion gigs for a beer brand trying to re-enter the market. I’d never been in a bar before because of my background, but the ₦30k/month was pay I couldn’t pass up.

I should mention that I had a monthly allowance of ₦10k, and I augmented this with the ushering and market promotion gigs. In my third year in uni, I decided I could take a break from pursuing money.

What happened?

Three of my siblings graduated from uni, easing the financial pressure at home. It was just my younger brother and I in school. Plus, my eldest sister got a job at a bank immediately. She also started helping out with the occasional pocket money.

The improved financial situation gave me time to pursue other interests. I’d realised I didn’t want to practise my engineering course. I only studied it because my family decided I’d be an engineer since I was good at maths. But I didn’t like it and couldn’t drop out.

Thankfully, I found a lifeline when I discovered AIESEC on campus. I finally found something I was interested in, and I focused on the activities: conference planning, talent management and marketing. It wasn’t bringing me money, though, at least not while I was still in school.

What about after school?

I landed a three-month AIESEC internship with an entertainment company in Nairobi in 2014 — a year after I left uni. The salary was 140,000 Kenyan shillings, which was about ₦70k then.

I returned to Nigeria after the internship and got another six-month internship through AIESEC at a logistics company. This time, it was a ₦90k/month role. At that point, I wasn’t sure what I wanted with my career. I was just working to earn money. Then, I got married four months into the internship. I was 24 years old.

How did that happen?

I still ask myself the same question. My mum regularly sent my sisters and me broadcast messages about the qualities of a good wife, and I subconsciously felt I had to get married. It felt like the next logical step.

So, when I started hanging out with a long-time friend who returned to Nigeria from the UK and he brought up marriage, I went with it too. We got married in 2014.

What did that mean for your career?

I got pregnant almost immediately, and I quit my job because it seemed too stressful to juggle with a pregnancy. Also, I married into a rich family that didn’t shy away from spending money, and I thought I didn’t have to bother about making money anymore.

Before we go on, is being married to a man from a rich family anything like Nollywood depicts?

We lived in my husband’s family home with his mother and siblings. Let me explain how the house worked: my husband and his siblings all dropped an amount with their mother for our monthly needs: from food to toiletries and my child’s diapers. I didn’t even know how much a cup of rice cost. It meant I never had cash for anything.

Some months into my marriage, I became uncomfortable with depending on someone else for money. I felt strange having to ask for small things like money to do my hair or get toiletries. So, immediately after I had my child in 2015, I started job-hunting and got a ₦30k/month teaching job the following year. My child was barely a year old.

What was that like? Juggling childcare with a job?

My mother-in-law helped look after my child. My husband and in-laws didn’t understand why I had to work, though. They thought I just wanted to stress myself. But I wanted to have control of my finances.

My ₦30k salary was only enough for transporting myself to work. I even trekked sometimes so the salary would last a month. I didn’t get any financial support, but I didn’t care.

How long did this go on for?

I taught at the school for two years before I left to help my mother-in-law manage her new school. That was a mistake; I never should’ve done that.

Hmm. Why?

I served as the school’s administrator for four years and didn’t get paid once. The funny thing is, people thought I was living my best life. Like, “Wow, she married a rich man. They set up a school for her, and she even has a driver.”

But I was truly broke. I couldn’t buy anything for myself or my mum during those four years. I gave my mum excuses about how we were still trying to get the school functional. In reality, I was being used, and I couldn’t leave without causing family issues, so I took it as an opportunity to gain work experience and build myself.

Did you try to do other things to earn money?

I tried my hands at tailoring when I noticed I wasn’t going to get paid. I’d learnt the craft during my first school job. I took some savings I’d gathered when I had a salary and used it to buy tailoring materials. I had two sewing machines — my wedding gifts — and I set them up in an abandoned store belonging to my in-law’s family.

Since I didn’t pay rent, they made it look as if it was their way of paying me for my work at the school. But I was barely making anything from the shop because I didn’t have a steady clientele due to my spending long hours at the school.

In 2019, I finally found an opportunity to leave the school. I was pregnant, and we’d moved out of the family house because we wanted space — my mother-in-law had issues with my husband spending late nights, and it led to a few arguments. The school was far from our new place, so I took the opportunity to leave.

What did you do next?

After I had my second child, I began paying more attention to my business. Leaving the family house opened my eyes to the fact that we didn’t really have money, and I couldn’t afford to be financially dependent.

I also registered for NYSC that year because I thought no one would employ me without a certificate. The government started paying corps members ₦33k in my second month of service. It was like heaven to me. I’d worked for so long and didn’t even know what it was like to have ₦33k.

Damn. What was running a business while serving like?

I served in the state I lived in, so it worked. I got two commission-based assistants and included fabric sales and home-based tailoring classes in my list of services. The latter was a hit. Most people interested in my classes were middle-aged housewives who didn’t want to attend fashion schools. I made ₦50k monthly from the business on average, but most of it went back to the business.

I should mention I still didn’t have my husband’s support. He wanted to keep the illusion of us being wealthy, and my working meant he didn’t have money to take care of his home. He actually didn’t have money but didn’t want people to know. I was supposed to get glammed and look the role of an “odogwu’s wife” when, in reality, I was taking care of most of the home’s expenses.

That must have been tough

It was. I kept hustling because my kids had to eat. While I was still serving, I applied for a social media manager role at an NGO. I was a 30-year-old dragging social media work with 22-year-olds. But I got the job.

The salary was ₦90k/month. My job also included scheduling therapy appointments, and I enjoyed what I did. It didn’t mean I wasn’t applying for other jobs and looking for money, sha.

LOL. Did the job search yield results?

It did. I got another school administrator role for ₦45k/month towards the end of 2020. I juggled this with the social media job and my business.

My marriage began to nosedive during this period. My husband started leaving home for days. I told him plainly that I couldn’t leave my work to be chasing him around because I had children to feed.

I knew the whole thing would crash soon, and I focused on becoming financially independent.

How were you managing three jobs?

I had been without money for too long, and I couldn’t return to that. It was a swim-or-sink situation. I’d return from school and stay up at night to do my social media job. My assistants mostly handled my tailoring business.

It was a stressful period, but I was looking ahead. If I left my husband, I’d have to sort out rent and school fees myself, and I needed something sustainable. I mean, I was already suffering, but this time, I had a goal.

Did you leave?

I left in 2021 when he became violent. I moved back with my children to my family house, and we stayed there for six months.

In 2022, I left the school and got an office admin job, which also paid ₦45k. The plan was to gather admin experience to work in a standard organisation.

To sort out accommodation, I took a housing loan from work to rent a ₦300k/year one-bedroom apartment and moved in with my kids. Then, I quit my social media role to focus on the admin job. It paid more, but it wasn’t my desired career path. I also closed down my business because my ex kept going there to cause a scene. It was too much.

Sorry about that. You went from three income sources to one. What did that mean for you?

I think I walked everywhere I went in 2022. I lost so much weight that my mum had to intervene. She took my kids for three months to give me time and space to get a grip on myself. I struggled with that because I used my children as a shield to grieve the end of my marriage. You can’t cry with kids around. They don’t give you room to be depressed.

Being alone meant I had to confront my emotions and go through all the phases of grief. After I was done with that, I took pen to paper to map out my career. I’d gotten admin experience already. The next thing to do was get a better-paying job.

How did that go?

I enrolled in a bunch of free online admin and Excel courses to upskill, and I applied to jobs like someone was pursuing me. I must have applied to 500 jobs in two months. I’d also been “promoted” to admin team lead at my workplace by this time. There was no salary increase — just the fancy name change.

In September 2022, I eventually landed my current job as an admin officer in an oil company. The funny thing is, I didn’t exactly apply for it. A recruitment agency contacted me on LinkedIn to ask if I was interested in the role. I shared my CV and did the interviews. In my head, if they asked about salary expectations, I’d say ₦150k, so I could afford to save ₦50k monthly.

I got the offer via a phone call, and the recruiter said my salary would be about ₦700k — ₦500k basic salary plus allowances.

Wow. Paint me a picture of how you reacted to this

I was speechless for a full minute. The recruiter kept asking if I was there. I thought, “How is this possible? Will I have to kill people at this company to earn that much?”

A colleague was with me at the office when the call came in, and I put the phone on speaker so they could confirm I wasn’t hearing things. Who goes from ₦45k to ₦700k just like that?

My mum thought I was being scammed and couldn’t be convinced otherwise till I received my first salary. I cried the day I got that alert. I was so overwhelmed. It was just God.

That kind of income jump probably came with some lifestyle changes as well

Not immediately. I stayed in my one-bedroom apartment for another full year, but I renovated my family house and gave my mum ₦1m to expand her school. She was there for me through my marriage wahala, and it felt so good to finally be able to give back to her.

I wasn’t in a hurry to make major lifestyle changes. I didn’t change my children’s school until I noticed I could pay two terms’ fees at once. I moved to a ₦500k/year two-bedroom apartment in September 2023 and got a car for ₦2.7m in December because the new apartment is quite a distance from my workplace.

How’s your savings goal going?

I can definitely save more than ₦50k monthly now. Specifically, I save ₦200k/month now. I’ve also built a ₦3m emergency fund. Owning land is another future investment option I’m considering.

Let’s do a breakdown of your typical monthly expenses

I get sizable allowances from work every two months, which I use for major expenses. For instance, I get a ₦2.4m housing allowance every January, and it sorts my children’s school fees and rent for the year.

How would you describe your relationship with money now?

I’m learning how to relax. I’ve had an “I need to get money” mindset for so long, and it’s a conscious effort to remind myself I’m not broke anymore. I can afford to buy ₦200k hair, but it still feels like an outrageous expense. Like, ₦200k hair when that kind of money can help ten other people?

I think I also internalised some of the things my ex said. He often accused me of being extravagant because I wanted to have my own money and not depend on him. So, maybe I’ve been subconsciously trying to prove him wrong. I thought if I bought a new bag, people would say, “Oh, no wonder she left. She probably has someone else”. But I’m deliberately moving on from that.

I want to get to a point where I don’t overthink spending on myself. Oh, I’m also finally processing my divorce.

What’s that like?

When I began the divorce proceedings in October 2023, we’d been separated for two years. My lawyer advised me to wait for two years post-separation so the courts wouldn’t delay the process by trying to give us time to sort out our differences. I’m paying ₦200k in legal fees and another ₦15k to my lawyer every time we appear in court. I’ve been in court every month since then, and it’s been quite messy. But hopefully, it’ll be sorted soon.

Rooting for you. What do you think the future looks like for you?

I’m currently studying for an MBA in Human Resources. I’m in my second semester (out of five) and have spent ₦400k on it so far.

I’d also like to take classes to become a licensed therapist in the next four years. It’s why I chose an HR-focused MBA because I’ll need to know how to understand people to help them. I needed therapy during my separation, but I couldn’t afford it. You’d hear therapists charge ₦100k per hour. I want to be able to provide affordable therapy for divorced and abused women and children.

In addition, I hope to build something like a healing shelter in the long term. I keep thinking about what would’ve happened to me if I didn’t have my family house to run to when things went south. Housing is a major reason why people stay in abusive situations.

How would you rate your financial happiness on a scale of 1-10?

8. I’m happy with my finances and even happier with the person I am right now. I know where I’m going, and I’m willing to do the work to get there. I could lose the ₦3m in my account and still be happy. I’m no longer afraid of not having money or starting over. The worst has happened, and I came out of it.

What would make that number a 10?

When I eventually become a therapist and build a shelter. I like my job — it pays my bills — but it’s not what I want to do for the rest of my life.

Is there anything else you’d like to add that I haven’t asked?

I’d just like my fellow women to know that we do ourselves a disservice when we don’t have anything that brings us money. Having your own money is better than being perceived to be rich. It’s good to get free ₦500k, but earning ₦500k will boost your confidence — knowing you can produce value. When the chips are down, that’s what you can call your own.

If you’re interested in talking about your Naira Life story, this is a good place to start.

Yes, I want to do a Naira Life

Find all the past Naira Life stories here.

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Tife Oni

March 4, 2024

Money, Naira Life

divorce, financial abuse, hustle, marriage, single mother
What does it mean to be a man? Surely, it’s not one thing. It’s a series of little moments that add up. Man Like is a weekly Zikoko series documenting these moments to see how it adds up. It’s a series for men by men, talking about men’s issues. We try to understand what it means to “be a man” from the perspective of the subject of the week.

Check back every Sunday by 12 pm for new stories in the Man Like series. If you’d like to be featured or you know anyone that would be perfect for this, kindly send an email.

Today’s “Man Like” is Imoh Umoren, an indie filmmaker. He talks about losing both his parents at the age of 15, surviving a tough divorce and fathering his nephew and his son.

When did you realise you were a man?

When my mum died when I was 13 and my dad followed at 15.

Before then, growing up had been fun but religious. My mum was a university lecturer while my father was a businessman. My mum made me read a lot of books from the library to keep me out of trouble. Then my parents died.

After they died, my siblings and I grew up rough and learned things the hard way. We had to live with relatives who weren’t the best people to grow up with and adjust to a certain lifestyle we weren’t used to. You can’t complain about things to your relatives the way you would with your parents. They didn’t take kindly to rebellion. I remember one argument I had with my aunt which led to her throwing me out of the house when I was in the university.

I was quite rebellious. I think a lot of it came from losing my parents and not knowing how to deal with grief. Our society doesn’t treat grief properly. I didn’t know how to deal with it and my relatives didn’t either. So I became a very cold kid.

How did you deal with the grief, eventually?

Did I really deal with it? I don’t think so. Now that I’m an adult, I still struggle with it because I later lost my sister and brother within three months of each other in 2010.

I’m sorry.

It’s life. You just deal with it. God gives his toughest battles to his strongest soldiers.

At what point did you realise you were responsible for yourself?

I got my first apartment when I was 16 from money I got working with my cousins. I realised I had to make money and stop depending on my relatives, so I talked to some cousins . My cousins in Port Harcourt used to drill boreholes, lay interlocking stones and other construction jobs. I’d help them out at the sites and they’d pay me. But my biggest break came by chance. I was in a bar having a drink when I overheard two South Korean expatriates talking about how they needed to drill some boreholes for their company. I seized the opportunity and jumped into the conversation, telling them I drilled boreholes. They asked me to send a cost quotation the next morning. Mind you, I had never drilled a borehole by myself.

I ran to my cousin, Alex, and told him everything. He helped me draw up a cost quotation and followed me there, though I fronted as the “main guy”. We landed the contract and I got the lion’s share of the proceeds. That was how I made my first million at 18.

How did you get into filmmaking?

Growing up, my mom used to make me read a ton of books. I also watched sitcoms like Cheers and decided I wanted to be a sitcom writer. I wrote a few scripts and somehow that evolved into me directing. I did a course on television and film and that cemented me as a director and producer. I made my first film in 2009. It was called Lemon Green. I was 26.

There weren’t a lot of experts in Nigeria producing shows, so there was a demand for Nigeria TV producers. I produced an MTV show, Malta Guinness Street Dance and a bunch of other shows.

What was your relationship with your dad like before he passed?

He had a heart attack when I was 15. We weren’t very cool because I think I reminded my dad too much of him — stubborn and headstrong. We also looked very much alike and talked the same way.

My mother’s family were more well-to-do than my father’s family. He was a tough guy who roughed it up and single-handedly made his wealth. He always felt some type of way so he was constantly trying to prove himself and get some respect. There’s a certain disdain for people with new money. People will still ask you, “Who is your father?” No matter how successful you are.

I wasn’t cool with my dad. Perhaps because I looked just like him, he used to talk and treat me like I was an adult. Still, I regret that I wasn’t able to spend enough time with him. I think the cold aloofness comes from the tough upbringing men went through in his generation. So perhaps I shouldn’t judge him too harshly. He had his odd ways of showing affection, like telling me to come and sit beside him or give me a piece of meat from his plate.

How did you handle your mum’s passing?

Oh man, I was broken. I didn’t speak for three days.She had been dealing with diabetes, and we knew she was dying. On the day she died, I was coming back from school with my siblings. I felt something strike me and I fell. Immediately, I knew something had happened and I told my siblings, “Mum is dead.” We continued home in silence, and the news was broken to us by an uncle.

My religious faith was affected by her passing, which I think she saw coming. Before she died, she asked me, “If I die, what are you going to do about your faith?” We had prayed and prayed and she wasn’t getting any better, so I didn’t even know what to believe in anymore. After she died, there was a disconnect from God and everything else. I just went cold.

How’s your relationship with your son different from the one you have with your dad?

My son will be seven this year. He lives with his mother in the UK, so most of my parenting is done via video calls. He looks exactly like me and I’m so proud of that. Sometimes, when he’s frustrated, he reacts the exact same way I would.

Tell me about getting married.

We were married for about three years before we split. We grew up together and were very tight friends before we got married.

What went wrong?

There’s enough blame to go around but on my part, I think I was too hyper-focused on my work to pay much attention to anything else, including her. Things deteriorated and the marriage ended. We’re still very good friends..

There’s a mentality among African fathers that once you’re providing for your family, that should be enough. When we don’t provide, we feel like we’re not responsible enough or deserving of love.

I didn’t know the importance of spending quality time with the people who loved me. I’m learning now that providing for the family, as important as it is, isn’t all there is to be a husband and a father. Paying for family vacations or buying new cars are important, but so is making time for your loved ones.

I had always dreamed of having my family. So it was a rude shock because I thought everything was going great till it all came crashing down on me. When we got divorced, I became suicidal.

I think people need to cut men some slack; we’re working so hard trying to make a good life for the family.

How did you handle the divorce?

Man, I was devastated. After the marriage ended, I lived in a hotel for a year, talking to myself. I was barely functioning. I loved her very much. I wished it didn’t happen. I thought my life was over at that point. My work suffered and I had to be laid off from some projects I was working on.

I had always dreamed of having my family. So it was a rude shock because I thought everything was going great till it all came crashing down on me. I was suicidal.

How did you get past it?

It was women, bro. Women got me through the toughest times. I was getting affection from women, being nursed back to life, bringing me food at the hotel and cheering me up.

How did the divorce affect your son?

He was three at the time, so he wasn’t aware of everything going on. It wasn’t until recently that he asked me why I wasn’t married to his mom and why I was always alone. Imagine your own son taking shots at you. It really be your own blood.

LMAO. What do you tell him?

I tell him to focus on his dinosaurs.

LMAO. What’s it like parenting from a distance?

It’s hard as fuck. I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone. I can’t see my son often enough. I can’t help him with his homework as I would love to. Due to COVID-19, I wasn’t able to go see him for almost a year and that was so hard for me. There’s also the disconnect between our accents, him with his UK accent and me with my Nigerian one. We’re always saying “come again?” on our calls because we’re both struggling to hear each other’s accents. Parenting like this isn’t easy but it’s something you must do. I’ve not been the best at it but I try.

Interesting. Tell me about your biggest fear.

My biggest fear would be not doing anything I intend to do with my life. I have really big dreams, and I’ll be very pissed if I die before I fulfil them. I don’t want to die early because there’s so much I want to do. My art is improving as the years go on and dying without getting to that god-level of creativity will pain me o.

You’re really all about your work.

That’s my Achilles heel. I’m obsessed with filmmaking. I was blessed with that talent so that I can improve myself and go further.

How’s your romantic life now?

It’s been a difficult time for me dating. I’m very focused on my work and hardly have time outside of it. Ideally, I’d want to date someone who’s just as ambitious so they don’t feel ignored. Iron sharpeneth iron, not wood.

People want someone who’ll be there all the time, but that’s my weakness. I’m still trying to

work hard and focus on my career, which might take a lot of time and that could lead to different issues. I really can’t say that working all the time is a problem. I was poor. I don’t want to ever experience that again. That’s why I work the way I do. I’m not going to compromise my hustle because of love. When everyone leaves you, all you have left is your hustle. I don’t want my kids to go through what I went through. I want to create a very soft life for them, and if that involves me working my ass off 24/7, so be it.

Do you think you’ll have a family again?

Definitely. This hoeing life is not for me. Do you know how hard it is to talk to ten women a day? It’s too stressful. Seriously though, the whole family-in-the-suburbs-with-the-white-picket-fence idea has always been my dream. Hopefully, I get to settle down soon.

When was the scariest moment of your life?

There are several moments in my life I’ve been scared to shit. When my brother and sister died, I thought I was going to die. There was a time my son was ill during a trip to Portugal. I was scared to death. I’ve already suffered so much loss. I can’t bear anything happening to him. I still get scared sometimes when my nephew, who I’m raising, goes out and doesn’t come back on time.

Oh, you’re raising your nephew? How’s that like?

I’ve been raising him for 10 years and being a father figure is a struggle oh. We always have big fights because he doesn’t pick up his phone. He also has that young teenage arrogance and is just as rebellious as I was when I was his age. Teenagers are just weird, man. I’m worried every time he goes out whether he’s going to come back alive because of the current security climate. I have a constant fear he’s going to get in trouble with the police or something. I’m definitely not looking forward to my son becoming a teenager.

Check back every Sunday by 12 pm for new stories in the Man Like series. If you’d like to be featured or you know anyone that would be perfect for this, kindly send an email.

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Olufemi Fadahunsi

May 30, 2021

Man Dem, Man Like

divorce, Fatherhood
The subject of this week’s What She Said is a 50-year-old woman who dated her ex-husband for 12 years and was married to him for 14 years. She talks about leaving him after years of being manipulated, the joy that comes from being a single woman again and life as a divorced Christian woman.

How did the relationship start?

I met my ex in 1988, in my first year in university. On one of our first few dates, he invited me over to listen to a Sade Adu record. I really like Sade Adu. So I went to a boy’s quarters he was staying at. When I got there, there was no proper bed. There was just a mattress on the floor. I had heard about the slaughterhouse where guys take girls to sleep with. As I sat on the bed, I saw condoms fall out from under the pillow. Shocked, I ran away. I told him never to come to see me again. That was the end of the beginning of our relationship. After a while, he came and said there would be no sleeping together. Then we started dating again around the end of my 200 level. We soon started living together.

What was the relationship like?

I was very grateful to be with him. I had a bad home situation. He provided the kind of environment that I wanted. He provided a lovely home and was very caring. Anytime I quarrelled with my folks, he stood up for me. I saw a champion in him. It’s only in retrospect that I see it was a perfect relationship for him to manipulate me because he knew the things that triggered me. It was easy for him to switch from being a defender to an aggressor.

Do you think he loved you?

Perhaps, he did. But I also think it was because when he got rusticated from school, I was the only friend that stayed with him.

So how did he manipulate you?

From the beginning of our relationship, he often got upset if I talked to someone else. I didn’t realise until later that this was manipulative. It got so bad that if we were stuck in traffic and someone in a vehicle looked at me, and I looked that way at the same time, he would start saying I knew the person but was only pretending.

He also made it mandatory that I check in with him all the time. One day, I went to work and I left my phone at home; my boss called me because he hadn’t checked my office to see if I was around. My ex then went on about how I lied about being at work because of my boss’ call. It became so bad that whenever he started to talk, I froze, anticipating his accusations.

Did your parents approve of the marriage?

My parents didn’t have a lot to say, because as I said earlier, it was a bad home situation. We went to the registry three or so years after we started dating. We didn’t tell anyone about it.

People always asked when we would get married, and at one point, my dad got upset and asked that we have a proper wedding since we were already living together.

When we got to church, we were told we couldn’t do a proper wedding because we had gotten married before. We had to get the first marriage annulled at the registry before the wedding could be held.

How long were you together before getting married in church?

Twelve years. We got married in the year 2000.

Before marriage, we were sexually active and were not using protection, but we didn’t get pregnant. I wanted children so badly. So, I was like, maybe if we got our parents’ blessings, we’d have kids. That was part of the reason I wanted to have the wedding.

What was it like in the beginning part of the marriage?

Because we had been together for such a long time, getting married was just a formality.

At this time, I had a full-time job, but he still didn’t do much. A lot of the expenses were on me.

Then he went to university in the UK.

At what point did you start having children?

We had our first daughter two years after getting married, and the second was born three years after the first.

But through this time, we were having all kinds of problems.

What kinds of problems?

When we first got married, he was not the problem. It was the fact that we were living in his mum’s house. She didn’t live in Nigeria, but she would come one month in a year, and I would be miserable throughout that month. She was mean and nasty in a very subtle way; she would be nice when people were around, but she was mean about everything when nobody was there. It wasn’t so much him as it was her, but him not being able to caution her was the problem.

It was after I had my first daughter that my ex relocated to the UK. He was living with his mother there. He wanted me to leave my job and join him there. I told him I was unhappy about living in his mother’s house in Nigeria, so I couldn’t move to the UK, where I didn’t have any job and live with her again.

I would visit him with my daughter once or twice a year. It was on one of those visits I got pregnant with our second child.

Did the experience ever get settled with his mother?

No. It was a big part of why the marriage ended. She was also manipulative and said I was proud. One night I woke him up in the middle of the night and complained about how his mother treated me. He begged me, but nothing changed.

When did you realise that things were going bad?

I had low expectations from him, so I didn’t know things were even bad in the first place. I was also the one doing a lot financially.

Then I got an American grant to go to the US. Before I left, I kept my ATM card with him for my kids — he was already back in Nigeria at this point. Every time I got paid, he would remove money from my account and lie that he wasn’t taking my money. This was my first introduction to the fact that he could lie. If anyone had told me anything about him before, I would have insulted them. Once when he was in London, someone called to tell me he was doing nonsense, and I told them to shut up.

While I was away in America, my mum passed, and he was very mean to me during the time. He even accused me of cheating on him because he called me once, and I was on a Skype call with a student.

He began his accusations again without leaving room for me to talk, so I switched off my phone. After that, he didn’t speak to me for a while. Anytime I called, he would give the phone to his daughters.

Wow.

On the morning of my mother’s burial, he called from a service being held for my mum in Nigeria and he excitedly told me about all my family members who were present and kept giving them the phone to speak to me.

It was my sister who picked up the phone when he called. My sister was confused because I had told her we were not on good terms. We put the phone on speaker, and I told him I was the one on the phone. He kept up the excitement. This was when I realised that he was playing me.

What did you do next?

I called a friend who had been his best man at our wedding and told him what was going on. I asked him to find me a place I could stay in when I returned to Nigeria. I was ready to move out, but he convinced me not to do that, and I said alright.

When I got back to Nigeria, my ex was nice for about a month. It didn’t take long for things to return to to status quo.

He regularly checked my phone. Once he saw a contact he didn’t know, he would call me ‘ashawo’. He would call my daughters and tell them that I was a whore.

One day, I checked his phone for the first time and saw that he was cheating on me. I then realised that was why he was constantly angry.

I told him I wasn’t angry, that all I wanted was just for him to stop being constantly mad at me. He was getting progressively worse and verbally abusive.

In 2014, I lost my junior brother and an aunt. I took my girls on holiday to get over everything, and he said, “When you come back, you have one month to move out.”

How did you take it when he said that?

It was pretty clear by then that the marriage was over. Before then, he had gone to my dad to tell him I drank, smoked and followed men all over the place.

My dad asked him this: “When you came to marry her, was she like that?” He defended me and said that he (my ex) might be the problem. My ex tried to insult him.

Afterwards, my dad sent for me and asked me about everything. I told him everything that had been happening. When he asked why I kept everything to myself, I told him it was because he said to keep our marriage private. Then he said he was not an outsider. He said I shouldn’t leave by myself, but anytime my ex asked me to leave, I shouldn’t hesitate to pack my things and move out.

Did you move out?

After he gave me the one-month ultimatum to leave, my ex began to threaten me with a countdown. He threatened to kill me, so my dad insisted I go to the police. The police said they would invite him in for questioning, but that was a bad idea because if they invited him and he was allowed to leave, I better not be at his house.

So, I didn’t make a statement at the police station, and my dad was angry. I eventually found a place and moved. Immediately after moving, his attitude towards me got better. It was so strange people thought we were back together.

Did he also send your daughters away?

Yes. But in the first filing he did for the divorce, he stated very clearly that he didn’t want our daughters. It was later he changed his mind.

There was an incident where his girlfriend, who moved in after I moved out, went to my younger daughter’s school, picked her up and did her hair. The school apologised for allowing it and asked that I provide legal documents to enforce a rule on who has access to my child.

He went back to court to file for custody with the divorce, so I was simultaneously dealing with divorce and custody. Luckily, I got custody at the end.

As a Christian who’s divorced, what has your experience been?

I think God helped me to be wise. No one in church knew I was getting divorced except one man whose truck I used to move my things.

Nobody knew where I moved to for about two years.

I realised I was attending a spirit-filled church when the junior pastor called me one day and told me he had dreams about my husband, and God kept saying I should pray for him. I was reluctant — the pastor didn’t know I had left him.

I told him he could pray for him, but I was not interested. He was shocked, so this led to me telling him about the divorce.

What’s life like post-divorce

When it comes to this, I think I’m the exception. If my ex knew what he was doing when he asked me to leave, he wouldn’t have let me go. I’m living the life now. I’m having a fantastic time. One of the things I was very clear about was that we would parent my children together, whether he wanted it or not.

In the post-separation period, I spent a lot of time crying, praying and wondering what went wrong. I realised he had to be in their lives and take on his role as their father. I see in separations that the man enjoys his life while the mother continues to slave and ensures the children go to school. Then when it’s time to marry, the children find the father, and he becomes a knight in shining armour that gives their hand away in marriage.

This makes the mother resentful, thinking about all her sacrifices. I insisted he had to pay their fees and the girls visit him during holidays. I have the time of my life during their absence. It’s working even though we don’t talk.

What would you have done differently?

Growing up, I didn’t want to get married. I wanted to have two children for two different men because my parent’s marriage wasn’t fantastic, so I wasn’t looking forward to marriage like that. But when I met him, he seemed like someone who was focused and from a good home. So, when things started to go wrong, I told myself I shouldn’t have bothered.

However, I would not change a lot. A lot of the strength and character I have now is a result of this experience. And I wouldn’t change having these cool and well-behaved girls I have now.

Are you dating again?

Yes o. All I’ve gone through hasn’t changed me much; I’m a hopeless romantic.

I believe in love and marriage, but it’s not for me. I want to live life with a nice person. When Nigerian men say, “I’m going to marry you,” I cancel them because they believe that’s their selling point.

I’ve been dating the same guy since a year after I left my ex. I am mindful of being a role model for my daughters and also not exposing them unduly. I however love meeting new people and enjoy talking to lots of people I meet. It’s always amusing to me that people think getting to know someone means I want to date them but it doesn’t.

For more stories like this, check out our #WhatSheSaid and for more women like content, click here

Ope

May 12, 2021

Her, What She Said

divorce, marriage, Men, Relationship, what she said, Women
Sex Life is an anonymous Zikoko weekly series that explores the pleasures, frustrations and excitement of sex in the lives of Nigerians.

The subject of today’s Sex Life is a 39-year-old heterosexual woman who left her husband after 10 months. She talks about how the end of her marriage and her return to Nigeria accelerated the course of her sex life.

What was your first memorable sexual experience?

I think I was 16 or 17. I went out with a few friends in Central London, and we bumped into a couple of guys. One of them liked my friend, so I started talking to his friend. A few days later, we all ended up at my friend’s place.

She had a bunk bed, so she was on the top bunk with her guy and I was on the bottom bunk with mine. We made out for a bit and then he went down on me. It was nice.

What happened after that?

A few months later, we started dating, and I had sex for the first time with him. The sex was fine — it wasn’t fantastic, but it also wasn’t bad. I had heard a lot of bad “first time” stories, but that wasn’t the case for me.

Then shortly after we started dating, he brought up the idea of us having a threesome with his best friend — the guy my friend hooked up with. I agreed, and when we did it, I realised his friend was a better lover.

LMAO. Wow. Did you sleep with his friend again?

Yeah. Once my relationship ended — it lasted about three or four months — I started having sex with him. It wasn’t that serious. It was just a friend with benefits situation that lasted for about a year.

How did your ex react to that?

He was cool about it. There was even a time I went back to sleep with him, and when I didn’t enjoy the sex as much as I had before, he joked that his friend’s bigger dick had made me stop appreciating his.

LMAO. What happened after you stopped sleeping with his friend?

I got into a few more relationships. They were either very short or mostly about sex. Then when I was 23, I met the guy I ended up marrying. We didn’t have much in common, but sex with him was incredible.

We broke up for about a year, I dated other guys, and then we got back together. I used to do the whole body count thing before I realised it was stupid and stopped, but before we got married, I had definitely slept with a lot of guys.

How old were you when you got married?

I was 26.

How was married sex?

It was lit. The only thing we had going for us throughout that relationship was great sex. By the time we actually got married, the relationship was already disintegrating. I found out that he was a compulsive cheater and liar.

We lived together as a married couple for about 10 months, but even when things were really bad between us, we still had sex. For me, it was like, if I needed to get my orgasm, I would.

LMAO. I stan. Can I ask why you married him though?

At the time I met him, that was just what you did. I had finished university and was working, so it felt like the logical next step. I also got pregnant a few months after we got back together.

We started living together, but we broke up again months after we had our daughter because it became clear to me that he wasn’t serious. He came back to beg, and I forgave him. Then we got married pretty quickly after that due to family pressure.

So, what went wrong?

I found out he was cheating on me with his ex, with whom he already has a child, so that derailed the marriage. After I left, I learnt he had gotten another woman pregnant while I was pregnant — my daughter has a stepbrother that’s four days younger.

Then to top it all off, he got his ex pregnant again in the 10 months we were married.

Na wa. How was sex after married life?

LMAO. That’s when the fun really started. I knew my marriage was officially over when I visited Lagos and ended up hooking up with one of my brother’s friends. That unlocked something in me because when I returned to England, I was wilding out.

I got back to sleeping with any guy I wanted to. Then I moved back to Lagos about a year and a half after the marriage ended, and it was insane. People always told me about Nigerians being shy about sex, but that was not my experience at all.

Before I came to Lagos, I never used to understand how a woman could get pregnant and not know who the father was. Then in one day, I had sex with a guy, got head from another and almost slept with a third. The last two happened at a sex party.

LMAO. Wow. Did you have a steady partner during this time?

For about five months, yes. I met him during my NYSC year. He had a girlfriend in a different state, but we really connected — he was basically my soulmate, but he still had his girlfriend.

Once, I decided to end things, and we ended up having goodbye sex for seven hours. But then things continued till I left Lagos.

Damn. How long were you in Lagos?

About two years. After my marriage, it’s not like I hated men, but I didn’t trust them. They were just a means to get my orgasms. Living in Lagos was also cathartic because no one knew me, so I didn’t have to answer questions about my marriage.

It was also very easy to meet men. When I was in London, I only ever dated Black men, so being in Lagos and seeing only Black men made me feel like a kid on Christmas Day. Plus, unlike British men, Nigerian men were not shy about chatting me up.

Even married men were always trying to get with me.

Oh? Did you ever answer them?

Initially, I was very black and white — I didn’t sleep with or date married men. Then on my 30th birthday, I made out with a married man. The attraction was palpable, and we would have had sex if either of us had protection that night.

Then a few years later, I met one of my brother’s friends who I had made out with when I was 18. He was now married, but he didn’t seem happy in it. To be honest, I didn’t actually care whether he was happy or not. I slept with him because of our past connection.

I think once I crossed that line on my 30th birthday, the lines got blurry. Now, I no longer believe in monogamy. If you’re married, that’s on you, it has nothing to do with me. The only thing I hate is when men lie about their marital status.

Interesting. So, how different are things now that you’re in your 30s?

I’ve mostly stopped giving a fuck. I’ve always attracted men, but in my 20s, I went out of my way not to draw too much attention to myself. I have a big ass, so I always tried to avoid dressing too provocatively.

Now, I’m just like, “This is the body God gave me. Deal with it.”

Mad. What about sex?

After I came back from my sex spree in Nigeria, I decided to take a break and actually deal with the end of my marriage. So, I was celibate for about 18 months. By the end of it, I was gagging for sex.

It’s been a rollercoaster since then. For about four years, I went through a dip where I couldn’t find guys that could satisfy me sexually, but now, I’m with a guy who is my sexual match and then some. We’ve been together for a year.

Are you sleeping with just him?

Yes, but I think that’s mostly because of the pandemic. Sex with him is great, but I’m missing the emotional aspect of a relationship, so I’ve been curious about seeing other people once the world opens back up.

Like at the same time?

Yeah. I want to try polyamory. I know it will be hard to find willing men, but I want to. I also want to try more threesomes and finally have sex with a woman. I’ve found myself admiring women’s bodies a lot more, so I’m curious.

How would you rate your sex life on a scale of 1 to 10?

I’ll give it a 9. I’d have given it a 10, but every now and then, the lover shows his ass and reminds me that he is a man. That being said, I’m having the best sex I’ve ever had in my life.

NerdEfiko

March 20, 2021

Ships

divorce, husband, marriage, sex life
The subject of this week’s What She Said is a 61-year-old woman who left her family behind a few years ago to start a new life in Europe. She talks about why she left, the backlash she received and why she doesn’t regret it.

When did you know that you absolutely had to leave Nigeria?

After I missed my first opportunity to leave. Before I got married, I had planned to marry someone else whom I went to school with. Even though we had not seen each other in years, we kept in touch through letters. He was in America in university, while I was in Nigeria working as a clerk in a bank. This was the 80s; things were not working with the coups and unrest in parts of the country. I was still managing myself. I was alright. Then he asked me if I wanted to get married and move to America with him.

Just like that?

I was very excited. I wanted to do it. I was almost 30. I was worried about not getting married. Most of my friends at the time were getting married. So I agreed. Then I told my parents. They also agreed after much convincing and pressure. However, just before he was to fly in for the ceremony — we had prepared very well — a religious leader, a prophetess, that was my mother’s friend said I couldn’t marry him, that she saw something bad waiting for me. What it was, she didn’t say. My mother refused to give me consent to marry him. She just cancelled all the plans. My father was not on her side, but he couldn’t help her change her mind. I cried.

That’s very sad. Did this change your relationship with your parents?

No. I was very angry inside, but outside I still had to respect my mother. It’s not like now where you can do anything you want and get away with it. I couldn’t just do anyhow to her. I continued to respect her. My mother kept convincing me that someone was coming.

So when I lost the opportunity to leave Nigeria at that time, I realised I really wanted to go away from home and start afresh somewhere else. I started working towards it and saved a lot of money. However, my dad fell sick, and we had to pay plenty of medical bills. My small savings went dry.

Oh wow.

My mother introduced me to someone and we started courting, then we got married soon after because I got pregnant. I wasn’t yet sure if I wanted to marry him, but I was not very interested in having a baby outside wedlock. In fact, I didn’t want to marry him. But there was pressure. I decided to marry him and close that chapter.

Did you like anything about him?

Like? It was money I was looking at and social standing. Can he hold his own in public? Can he have conversations? Is he respectable? He was okay.

How was the marriage?

It was fine. I was satisfied most of the time. We had children quickly. Four girls. This childbirth didn’t let me advance in my career as I would have liked. I wanted to go back to school and get a proper role in the bank. So it was as if I was stuck in one place for a long time. Meanwhile, my husband was doing very well in his own career. I was envious.

Were you two in the same career paths?

No. But he was very selfish. He didn’t help around the house, he didn’t take care of the children. So he was progressing and I was just going backwards. It took me long to bring it up with him and when I did, he said he was doing what was best for the family, but it wasn’t best for me.

What did you do?

I continued managing myself. At some point, I quit working because it didn’t seem like it was working out. I even tried other things on the side, but they never really went off the ground because you just had to be present for the children.

I don’t blame anyone for what happened. I was the one who was having children like it was nothing. Maybe if I planned my career properly or planned child birth properly, it would have been better. Also, support would have been good, and I didn’t have a lot of that. The worst part for me was seeing all my friends leave Nigeria.

Why were they leaving?

Nigeria has never worked and people have always been leaving. In the 90s, a lot of my friends and even family members left. I wanted to leave, but it’s not easy when you have four children and a husband that doesn’t even want to leave. My brother’s wife and children were kidnapped once, and we found out that the police were working with the kidnappers. That was one event that drove me mad and angry with Nigeria.

I remember one night I had a conversation with my husband about it. I suggested that we come up with a plan to leave, it wasn’t like we didn’t have the money. He said, “It won’t be possible right now.” He gave a few reasons which seemed reasonable to him. He said we can’t just uproot the children’s lives. He said we had property in Nigeria. That we had family members who depended on us. These were just excuses. If only I had suspected that he was hiding something.

He was hiding something?

He was hiding another family.

Like wife and children?

Yes, like wife and children. I didn’t find out at the time. We just moved on after he said it won’t be possible. Luckily for me, once the last born was in primary school, more opportunities started to come, and I started working again. This time I separated my savings into an emergency fund and travelling fund. The money inside the emergency fund was for anybody that wanted to die. That was all they would get. Travelling fund was for me to leave.

What was your target for the travelling fund?

Can I even remember right now? I just knew that before year 2000, I had to have left with the last two children, and then I’d start making plans to bring the others. Of course, something came up and my travel fund finished.

What happened?

My husband wanted to start a business, and he begged for my support financially. This one too is my fault. So they won’t say that I’m a bad wife, I supported him. So things started to look okay: his business was doing well, we had built our own home, I had a good job and our children were doing fine. I abandoned my dream of leaving at that point.

How did you find out about the other family?

The business he started was an import business. So he used to travel a lot. Once when he travelled, I called the friend he would normally stay with, but it was his wife that picked. It was his wife, who was also like a friend to me, that told me that she was suspecting something because my husband hadn’t shown up in their house since he arrived in the country.

She was the one who discovered the family. Before she even told me, she and her husband confronted him, and he said I wouldn’t believe them.

Wow, how did you feel?

I take everything in stride. I don’t like stress. But at that point, I was tired. I just wanted to leave. I called my children before my husband returned and I told them, look, this is what is happening, this is what I know. After that, I just went to sleep. Should I have told them at that point? I don’t know, but it was a lot for me to grapple with. The first child of the other wife, according to my friend, was a 10-year-old boy. This was in 2005. My husband confessed by himself eventually. He said I had four girls for him, of course he went outside. What was I expecting?

Wow.

At that point, I didn’t even say, let me save any money. I just started borrowing money here and there, sold my gold, sold my parent’s land, got a visa, packed my things and left. I didn’t tell him I was going anywhere. Just my children.

I had a lot of help from family members and friends. That was how I started putting my life together again. It’s not like things are perfect now. But I’m less stressed. I don’t look like I did when I was in Nigeria.

How did your family and friends take it when you left?

My children are grown up, so they’re fine. We are even planning for the younger ones to join me after their university education. It was people like church members and extended family who condemned me. This was funny because it was in that same church that a visiting pastor told me that he could see my husband with another woman in a “vision”, and then he prayed for the woman to disappear. This was shortly after I found out about my husband’s other family. Word must have spread.

You’re still married. What about a divorce?

I don’t even have strength. As far as I’m concerned, I’m free.

What about your husband?

He’s still well off and living his life. He wanted us to talk about it in the beginning. He wanted me to come back. I told him I’m not a dog, I don’t eat my vomit.

For more stories like this, check out our #WhatSheSaid and for more women like content, click here

Ope

November 18, 2020

Her, What She Said

abroad, divorce, marriage, what she said
Sex Life is an anonymous Zikoko weekly series that explores the pleasures, frustrations and excitement of sex in the lives of Nigerians.

The subject of this week’s Sex Life is a 39-year-old heterosexual woman who has only ever enjoyed sex with older men. Since she got married 10 years ago, she’s only enjoyed sex with her sugar daddies.

What was your first sexual experience?

I was an avid Mills & Boon reader from around age 14. By the time I was 16 and leaving secondary school, I wanted to have sex. One evening, a neighbour tried to force me to give him a blow job. I bit him and ran. I became afraid and a little more determined to be in control after that. So when I had sex with the first guy that toasted me in 100 level, I didn’t tell him I was a virgin. The sex was horrible.

You could tell it was horrible even though you didn’t have much to compare it to.

Yes. I knew he must have done something wrong because I had done plenty of research and was actively masturbating and giving myself orgasms.

So what happened after that horrible experience?

I dumped him. A few weeks later, I started sleeping with a much older guy who had a ‘permanent’ girlfriend. The sex was great and thus began my serial adventures.

How old was he?

He was 30. We used to have sex almost everyday. At a point, I was practically attending classes from his house. One evening, we were in the middle of sex in the bathroom when this guy’s babe started knocking. He refused to open and she cried and shouted for hours. Years later, I would use that as a reason not to trust any man: all guys cheat.

In fact, after I got bored and we stopped seeing each other, I started sleeping with a 34-year-old who was married and lived in another city. I was still actively dating someone in school.

That lasted a few years until the guy’s wife came all the way to the city I was in to beg me to stop sleeping with her husband. I felt so bad and humiliated; I didn’t date a married man again for many years.

What was the sexual relationship with the person you were dating in school like?

The sex was crappy. The guy thought he was a stud. All the girls in school wanted him and were angry he was dating me — if only they knew. I think I hung on to him for the cool factor. He was my alcohol and party plug. He also had a car in school.

Did you date any young person in university that you genuinely enjoyed sex with?

Nope. Except for that one time I dated someone who was about two years older. The sex was good, but he was too lovey dovey. That constantly irritated me.

What happened after university?

I dated another older guy. He must’ve been in his 40s. I even spent some months living with him. He was a sex animal. One time he brought a girl home, had sex with her in one room, then had sex with me in another. I knew she was there and didn’t care. Another time he brought one girl for both of us to have a threesome with.

The problem with this guy was that he was very controlling. He was the first person I dated that made me realise that men want to have you for themselves. They want to be free to do as they like, but they don’t want you to have anyone else. After him, I refused to date for a long time.

Were you having sex during this time?

Yes. I had an off and on thing with a guy from my hometown. We still call each other the loves of our lives

A few years back, I still had something with him. He’s married and I’m married as well, so it ended badly. He wanted to leave his wife and I felt he was just using me. We have great sex, but our friendship is more important, so I cut him off.

When did you get married?

2010. I was 29. My family was mounting pressure on me to get married. I had a boyfriend I barely liked and he desperately wanted to marry me, so I said why not. I already knew I would be a bad wife. I didn’t want a husband.

What was the sex like with him before marriage?

It sucked then. It still sucks now. My partner is very lazy in bed and I don tire to complain.

Is the marriage any different from the sex?

Hmm. Not really.

I did not start out with the intention to cheat. I have had difficulties carrying a pregnancy to full term — I’ve had seven miscarriages and we’re still childless. In his nonchalant attitude towards joining me in finding a lasting medical solution, I met an older man. The first of three older men.

Tell me about him.

He’s 20 years older and divorced. I met him at one work thing; we just started talking, one thing led to another and he said he wanted to have sex with me. I said to myself, ‘Why not?’ It might be better than what you are currently getting. And boy was it better, far better. He was always buying me gifts. I became so used to having extra money, I had to break it off after he became clingy and wanted to marry me. Around this time, I was considering ending my marriage, but family pressure prevailed and I stayed.

What happened next?

I moved away from home (and my husband) to another city for work and that’s how I met this rich politician. He’s married, but his wife and three kids live in another country, so he lives as though he is single. We were sex buddies for a long time and though the sex wasn’t all that, I kept seeing him because he was good with dropping money. At this point, I wanted to try getting pregnant with someone else to see if it would stay and my husband would be forced to divorce me. I told this man and he refused. He said that he had enough children.

You’re really determined to have kids.

I have always wanted children even when I didn’t want a husband. If I had known things would turn out like this, I would have just tried getting pregnant instead of getting married. I love children. I know the responsibilities involved in having children. I practically raised my last sibling and one of my nieces. Not having children gives you a measure of freedom, I know, but I still want them. Children of your own make a difference. There’s a bond separate from what you have with your nieces and nephews.

Fair. So what happened after? Did you end things?

Yeah, things ended and for two years after that, I was alone. I only had sex once or twice a year, whenever I saw my husband. Remember, we didn’t live in the same city, so we didn’t see each other all the time.

The sex was still the same old boring sex.

Sad. What’s your sex life these days?

I am on my third sugar daddy and, honestly, he is the best. The sex is great, I have mindblowing double orgasms. What they say about ijaw men is true. Imagine a 55-year-old who gives great career advice, corrects my academic papers, encourages me to start a PhD, is generous to a fault and has mad bedroom skills and stamina.

I make a lot of money, but my friend, there’s nothing like free money to spend on gold and live the baby girl lifestyle.

Mad. Have you tried bringing up the baby issue with him?

Oh yes. He has agreed to start trying on the condition that I stop sleeping with my husband. I have agreed totally. If I can get pregnant and carry to term I would be eternally grateful to him and thank God he’s not looking for a wife now or anytime in the future.

We recently just got tested just so we can start having unprotected sex.

I should mention that I am also trying to adopt legally, but the process is frustrating in Nigeria.

I’m super curious about your relationship with your husband. I know it’s not working, but how do you manage the long distance?

It just works. I’ve asked for separation and he didn’t agree, so.

I don’t like being married and if I had to advise my younger self, I would tell her not to bow to the pressure of getting married. Marriage is not for everyone. Yes, I want children. Yes, I like sex. But I am a serial monogamist and I think marriage in the Nigerian sense is not really beneficial for people like me. Unless one is lucky to meet a really great person

Fair enough. Do you think he might also be cheating?

Hmm. Let me just mention that he now has two children. He had one before we got married. He had another one a few years ago. I didn’t want to bring that up, so it doesn’t sound like an excuse for sleeping with others. My dear, life is not straightforward.

It’s not. So, how would you rate your sex life?

7 over 10. I get great sex now, but not as often as I would want because we are both busy. But he’s so good and he has money for his baby girl. My dear, what more can I ask for?

Ope

September 12, 2020

Sex Life

Cheating, divorce, marriage, sugar daddy
The subject of this week’s What She Said is a 32-year-old Nigerian woman who grew up resenting her mother for marrying and divorcing three times. Now that she’s older, a feminist and has been divorced once, she says she understands.

Let’s talk about growing up. What was that like?

We moved a lot. It was a bit adventurous, but it also didn’t feel good. I never felt rooted in something and I still don’t. Not friends, not places, not things. One minute we were in the North, the next, we were in Oyo, then we came to Lagos.

Why were you moving around a lot?

Hmm. We were moving for or because of men o.

Let me start from the beginning. My mother married early. I think she was 18. The man she married was twice her age. This was way before I was born. She was a Muslim then and lived in the North with her husband. She had two children for him. Then she converted to Christianity and the extended family said that she can’t be married to their son and be Christian.

The man too did not defend her. They divorced and she moved to another town. They didn’t let her take her first two children though and that really broke her. I was born about 8 months after she moved to the new town. Immediately after I was born, she moved to the South.

Now, here’s the thing, I don’t know if I was conceived before she left her first husband or if she was seeing someone after she left him. I don’t think that she herself, she knew. So, where did I come from?

You don’t know or you’re not sure who your father is.

My dear, I really don’t. Sometimes, I just tell myself that I fell from heaven. That one is sweeter to hear.

LMAO. Did you ever ask your mother about this?

A ton of times. She’d say I should leave her jare.

But that’s not even the problem. The problem was that she was always seeing or marrying someone new and each time, we’d have to move for them. I don’t remember much from before I was 5, so I can’t say if there were any male figures around and there are no pictures to prove this, but I know that she married again when I was five. I know because she did a church wedding and I was the flower girl or something.

That marriage didn’t last a year. They used to fight about money. My mother used to sell gold and at the same time teach in a school. By some standards, she was rich. He used to ask her for the money in order to help her save it. Savers club. My guy spent the money on drinks and women. Sharp guy.

What?

It pained my mother and she didn’t hide her pain. She was very vocal — she’d say what was on her mind, so when she found out, she gave it to him rough.

My grandmother who lived with us didn’t want her to leave this marriage because she didn’t think that the problems they had were bad and because my mother was ‘getting older’ — she was in her late 20s at this time o. My mother in addition to being vocal has strong-head. So she did what she wanted and left the marriage. We didn’t even have anywhere to go. One day, she just packed our things and we hit the road.

You know the plot twist?

What?

My grandmother left my grandfather for something similar. She told me this recently. They were never married, but they lived together, and he used to sell stuff from her farm for her. He was typically supposed to remit the full money to her, but would only remit some and pocket the rest. My grandmother was okay with this. She felt it was her contribution to the home. A few years later, she found out that he had another family elsewhere and that it was her money he was using to feed them.

Omo.

That’s the only reaction I could think of when she told me about it.

Did she leave him?

Yeah. Not immediately. It was when my mother started having children that she left. She hasn’t turned back. She doesn’t even know where he is right now.

You come from a line of women who know their rights.

Back then, this was known as ‘waywardness’.

Fair point.

I can tell that my grandmother was trying to protect my mother from the public backlash that came with marrying, divorcing and remarrying.

And she did get a ton of backlash from the catholic church she attended because she was single. Then she moved to protestant and she got backlash there for remarrying. Do you know that this woman eventually just gave up on her religion. She still sent me to church, but I never saw her go to church except for weddings for the rest of her life.

That sounds reasonable. When did the third husband come in?

Ah before the third husband, there was a love interest. They fell in love in one day oh. My mother went to the market and came home to tell us that we were moving. We were still settling into life away from her ex when this guy came into the picture and carried us to Lagos. My mother was a beautiful woman, premium hotcake so I can see why these men didn’t leave her alone. He promised her the world. Gold oh, silver oh, diamond oh. When they got to Lagos, tell me where this man was living.

Where?

Face-me-I-slap-you.

NO.

This was the 90s self. Those houses weren’t so bad back then. The worst part was that he had four children and expected that my mother would take care of the children in their one room and parlour.

Wow.

This man did nothing but sit at home, watch TV and make demands of my mum. He was annoyed that my grandmother and I were in the picture, but he was generally nice to us. We didn’t have anywhere to go, so we stayed a few months before my mother uprooted our lives and took us away.

This move particularly pained me (as a child) because I was finally among children my age and it was fun. Uncomfortable, but fun. I used to pray for us to never move. My grandmother used to pray for us to leave. When we finally left him, my grandmother gave serious thanksgiving in church.

During this time, my mother had a good job working in a school. We were somehow able to get a space in the school to stay. That’s where we went until she found husband number three. I told her that if we left, I’d kill myself. We had a big fight.

Yikes. That must have caused a dent in your relationship?

If I’m being honest, we didn’t have a great relationship before or after then. So this one was just drama. On my end, it increased my resentment. It made me more inclined to believe what people said about my mother, that she was good for nothing.

Was that her last husband?

Yup. He was emotionally abusive and used to threaten her a lot. Of course, I didn’t know this at the time. I just felt that my mother was the problem. I believed anyone who has left two husbands and couldn’t maintain stable relationships needed to examine themselves. I was too young to really understand the peculiar relationship between womanhood and marriage.

What kind of things did he do?

He’d compare her to other women, laugh at her, call her names — things like that.

That sucks. How long was she with him?

Quite a long time. The longest she had been with any man. Maybe 5 years. I know that I was about entering university when she left him finally. And it was because he called her a prostitute. She just packed and left with us again. She was able to afford to leave because her previous marriages had taught her to save. She moved into her uncompleted building — a bungalow that she had been building for years — when we left. I’m not even sure if she ever got officially divorced from him. But they separated and a few years later, my mother died.

Now that you’re older and you have more context, what do you think of your mother’s life?

She lived. I still don’t think that I like that her life revolved more around her men than herself or her career. But for a woman who wasn’t all too educated or empowered, she seemed to be quite knowledgeable. She made mistakes, but she didn’t let that determine her outcome.

You know the most import thing I learned from my mother?

What?

Don’t be afraid to say ‘no’ or to gather yourself together and move on after you fail or make mistakes. Life is too short to be doing anyhow. This was her outlook towards her failed businesses, her failed marriages and relationships. It was her outlook towards religion too.

Solid. What about you, how’s your love life?

Nonexistent right now. But I used to be married.

What happened?

We were in love — sometimes, I think I still love him self. One day though, we had an argument about something and he threatened to kill me. I realised, even though we forgave each other and move on from whatever caused the fight, that I became very scared of him and it affected my mental health.

When I had my daughter, I was diagnosed with postpartum depression and was suicidal. I woke up one day and decided I had to leave. Even my grandmother was supported me too. She thinks that my mother’s marriages and relationships with men killed her. She doesn’t want me to die young. Me self, I no wan die.

What would you have done differently if you were your mother?

I’m not sure if I would have done anything differently. I can only assume.

But one thing is, I wish I had a better relationship with her. I wish I was more empathetic. I wish we spoke more and I had more context. I’m still unearthing several things about her life from letters, other documents and through my grandmother.

Now I just do my best to be a good mother to my daughter. I’m not afraid to instill some of the lessons I learned from my mother’s life. Two major things I’m teaching her: it’s important to be a feminist. Secondly, you don’t have to get married or be into men.

Aww. How old is she?

Three. If you don’t get them started early, you’ll regret it.

If you’d like to share your experience as a Nigerian woman, send me an email.

Ope

August 26, 2020

Her, What She Said

Children, divorce, Feminism, marriage, Religion, travel
Every week, Zikoko seeks to understand how people move the Naira in and out of their lives. Some stories will be struggle-ish, others will be bougie. All the time, it’ll be revealing.

This week’s story pulled off in collaboration with Payday Investor. Before you start to make plans about your next salary, click here.

First money you earned ever?

I think it was in secondary school. We made earrings in school with beads, and then we sold it on Open Day, that felt nice.

Also, my mum owned a restaurant, and I’d help her with work. But my first proper earning was in 2012 when my mum hired me for a catering job – she got a gig and made me the Project Manager. It was less than two weeks, and she paid me ₦50k.

How old were you then?

19. Next was NYSC, I started serving in March 2013. The state I served, you were paid ₦20k per quarter, but you had to travel to the capital to get that money. I didn’t think it was worth it, so I never went to get it. By the way, I was also an apprentice at a tailor’s shop. In fact, I paid them to learn at the time. Add to that, I attended a fashion design school while I was in Uni.

So it’s something you care about a lot.

Yes. When I finished serving in 2014, my parents set up a tailoring business for me. My mum had the equipment, and we had space, so it was easy to carve out an office. While that was kicking off, I applied for a teaching job, because I wanted to do something else that I cared about.

I started in May 2014 part-time. It paid ₦14,500. I really wasn’t doing it for the money, I just wanted to do it. So I was teaching and doing the tailoring business at the time.

How much was tailoring giving you?

I really can’t remember, but I know it fetched enough money for me to buy two phones that year. I didn’t have to ask my parents for money, and I could even chip in with house stuff.

Anyway, I dropped my teaching in January 2015, after about nine months, so I focused on tailoring. Then in August that year, I had to quit tailoring too, because I was travelling away from home for my Masters. September that year, my mum got a catering job in another state, and I had to travel ahead to go sort everything and make sure everything was in place. In the end, she paid me ₦200k.

I didn’t get any income for the rest of the year.

What came next?

I got married in 2016 and had to move to a different city, North-Central. It was hard to be idle – I’d never been idle for as long as I could remember – so I taught myself how to make pastries. Then I started selling. I went to fairs, trying to get the product out. The first fair was a disaster. I paid ₦12k for the stall and made only ₦6k – this was November 2016.

In January 2017, I went for another fair, and I sold out completely – I can’t remember, but I made about ₦50-something-k.

I was taking orders from home, and that felt steady. I went for another fair in March, and it was around that time I stopped because I suddenly couldn’t stand the smell of my kitchen.

Uhm, pregnancy?

Yep. I had my baby in November 2017. But at this time, I was already looking for a space to rent for my tailoring business. Eventually, I found one, and renovations and all that lasted into January.

But in February 2018, my marriage ended – I got a divorce and took my baby with me. He’d rented the house, I furnished it. So I packed all my stuff and returned to my family – my parents took full responsibility of and for me.

Woah.

I already had orders from my tailoring, but because I couldn’t deliver on time – the whole divorce thing – I didn’t charge them. I tried my hands at tailoring again, in June 2018 – I rented space in someone’s shop. But, I’d just gone back to school, and I had a kid, so I had to stop again. Stress.

All this while, I’d been applying for jobs, and then in September, I got called for an interview. Barely two weeks later, I started at the job – a lecturing job – for ₦171k.

It was also around this time I got my own place. It took a lot of convincing my parents to let me get a place of my own. I needed my own space, for my baby, for my Maid. My parents paid for my rent, and it cost ₦1.3 million.

They’re the MVPs.

They’re basically taking care of me. Entirely.

In all this time, what’s your perspective about money?

It’s funny how people say money is not everything when it really is everything. My salary isn’t enough for me to do anything at all. It doesn’t cover my rent, or feeding, or child.

I’m a wanderer at heart, but my salary won’t let me travel anywhere.

So how do you cover your other expenses?

My father. Every month, he sends money for everything – my feeding, child’s feeding, bills, etc. I’ve only ever bought pieces of clothing for my child, my parents always buy clothes, especially when they travel.

My biggest fear is always when my child falls sick. It happened a few months ago, and if my parents weren’t there, how would I have been able to afford to pay the ₦40k that we spent that day?

What’s an average month like, caring for your little one?

Let’s look at your full expense breakdown

A lot of my savings is really so that I can afford to travel for conferences and the likes. Then my emergency fund is me saving up for horrible case scenarios when I can’t get money from my dad.

Looking at your career, how much do you think you should be earning?

Somehow, I feel like this is fair, by Nigerian standards. Every day, I ask myself how long I’d have to work to be able to earn ₦500k per month at a teaching job. How much do you think you’ll be earning in 5 years?

If I stay in academia, it’ll most likely be about ₦250k. But if it’s not in academia, good money, whatever that means then.

My good money is not stressing, not depending on my parents, while also having enough for one vacation a year. Being able to fully support my needs and my kid’s. Like, I stress about not being able to pay for her school fees.

Right now, my good money would be ₦700k.

What do you do when you’re sick?

I personally refuse to acknowledge I’m sick. So I eat and sleep my way through any signs or illness/discomfort. And I am sick a lot. All the time. Plus I hate medication. So I don’t even mention it or I keep saying oh I’m sick but never do anything about it. At most, I take panadol hahaha.

When was the last time you felt really broke?

So it’s either between one of these two times.

First was in 2016. I was still married and I wasn’t working. We got into a huge fight – continuing from where we left off a few days before. I was so pissed because I’d grudgingly agreed to let it go. And he brought it up. I was certain I was done. I packed a bag. And I realised I had less than ₦2k in my account. That wasn’t going to take me anywhere. I was so frustrated. That hurt me more than the problem that was making me leave to begin with.

I was so helpless and didn’t want to ask anyone. It was one of my lowest points in life. If I just had some vex money, I’d have left. No hassle. Nothing.

There was also that other time in 2018 – where all of a sudden – my kid got sick. Her eyes started watering. And it felt like her temperature started spiking. I don’t think I had up to ₦5k with me. There was no way that was going to cover consultation and medication. I was panicking. My heart hurt. I didn’t want to call anyone. So I took her to a 24hrs pharmacy. At 10 pm ish. Came back with less than ₦1k.

I never want to be in that position ever again. I never want to feel so helpless.

Is investment something you’ve ever really considered?

Nope. Well, kinda. I put ₦40k from my first salary into some investment scheme. Mostly because my mum insisted and I thought it wouldn’t be a bad idea. I was supposed to get credited monthly, but I haven’t received anything. I hear the thing collapsed or something.

The only thing I think about using my savings for is travel, which doesn’t make sense, because I can’t afford it. But then I think about it as an investment – investing in myself, hahaha.

Seriously though, I think about it, I want to invest, I just don’t know what to invest in, or how to go about it. Not sure who to talk to.

Happiness levels, 1-10?

4. No, 3. Because my salary isn’t enough to take care of me and my kid. In any way at all. If my parents weren’t taking care of me, I’d not be able to hold things up.

I believe in doing and investing in things you genuinely love doing. That way, you put in everything and are hopeful that it translates into results. So I have an opportunity to start a food business. Once I raise funds to start up, I’m good. So yes, getting funds will be a good starting point to raise that happiness level.

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Fu’ad Lawal

June 24, 2019

Naira Life

divorce, Lecturer, parenting, Single Mum
Getting married to the love of your life is the ultimate ‘happy ever after’. Most especially here, where till death do us part is taken quite literally. Divorce is never the answer, but for this 29 year old woman it was.

How did you meet?

Through our parents. I used to make a joke to my friends about how my marriage was arranged. His parents thought it was about time he settled down, so did mine. I don’t even know if there was a courting period. Both our parents were so involved from the get-go, we both knew how it was going to end.

And the proposal?

Came about 9/10 months after we met. It might as well have been the introduction. There was no ring right away. He had his parents escort him to meet with my parents and I, to inform us of his intention to marry me. After he spoke and his dad spoke, my dad turned to me and just asked do you accept, and I nodded.

Did you feel coerced?

No. Never. Not even a little bit. For me, it was just why not. I had never had a boyfriend, never dated anyone. Before we met I had always wondered how I’d go about it. He’s also has a genuinely good heart. There were just no downsides to it.

So no ring?

Oh the ring came, a couple of weeks after. Lol very unceremoniously though. He just sort of handed it to me.

How old were you?

23, I turned 24 a couple of months after the wedding.

The wedding was…

Small by Nigerian standards. About 300 guests in total. My parents are simple people they hate anything elaborate. I think his Mum would have liked something bigger. But my parents are very persuasive.

The honeymoon…

Didn’t happen. It was marriage then husband’s house. There’s a significant age difference between us so he was already settled down, living in a family appropriate accommodation.

The first year was…

Uneventful really. We were like housemates. I cooked and cleaned, he went to work. I was working in my Uncle’s firm before we got married. And after the wedding, I just sort of stopped going. We attended social functions together and always had dinner together (his idea). He didn’t want kids right away so I had to get these shots every three months.

Were you in love?

I don’t know. I was quite fond of him in the early years. I don’t think we were as close as couples could be. But we had our moments.

How would you describe him?

As a deeply cultural man. Which is funny because he had spent quite some time abroad. And in my mind, that should bring about a certain level of exposure. I don’t think it was something I noticed before we got married. We never had conversations about things that affected both of us. He gave instructions. Our first tiff was when he asked me to get on birth control. He also asked me not to mention it to my parents. And I disagreed, I just didn’t keep anything from them. He said he was disappointed at my insubordination and didn’t talk to me for days.

The first odd thing was…

How often he travelled. He’d go for several weeks at a time. No business meeting takes that long. But that wasn’t the problem, it was that I couldn’t ask questions about it. When I did he’d chuckle and say ‘you too talk’ like he was talking to a ten-year-old. Then there was the policing of my clothes he didn’t want me wearing jeans, which I found ridiculous. The matter escalated and got to my parents. I stopped wearing jeans.

Other women?

I suspected but never cared enough to actually find out. There was the frequent travelling and many late nights, but I don’t think he ever brought another woman into our home.

You were married for?

6 years and 2 months. Separated for the last 3 years of the marriage.

What ended it?

I was deeply unhappy. I became increasingly independent as he became increasingly controlling. It felt unnatural to have every facet of my life be so utterly controlled by someone else. I don’t think I even felt that way with my parents.

How did the separation happen?

I just left. I didn’t leave with the intention of never going back at first. I just knew I wanted to leave. I called my sister in Abuja, asked to stay with her for a couple of weeks. Weeks turned into months, months turned into two years.

The most significant thing you did when you left?

I wore jeans to the airport when I was going to Abuja.

His reaction?

Do you know that I don’t know. He called incessantly for the first couple of weeks and I took the coward’s way out and ignored the calls. Then he just stopped. The first time I spoke to him after the separation was when I was asking for the divorce.

How’d he take it?

He protested the divorce at first even though we had been separated for three years. But it didn’t take a lot of time for him to cave. He too was tired. I wasn’t the subservient 23 year old he married. I’d protest decisions he made and ‘disobey instructions’. I was just tired of having my life controlled.

And your parents’ reaction?

Explosive. Jesus. Family meeting upon family were called and I was summoned. I didn’t attend. I’m so thankful for my sister because there was pressure on her to send me back to his house but she didn’t budge. My mum even came to my sister’s house to beg me. My dad’s own was I must not set foot back in his house. The more pressure I got from family, the more I dug my heels in.

They had still not come to terms with the separation when I told them about the divorce. 3 years after imagine. We are Catholic and one of the very few grounds of annulment don’t include being tire.d of your husband. I told them I’d think about it because of how badly they took the news. But I’ve finalized things with him.

What’s it like to be divorced under 30 and living in Nigeria?

I can’t say I know yet. For me that journey has only begun. I kept on wearing my ring throughout the separation. And only close friends and family knew about it. So everyone else naturally thought I was still with my husband. Those who knew I was staying with my sister assumed he was working abroad or something. We never corrected the misconception. But I finally stopped wearing my ring this year.

How did that feel?

Odd. Very odd. I wore the ring long enough for it to leave a permanent mark. Sometimes when I look at it, I sort of miss wearing the ring. It was a very nice ring.

Dating again?

Haha. No not really. I’ve been out on a date or two. But not dating dating and not interested. The only person worth my time right now is me.

Toketemu Ohwovoriole

April 24, 2019

Her, What She Said

divorce, love, marriage, nigerian culture
Nobody wants to go through a divorce. It is rarely amicable and often a bitter and hellish situation, where those involved try to outdo each other on who can draw the most blood.

Then there’s the financial support that has to be paid by the richer partner. Some divorcees dodge this. But one man decided to make the most of it.

He took spousal support to the next level when he made cheques that had printed images of his current wife and himself – for his ex-wife.

What better way than this to say “In your face”? Very classy.

[zkk_poll post=13902 poll=content_block_standard_format_4]

chioma

December 16, 2015

Gist

alimony, divorce, pettiness
If you’re a regular user of social media or follow Linda Ikeji or Bellanaija, you’d be aware that OAP Toke Makinwa was trending. But it’s not for the reasons you think, if you don’t know what happened.

It was reported that her husband, Maje Ayida, got his long time girlfriend pregnant, and in normal African fashion, quite a number of people are laying the blame at her door. But thankfully, even more people have gone after him.

But as with everything in Nigeria, the outrage and story will die within a month. People will only remember from time to time and shake their head in pity.

But what would have happened if Toke was in the U.S instead?

I’ll tell you.

Her marriage would most likely end in a divorce

After which she’s move on to serial dating. She’d date a rapper or basketball player, or both in succession. Infact any single, famous guy will do, as long as she gets to stay in the spotlight.

She’d have her own reality show

Remember Kendra, the Playboy bunny that stayed in the Playboy mansion? When her husband cheated, the ensuing drama was incorporated into her reality show to boost ratings.

Rachel Dolezal, the white woman pretending to be black, is in talks for her own reality show. Go figure.

Well I guarantee that had Toke been abroad, she certainly would have been signed up for one. Most people involved in scandals in the United States get to share their stories via this medium.

She’d be on the cover of magazines

She’d be featured on the cover of all the magazines that matter. And not just that, she’d be paid by them to sit for an interview as well.

She’d be invited to talk shows

I can see Iyanla all over this one, trying to put her soothing magic on Toke to help her move on. Ellen Degeneres wouldn’t pass this up. Then there’s Jimmy Kimmel and most probably Jerry Springer.

She’d have a clothing line

Which everybody hears of, but no one actually patronizes.

She’d be paid to make appearances at events

Millionaires and billionaires would pay to go on a date with her and she will go out with them. Promoters will pay for to show up to their parties and the party goers will pay top money just to get in.

She’d release a book or two

And it will detail her harrowing experience when she found out that her husband cheated. Another will probably detail her life’s history.

She’d have made cameos in critically panned movies

Probably the role of the sassy best friend with no backstory or character development.

She’d have had work done on her body

She would have gotten all the cosmetic surgery that she possibly could without it being obvious — and she will vehemently deny ever having had done any.

But she’s a citizen of Naija and not an Americanah. There’s a reason for that, as there is with everything. She’ll have to decide how she wants this to go down. Will she forgive her husband and stay with him or decide to cut ties?

Images: GistUs, Bellanaija, LoveWeddingsNG, Style Vitae

chioma

June 23, 2015

Pop

breakup, divorce, Maje Ayida, marriage, scandal, Toke Makinwa

As told to Boluwatife

What’s your earliest memory of money?

Why was money a frequent topic?

When was the first time you acted on this urge?

What happened?

What about after school?

How did that happen?

What did that mean for your career?

Before we go on, is being married to a man from a rich family anything like Nollywood depicts?

What was that like? Juggling childcare with a job?

How long did this go on for?

Hmm. Why?

Did you try to do other things to earn money?

What did you do next?

Damn. What was running a business while serving like?

That must have been tough

LOL. Did the job search yield results?

How were you managing three jobs?

Did you leave?

Sorry about that. You went from three income sources to one. What did that mean for you?

How did that go?

Wow. Paint me a picture of how you reacted to this

That kind of income jump probably came with some lifestyle changes as well

How’s your savings goal going?

Let’s do a breakdown of your typical monthly expenses

How would you describe your relationship with money now?

What’s that like?

Rooting for you. What do you think the future looks like for you?

How would you rate your financial happiness on a scale of 1-10?

What would make that number a 10?

Is there anything else you’d like to add that I haven’t asked?

When did you realise you were a man?

How did you deal with the grief, eventually?

I’m sorry.

At what point did you realise you were responsible for yourself?

How did you get into filmmaking?

What was your relationship with your dad like before he passed?

How did you handle your mum’s passing?

How’s your relationship with your son different from the one you have with your dad?

Tell me about getting married.

What went wrong?

How did you handle the divorce?

How did you get past it?

How did the divorce affect your son?

LMAO. What do you tell him?

LMAO. What’s it like parenting from a distance?

Interesting. Tell me about your biggest fear.

You’re really all about your work.

How’s your romantic life now?

Do you think you’ll have a family again?

When was the scariest moment of your life?

Oh, you’re raising your nephew? How’s that like?

What was your first memorable sexual experience?

What happened after that?

LMAO. Wow. Did you sleep with his friend again?

How did your ex react to that?

LMAO. What happened after you stopped sleeping with his friend?

How old were you when you got married?

How was married sex?

LMAO. I stan. Can I ask why you married him though?

So, what went wrong?

Na wa. How was sex after married life?

LMAO. Wow. Did you have a steady partner during this time?

Damn. How long were you in Lagos?

Oh? Did you ever answer them?

Interesting. So, how different are things now that you’re in your 30s?

Mad. What about sex?

Are you sleeping with just him?

Like at the same time?

How would you rate your sex life on a scale of 1 to 10?

What was your first sexual experience?

You could tell it was horrible even though you didn’t have much to compare it to.

So what happened after that horrible experience?

How old was he?

What was the sexual relationship with the person you were dating in school like?

Did you date any young person in university that you genuinely enjoyed sex with?

What happened after university?

Were you having sex during this time?

When did you get married?

What was the sex like with him before marriage?