If you are a single male or female intending to change marital status this year, then this piece is specifically for you. And if you are not, but know a friend, family member, neighbour or colleague planning to marry this year, then send this piece to that person, to know and avoid the red flags associated with marriage.
There are some marriages which ab-initio brandish signs that will lead to regret when the union comes to be, yet the intending couples would overlook the clear warning of the flashing red light and continue in the relationship.
It is surprising that most people would clearly see the handwriting on the wall, yet continue with the relationship. There are relationships that should not have been instituted for any reason in the first place.
I encountered a young man who gave his fiance a whopping sum of N5 million to buy her outfits for their traditional marriage and white wedding ceremonies. But the bride rejected the amount because she said it would not be enough for all the outfits she wanted to wear during the ceremonies
So, the man spoke with the would-be father-in-law and mentioned to him that he was building a house, which he said was his reason for not planning an elaborate wedding. To his shock, the yet-to-be father in-law told him to suspend the building project and finish the marriage and wedding ceremonies, first and foremost.
Shocked by that response, he asked him, “Where will I take your daughter after the wedding?
Promptly, the man called off the marriage after reading the handwriting on the wall.
The social media was abuzz recently, when an A-List celebrity music maestro announced that he and his wife were separating as the first step towards divorce. Netizens descended on him, and dragged him vehemently for the breakup of the marriage. While the storm raged, it was clear to all and sundry that the maestro already had children from his various Baby Mamas, long before his wife gave birth to two children for him. In one of the posts, a blogger quoted what the wife had said in the past: “He has five kids with other women. My first child is his 5th but I met him before everybody else. And then, you wake up and two different women are having babies for him.”
Going by the quote, the estranged wife of the music star subtly expressed her dissatisfaction over her husband’s cheating nature. Certainly, no one would be happy and okay with the cheating acts of the spouse. We are talking about a woman who has had two children for the man. Since their divorce became a public matter, almost all social media platforms have been on fire.
From the quote ascribed to the woman, one gleans that other ladies outside the union were producing babies for her supposed husband. Put the other way, the man was very busy sowing viable seeds in fertile and available soils, recklessly.
As it is now, where do the wedded wife and children stand? If investments and properties are to be shared among the children, what will be the share of the wife and children? Did the wife make a mistake by agreeing to marry her heartthrob?
Trust netizens turn into online judges, freely commenting and offering the usual manner their personal views. Some condemned the act of the music maestro for the timing of the announcement online. Some felt that from the onset, a marriage that came after the man already had several children from his Baby Mamas should not have taken place at all. On the other hand, the lady in the marriage, given what is on ground, should have planned and settled herself with the man’s fame and wealth when the going was good. Some held the view that both should have gone their separate ways for lack of trust and the serial cheating on the side of the man.
Cheating is not the only issue intending couples should be aware of always. What does one say about spouses transactional marriages? Years ago, a distant uncle got entangled with a well-to-lady named Rita, who was a highflying business lady. Back in the 80s, she was already making waves as an importer. Rita was also an unmarried lady, a mover and shaker of the society. The distant uncle, Patrick, was a simple civil servant and a part time accounting student. As Rita grew in leaps and bounds, a few men she came across were very intimidated by her financial stature, but Patrick was not. Both were seriously interested and they made moves for the marriage ceremony to take place. On visiting her family, Patrick noted that her relations did not consider him a worthy son-in-law. Their body language showed that they considered him a riffraff that had come to take advantage of their rich sister. “After her family’s poor attitude towards me, I reviewed our relationship and called it off. Rita did not understand but I made it clear to her that her family was transactional. They considered me a ne’er do well. They never appreciated my educational attainment. They considered me a nobody because I did not have visible and attractive monetary worth at the time. They would have preferred an already wealthy man as a worthy son-in-law. But then, they also forgot that their sister needed a man in her life at that time. They knew nothing about her love life. They were after their immediate gain from their sister, therefore any man seen around her was seen as a gold-digger. Her family prided themselves in her physical cash, while I was proud of my academic achievements which paid off with time.”
In the same vein, intending couples should be wary of competitive families. These are families that engage in competition to keep up with the Joneses. Ada was such a bright girl just like her husband, Dan, who got educated through scholarship. Though their backgrounds differ, Ada was the daughter of two civilized teachers of the golden years. Her siblings turned out to be successful professionals. Dan’s economic background was a negative so to say, but his brilliance got him a scholarship award that saw him through university education. With an intelligent wife behind him, Dan became a successful man. Yet, in most of his actions, he would wish to re-write history to have educated parents like his wife. It became a personal competition for the man within his mind. He was hell bent on getting to the height of his brothers-in-law. Dan’s marriage was not too peaceful because his family members took over the home, which many wives justifiably dislike. With time, the competitive husband overruled his wife in their personal business to fund his competitive nature.
Honestly, nobody about to marry should encounter jealous families. There are families that are jealous of either their brother-in-law or their sister-in-law. Not all siblings overseas who sent money home for projects enjoyed their sweat. So many brothers duped their blood brothers causing families to break.
Take the case of Aloysius who had been in Europe for about 20 years. He had experienced a lot of difficulty in regularising his immigration and residency documents. While working to perfect his papers, he was sending back money to fund his building projects. When he finally came home, he was reduced to tears. “All the money I sent home went into thin air,” Aloysius wailed as he realised that nothing was built. He left broken-hearted. After some time, his youngest sister got married to a more responsible man named Ignatius, known to all as IG, who promised to build Aloysius a decent apartment. True to his word, he built a state-of-theart twin duplex to the admiration of his brother-in-law. Aloysius was highly elated and made IG his project and logistics manager for almost all his businesses. Aloysius’s brothers who felt food had been taken from their mouths began to attack IG and make mockery of him. They peddled allegations against him, but Aloysius simply ignored them, because IG had shown his integrity. He continued to relate with IG. Through his honest service, he was able to earn his living too. When the jealousy became too much, Aloysius confronted his brothers for swindling him and demanded that they allow the young man to be. He also reminded them that an in-law could also be a brother’s keeper, especially when siblings fail. IG became the boss and fed fat while he also delivered.