Chronicles Of A Married Man - 22

“This life nor balance o!

“This life nor balance o! My wife and I have been TTC for the past two years. The last miscarriage she had was particularly heart-breaking, as we literally saw our child losing its heartbeat during the ultrasound scan. We lost the child and even spent more money just to evacuate it from her womb and to keep her alive”, He said.


“And to think that we have been faithful to God and even didn’t indulge in premarital sex before our marriage. But our friends on the other hand, who have been “wayward” and having sex before marriage now have children and seem to be doing well”, He continued.

“I’m not complaining or blaming God for it. It’s just that when I think about it sometimes, I feel bad”, he concluded.

While he was saying these, I was just looking at him with a smile on my face. He is such a wonderful person with a good heart. I love working with him as he is a junior colleague to mine. He loves his wife so much and could talk to her on the phone all night after the day’s work. He is one of the few faithful men we have in my department.

So, I asked him, “Are you happy with your marriage?”. “Yes  “, he responded.

“If you don’t bear children and your wife is not able to conceive, will you still be happy?”, I probed further.

At the point he paused and took some few seconds to think about the implication if such question and then replied. “If that’s the will of God, sure I will still be happy”

The conversation continued, I told him that marriage is not a compensation for good behavior, that he should learn to see other areas where God has blessed him as he is not doing badly in life. I gave him some advice and what he can do to help and also told him to seek external support from church and family. Anyway the conclusion of that conversation is a story for another day.

 Does a successful and happy marriage happen by luck, by God’s favour or by deliberate actions and hard work?

Luxembourg has the highest divorce rate in the world today at 87%, followed by Spain, France, Russia and the United States with global average of 50%.

 Ironically, these same countries are among the top fifteen richest and happiest nations in the world. I was even hoping that Nigeria would be among one of the nations with the least divorce rates in the world but alas, we nor even dey top ten.

Interestingly, when I searched for the most cause of divorce in marriages, infidelity is number two at 18%, with incompatibility and growing apart been the leading cause at 44%.

Why am I giving all these boring statistics? It’s simply to buttress the fact that marriage does not equate riches or happiness. Singleness doesn’t either by the way. People go into marriages today because the think marriage will solve the inadequacies in their lives while for others, marriage is a final destination. So, they expect that when you get married everything will just change to happy ever after. That’s the beginning of the marital crises especially in a country like Nigeria today where people are very unrealistic with their expectations and their “God go do am” mentality.


In Nigeria, we want to combine the “woke” culture, our traditional beliefs and culture, our religious beliefs and our personal opinions all at once and expect to have the perfect marriage. We are jokers! You want the tradition that collects bride price but you don’t want the same tradition that support polygamy, you want your marriage to be “rooted in Christ” but you don’t want that biblical part that says give absolute respect and submission to your husband, you believe that marriage is a partnership where the husband takes care of your needs; and you keep the home and bear babies but you want to jump ship when things go south.

 For the men, you want a holy and virgin Mary as wife and also expects her to know all the sex positions. You believe that bride price payment is outdated but yet you want the woman to serve food while kneeling down. You want a beautiful and intelligent wife that will prepare all sorts of meals but yet you don’t want to work and support her. We are jokers.

Marriage is a combination of all them: luck, God’s favour and hard work. Your ability to discern the areas in your marriage where you are lucky, favoured and where to put in the work will determine whether or not you will remain in that marriage.


Just imagine if Chioma were to get married to Davido and expect baba to hang his 'Boots' in one place and remain faithful. Inasmuch Davido is capable of being faithful, but it is an unrealistic expectation. You can argue all you want but the records show that the average lifespan of celebrity marriages is just 7.4years.

Some people were lucky to marry supportive and rich partners but have other areas of defect they have to endure. Some are married to good-fearing people who are not serious, other to beautiful women who are lazy and mannerless but yet they are happy. If we all look closely to our marriages, we will always find areas that will require us to put in some work, patient or even become spiritual about.

Some of the things a lot of us complain about in marriages today are some people’s prayer point. As for me, the bottom line for every married couple is happiness. If you have been able to figure out a way to be happy in your marriage, you would have solved most of your marital problems.

We are presently begging a friend’s wife to come back home after the side chick of two years almost killed him. The glamorous things he was seeing in her changed after he put her at home. I’m sure he won’t complain again when his wife returns.

One thing my wife and I have both agreed on is fact that, the day the marriage becomes a source of sadness and pain to our lives. We will seek for divorce. That is what is done in advanced societies that we try to copy today.

Till next week

Ciao!