Chronicles Of A Married Man - 21

''Love is never enough''..

I told him i would not advise him to marry Anita and I could see the sad look on his face. He had always seen me as a friend and an elder brother. Inasmuch as he loves the lady, he saw some truth in what I said; and that broke his heart.

Earlier in the week, he called me on the phone. 

“Oboy! Matter dey ooo, abeg make we meet for joint this evening, my head dey burn”.

 “Wetin be the matter?”, I asked.

 “Just come, nor be phone talk”. 

I was wondering what could be the issue because the last time I saw him, he was okay. We even spoke the previous day.

I get to the hang-out spot that evening. He was already there and on his second bottle of Beer. I placed order for mine and also requested barbequed fish. 

We started talking. When the fish eventually arrived, he said “abeg I nor wan chop fish, no appetite”.

“Anita has a child already”, he started. “I didn’t know that young girl in their house she used to tell me is her younger sister, is actually her child. She said she decided to tell me as she discovered she was already falling in love with me and she knows the feeling is mutual. She didn’t want me to find out from another person”. My friend was really pained.

As at that time, I had known him for eight years both on personal and professional level. He is the God-father to my boys and whenever Uncle P (as they usually call him) is coming, there is no shortage of goodies and fun. 

Early in that year, he introduced Anita to me as his girlfriend and the love of his life. For the years I had known him, he hadn’t formally introduced any woman to me. Of course, there were no shortage of women in P’s life, he had the looks and there was oil money to throw around. Never had he told me he was in love with any woman. Anita was special and I hadn’t seen my friend so happy with any woman like this before.


My wife and I, as gossip partners, had talked about Anita the previous night. My wife did not approve of her or even wanted my friend to marry her in the first place. She felt she was too old for him and overly too exposed for P as a wife. 

P was almost 40years at that time and was just a year older than Anita. From the first day my wife set eyes on her, she didn’t even bother to pretend that she liked her. The two dinner dates we had together as couples were disasters as my wife was virtually frowning the whole time. My wife felt she was manipulating P. 

In her mind, P deserved the best woman because he is such a wonderful soul.

Other friends have taken notice of the whole situation and it has become the proverbial case of who will tell the king that he is dancing naked in the market square. P was already losing friends and he had already introduced her to his family and visited hers. Looking at the whole thing, felt I had to tell him what we all feel and “our truth” as third parties to the whole relationship.

I took my time to explain our reasons which were numerous including the age factor, compatibility issues-he needed a calmer and more cool-headed person, family and friends not liking her, the limited chances of childbearing due to age and the nature of his job, her past reputation which we had to dig out after some investigations and to cap it all, he wasn’t in control of the relationship.

I concluded by saying “love is never enough. Even if it is enough reasons for marriage today, what about in 10years time?”

The long and short of it all was that the relationship broke up after seven months.

 Anita was heartbroken and P didn’t hide his resentment for me and my wife. But what do we care, we saved him. P is the so-called manchelor I have been talking about in my last couple of write-ups. He eventually got married this year and he had our 100% support. As for Anita, I believe she is doing fine.

That leads me to the question for this week: Is it right to interfere in people’s relationships? Is it supposed to be our business? Naturally I would have said no. But when it comes to marriage issues in this side of the world; when the chips are down, it becomes everybody’s business.



I have always told young people that whenever they want to get married and they don’t have the majority support of both friends and family, they should “abort mission”. Most times when people are in “love”, they hardly see beyond their emotions. They are either carried away by the fantastic sex, the amazing chemistry, the wonderful moments, the spirituality of it all and the God-told-me feelings, and even the captivating personality of the partners. They fail to ask and answer critical questions and tend to assume the future based on what they see and feel at the moment.

I’m one of those people that will always advise couples to remain in their marriages except your life is threatened. So, I would rather a bad marriage didn’t happen than to encourage a friend or family member to “bear” the marriage. I have a sister that is already swallowing the bitter pill of such marriage and I know the feeling.

I believe there is more to consider when choosing your life partner than just loving the person. Like one of my exes will always say… I love you don’t pay the bills.


Till next week

Ciao!