Friday, 29th March 2024
To guardian.ng
Search

My question is this…

By Chukwuneta Oby
06 May 2017   |   4:47 am
No, he did not commission his people back home to search for a wife for him…as he is based overseas. They actually met themselves on the social media.

No, he did not commission his people back home to search for a wife for him…as he is based overseas. They actually met themselves on the social media.
According to him, she said the right things, quick to understand unfavourable situations and of course-she has the right looks.

Naturally, he convinced himself that she was the one and he came home to perform the marriage rites on her. The understanding is that now that they have become “joined”, he would go back and take his time to begin the process of her joining him over there. He even managed to put her in the family way before returning to his base.

Oh! Did I also mention that she read the “right” course in school?
Yes! Yes! You guessed right…NURSING.Well, it’s been four years since he hung a tag of ownership on her neck and the talk is not that of her, and their daughter, joining him again. The talk, sadly, is a dissolution of a four-year-old marriage …in which he has only been home once to consummate.

What went wrong?
According to him, their incompatibility in values and reasoning became more glaring by the day. All she seems to want to discuss is how soon she could join him. Her next favourite topic was listing the stuffs that needed to be bought in the house.

She is not exactly that innocent dove he once thought he married; she is more expensive to maintain than any lady that he has actually dated…including the ones that work for their money overseas.

He also said that as soon as she had their baby, her monthly monetary demands quadrupled. So much so that a chunk of what he makes monthly over there actually goes into her upkeep.

So he began to raise eyebrows about her pay cheque, since she is supposed to be working too. She claimed that they pay her peanuts as salary and, even at that, she supports her people with same.

As things stand now, they barely talk. He still sends stuffs for his daughter. His people have been given the “go ahead” to nullify the marriage so that she can also move on with her life, as she has indicated.

And right now?
He is in a relationship with someone he met over there, whom he described as “a lovely Christian lady, who understands how the system here (overseas) works and who works hard for her money”.

Really?
Now my question…
Is considering the lovely ladies who understand how the systems work over there always an afterthought? Probably when someone’s fingers have been burnt back home? 

I mean, why the ‘rush down first’ to find a wife when there are chances of finding such lovely ladies over there or are they only good as ‘mistake wipers’?
 
I once enlisted the assistance of a senior friend that resides in the US in matchmaking a dear friend, a lady in her 30s, beautiful, morally sound and a professional. After a few wahala from me, he bluntly told me that it is almost an impossibility, as most bachelors over there who should look her way will rather look towards home for a life partner. Yet, time and time again, their bitter experiences are showing that the ones back home are not necessarily better in so many ways.

Some of them don’t know how to earn the money (thanks to some warped values) that they can spend without a care in the world. Our guy said he coughs out good money to buy his lady’s hair extensions, something that when he got himself to consider the naira equivalence, he began to think of going into hair extension business.

Which brings me to my final question… Could the rushing down to find a wife be because someone dreads being with someone who knows what he knows? I mean, we have heard claims like ladies over there knowing too much of their rights, not taking nonsense from the menfolk and the system encouraging and even protecting them.

Well…sorry to burst your bubbles.
The thing is that most of those you rush back home to marry now know what you know too, if not more. The ones that don’t know quickly catch on once they cross over. Some others that don’t seem to know may be playing along…anything to “cross over” first!

Stories abound about Nigerian men overseas who have been charged for battering and murdering their spouses. And one reason is constantly being pointed as the cause of such outrageous behaviour, failed expectations! Probably a failed expectation of a once good girl getting to overseas to “open eye.”

I have always said people should quit the economic permutations and whatever combinations and just learn to do marriage for what it is. It is foolhardy to believe that home is where all the wife materials reside.

In this article

0 Comments