MY MARRIAGE IS ONE THING I COULD DO ANYTHING TO PROTECT...
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Years ago, a friend bought a house at Zone 4 in Wuse. I along with a few other friends of ours who were all members of a club I belonged then was invited to the 'opening party.'
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The house owner had made so much money from a contract job which he was keeping away from many of us. When I asked him how it all happened, he simply said; “Japh, na God o.”
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I was to know soon that in Abuja, people guarded their contacts jealously. No matter how close you were with anyone, you don’t carelessly reveal your source of a big deal to him or her. That was the kind of club I belonged in those days.
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That Friday evening, we all set out to Wuse Zone 4. It was a warm and colourful gathering. All my friends – at least most of them, came in flashy cars. Amongst them however, I was the youngest; and probably the poorest. I arrived in a taxi with my pretty young wife whom every other man in attendance wished was his. We were dressed casually but we stole the day the moment we arrived.
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I led the evening with gusto when I was handed the microphone. My wife told me days later that some of the women had told her that she was lucky to have had a very humorous person like me for keeps. A few also told her that she was indeed very beautiful. But all these acknowledgements faded into thin air the moment the women began to brag about their husbands’ flourishing businesses, the big high-charging schools their wards attended and their endless chain of vanities.
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“We paid over two million naira to secure admission for my son in that school.” One said.
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“Ha,” said another, “I will tell my husband about the school so we can take my daughter there.”
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They talked about the many colourful things in their lives while my young wife sat there pretending to nibble at her cold salad. She had no expensive jewelry to talk about. She had no expensive car to brag about. Her husband hadn’t taken her to any oversea trip worthy of sharing the experience with anyone. Her only child was in a school whose forty thousand naira fee was still a challenge. It was a moment of disillusionment for her. My wife felt empty in their midst. Why did I bring her there? She kept thinking; her heart burning.
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The alarm bell struck for me the moment I read her SMS on my phone where I sat with the boys having fun.
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‘Let’s go home please.’
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The ride back home was uneventful. We could only talk in monosyllables. In yeses and nos. I sensed from the way she responded to my gossip and probing that all was not well. But I couldn’t figure out what it was.
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We lived in the coldness of that emotional war for two days more before I finally got to know what had happened. ‘They’ had infected my wife!
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It was on our way to church on Sunday that she asked suddenly. “Why don’t you want to tell your friends to connect you? Does the party not reveal anything to you? How long do you want us to remain like this?”
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By 'LIKE THIS' she meant that we needed to up our game to enjoy a better life but I was perplexed. I had two jobs that were draining me. On the sidelines, I had about three home-coaching classes that paid well too. My take home pay was a little close to two hundred thousand. Bills and debts were knocking me out and in pains I still trotted on.
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It was that Sunday that she told me all the things that the women had talked about and how one of them asked her if she’d ever gone shopping in Dubai. That was when I realized that I had joined the wrong gang and must find a way to pull out immediately.
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Three days later, I told my wife to pack my few clothing for me because I was traveling the next day.
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"Traveling?" she threw apprehensively. "You never told me you were traveling."