When I wanted to marry my wife about 18 years ago, her father, a prominent chief in their hometown in South West, Nigeria, kicked seriously against it, saying his daughter would not marry someone like me.
I was good looking by regular standards; the only shortcoming could have been that I did not have a job at the time, though I was a fresh Economics graduate from a reputable university. My wife was the only daughter of the family not born by the wife at home. Her mother had remarried long after she left her dad.
The trouble my father-in-law created as a result of my intention to marry his daughter was enough for me to have said my wife should look for another husband, but we had gone beyond a point of return.
She was six weeks pregnant when we decided that we should get married before it became obvious. We confided in my mother-inlaw, but there was very little she could do because she could not approach her ex-husband. They had a very bad relationship and he worshipped the woman at home like a goddess.
So, we resorted to sending his family members to beg him. But no one could persuade him. At a point, my father said we should allow my wife give birth to the baby and then look for another husband. He said he could not have her kind of father as an in-law. But my mother did not agree with him.
She said we should keep trying until God touched his heart. One day, my father-in-law called to tell my wife that she could go ahead with the wedding plans. This was after his royal father, who he could not say no to, waded in.
Everyone was happy, but I knew there was still something amiss because after that call, he refused to speak with anyone until the wedding day. His wife and other children were, however, communicating with us. On the wedding day, his wife sat beside my mother-in-law in the hall. She told everyone that asked, that my father-in-law was on his way. We all waited and waited.
After a very long wait, my wife’s uncle had to stand in for her father. He walked her to the altar. To cut the long story short, he did not attend the wedding. His wife just fooled everyone that he was on his way.
After that humiliating disappointment, I resolved to do everything within my means to ensure that my wife was well taken care of and to make her a star amongst his other children.
As God would have it, I got a small job with an insurance firm midway into my wife’s pregnancy and could cater for some basic home needs. My wife was earning fairly well, tips and all, but I needed to contribute my quota as the man of the house. I knew that we could only reach our destination in good time if I was able to fill the gap.
For most men, it is their rivals that they usually want to outshine before their wives. But for me, my father-in-law appeared to be the only rival that I was determined to put to shame.
When my wife gave birth to our first daughter, we knew he was not going to come. But we still informed them immediately. Neither my father-in-law nor his wife showed up before, during and after the naming ceremony. So we got used to life without them.
Hard as I tried to hit it big in order to show off to a man who thought I would never make it life, I could not match my wife’s earnings. Her career kept on improving, while I kept on crawling.
We had three children in quick succession. But as our children grew older, my fears grew with them. I did not want a situation where they would grow up seeing their mother as the sole breadwinner. But my wife did everything to make me feel commfortable.
After our third child, I decided to go to Bible College, along with two of my friends. I had always dreamtabout me being in front of a congregation, preaching, ever since I was a child.
It was a part-time course, so I was still able to go to work. My wife was very happy that I made that choice because she had always told me to heed our pastor’s advice that I needed to move closer to God and win souls. After a while, I was ordained a pastor in my church and transferred out to head a new branch.
However, as soon as I moved to head the church, I began to hear all sorts of stories about my union with my wife, first from my family members, and then from friends, both in the church and outside. Some even said they saw the revelation that my wife was using all the glory that God created with me to advance herself in life. I was also told that she was into this alleged evil act with her mother, and that if I did not leave her, in spite of the three children we had together, I would remain her ‘houseboy’ for life, and would not be useful to my family members.
Of course, I did not believe all I was told because I was so much in love with my wife, and in the years we had been together, I never caught her with any diabolical act. My mother was particularly troublesome. She said she should have listened to my father to allow my wife leave after giving birth to our first child. I endured all this and regarded them as temptations from the devil himself.
Occasionally, as a human being, I showed signs of frustration, but I quickly called myself back. When my wife began to travel outside the country on business, I was a bit worried because of the task of taking care of the children all alone. There were temptations too on my part, from women my mother deliberately planted to seduce me all in the name of helping out at home whenever my wife was not around. But I overcame all that because of my strengthened faith in God as a pastor.
More so, I always remembered the trouble I went through in the hands of her father before we settled down together, and I did not want anything that would give my father-in-law the opportunity to say ‘I warned you’ to his daughter. But my strength failed me one day when I got home unannounced and met my mother-in-law, right inside my room, mumbling some incantations…
To be continued…
