Today is the last Sunday of June 2022, and this means that half of the year has passed. It is also a reminder of the mercies and grace we have received from God, given that many people who saw January 1 are not alive today, to testify of the Lord’s goodness. Many others are in the hospitals due to one sickness or the other. Therefore, just being alive and healthy is more than enough reason to rejoice and give thanks.
Now, a key question for men and women who are alive: where are you on the love radar with your spouse? Especially the men. If you are the examiner, what grade would you give yourself, considering the wrong attitude you show towards your partner? Have you been the kind of man who does not pay attention to the wife’s feelings, but physically and emotionally abuses her? Do you betray her by the way you present her to your siblings and other relations?
A friend once told me that her husband does not care how she feels when they are in the other room. “The moment he is sexually satisfied, he jumps out like a dog being chased away, not minding how I feel at such moments. He would not cuddle me, no caring, kind or loving word from a supposed lover who laid skin to skin with you.”
Do you belong to the category of married men who spend far more time with their side chicks than they spend at home with their wives? This crop of men are so unfaithful to their spouses. They definitely need to assess and determine the mark where the mercury stands in the love thermometer of their marriage. Is it cold, dull and gray? Or romantically and excitingly hot? Bear in mind that illicit relationships are known to have caused lingering generational problems in the families and communities.
Take the case of Jacob (surname withheld), a handsome, married and accomplished accountant, who had a side chick, Jane. At the time, Jane lived with a teenage niece. Soon enough the devil turned Jacob’s satanic adulterous eyes towards Carol and he started paying her unusual visits, whenever her aunt was not around. Of course, in no time Carol became pregnant and all hell broke loose. Jane inquired and discovered that her own lover was responsible. She threw Carol out, back to her mother who happened to be her elder sister and accused her of not raising a responsible daughter. In tears, Carol’s mother accused Jane of carelessness and recklessness, asking: “If Carol was your biological daughter, would you sit and watch her waste because of the callous act of a lecherous man?” The once close and warm relationship between two sisters rapidly degenerated to the point were they became sworn enemies because of the irresponsibility of the man and devilish stupidity of Carol. Jacob fathered a child as a result of the illicit relationship with the teenager. This caused deep pain to other people and shame to himself, leaving his reputation in tatters. It was the kind of monumental situation that legendary Afrobeat music maestro, Fela Anikulapo-Kuti, described as “double wahala for dead body.” How should Jacob’s wife feel about her handsome, successful accountant husband as she does the mid-year love assessment?
Again, where are the men who carry the tag, ‘Husband’ but have nothing to show for it? Those ones who make no contribution to the life of their wives? Such wives enjoy no protection or financial support from their husbands.
There are women who gain nothing in marriage with a particular man: no added education, no skill, no business, no love, no care and probably no children in the relationship, just nothing other than bearing the man’s name. Will such a woman be proud of her husband and score him high while quietly making a mid-year assessment?
Turn the camera angle a little and zoom in to those men who do not respect their in-laws. This class of men do not relate with their wife’s family, treating them with comtempt, not minding that the lady in question is a daughter to her parents, sister to her siblings, cousin, niece and friends to other people. Before getting married to the man, she had known other relatives all her life. Certain men marry and then cut the women completely off from their families, friends and relatives. One recent instance is the husband of Osinachi Nwachukwu, the gospel song artiste whose husband, Peter, is currently standing trial for allegedly murdering her.
When she died in questionable circumstances, stories emerged that Peter had allegedly shut her off from relatives. I have heard a high society woman cry out that her son-in-law never comes around to check on them – the parents-in-law. “Even when my husband was admitted in the hospital for weeks, the best he did was to make phone calls to us, meanwhile we live in the same city.”
This amounts to bad character, poor upbringing and lack of respect. I ask such men to do a mid-year love rating and classify themselves. It is important that such men retrace their steps because what goes around comes around. A day would come when their own daughters would be taken away in marriage, and they would receive such behavior from their son-in-law as well. Will they be able to take it in good faith?
This piece is not intended to tear down the men, but a serious stock-taking exercise on the love radar. No genuine woman would be proud of such men. Who are the men that roar like a lion and make the house very uncomfortable with their presence? The moment they get home, everyone scampers for safety because the lion has come home looking for who to devour, meanwhile in their absence, members of the household have peace and joy.
For the women, you need to recognise that you are in a loving relationship with your husband and therefore have a role to play, to keep the fire burning. The relationship between a man and woman has certain rules that guide it. It takes two to tango. A woman cannot be bone-lazy and expect the world to applaud her. Definitely the husband would be irritated by her lazy nature. A woman who does not listen and understand the language of her husband should assess herself. Women that are chatter boxes and gossip experts who cause problems, thereby bringing embarrassment to their husbands, should carefully and dispassionately assess themselves, score themselves in terms of attitude, character, conduct and see if the right rules are being applied. As a woman, are you applauded by your in-laws and people around you? Women whose bad behavior destroys other people’s families, need to do a self-evaluation.
No husband would love and stay with a wife that frustrates marital intimacy. Or those whose prior attitude clearly prevents the right mood from being set. You may ask how? By making unnecessary material demands a pre-condition for things to happen in the “oza” room. Some really terrible women make their demands in the course of the “action” and this has been known to make some men lose momentum at such inauspicious trade-by- barter. Marital intimacy must be driven by affection and shared emotion, not transaction – give me this, I give you that. Why do side chicks get more from men? They first give the man a mind-blowing experience that turns him into jelly in her hands. The result is that he would offer her half of his kingdom. Have you studied the movie, The Other Side of Midnight, that particular section, when…? Please, Mrs. Wife, go and watch it again. As long as your husband is not happy with the bedroom experience, you ‘don fail oo and must repeat class.’
Women who think that their husbands must compulsorily die before them, so that they can adjust and live happily thereafter should know that it is God that appoints times and seasons.
A certain woman joined several meetings and social clubs because she felt her husband would soon die of lingering diabetic injuries. Her intention was to collect several entitlements from the various groups upon the death of the husband. Unfortunately, within that same year, she died and her sick husband spent more than 10 years before he passed on.
Dear Men and Women, please truthfully and honestly assess your relationships and tell yourselves the whole truth. If you are not in good terms with your spouse, define those things that are getting in the way and endeavour in every possible way to make the relationship work. Death is the only thing that cannot be fixed.