ISOKENE (I DON’T WANT MY WIFE SMILING)
Episode 3
“Aunty, I am ready to give up smiling if that would keep my marriage” I unbelievably heard Isoken telling me over the phone amidst sobs, it was obvious she was crying…At that point, I didn’t know why I was crying but I was crying…
“Isoken, you can’t stop smiling…” I said using my counselling voice…
“Aunty, I have all your messages back to back, and one of the things I have learnt from you is that every marriage can work…Is that not true?”
For the first time in my life I wanted to take back that comment…
“Yes…but your case is different… I mean your husband is literally asking you to kill yourself, whatever that wants to take your smile from you, wants to kill you” I tried persuading her to see sense in what I was saying at least if she wasn’t going to divorce her husband,she could threaten him with a separation
“No…Aunty…he can’t kill me, what he is asking of me is just a little sacrifice I need to undertake to keep my home…You have always said in your messages that Marriage is all about sacrifice…”
I became speechless and powerless, as words failed me and I didn’t know what else to say other than
“You are right” since she was just quoting all my messages back at me…
” But Aunty, you know my challenge, I just discovered of recent that Ibidolo has a lot of girlfriends… Aunty, why would he want me all to himself and yet he is not ready to give me all of himself…Isn’t that unfair?”
“Yes..very unfair and that is why I am not totally comfortable with your husband…How did you meet in the first place?”
When she told me how they met, my jaw literally dropped….
She had followed a friend to a pastor’s place….
“Aunty, I know I was tricked into marrying my husband because it was after our marriage that Ibidolo explained the whole process of him marrying me”
“ What was the Process?” I asked
“ My friend Kikelomo and I were getting tired of our single hood, although I was not desperate as Kikelomo being a Christian, but Kikelomo kept pressurizing me to go with her to a certain pastor who was good at telling people the exact location where they would meet their husband or wife to be…”
“Ok?”…This was getting interesting as I put the phone on speaker knowing this was going to be a very long talk….
“We attended the pastor’s programme but unfortunately we were unable to see him for Counselling or better still consultations, we were told we had to attend his program for a month before we had access to him” She said
“So you started attending his church and that was where you met Ibidolo “ I cut in as I obviously thought I knew where the story was heading….
“ No ma,it was more cleverly orchestrated than that….”
“ So how did ibidolo come into the picture”…..
And when she told me how, my mouth was wide open for some minutes….It was her continuous “ Hello Ma , Hello ma,Are you still there” that brought me back to life….
© Opeyemi Ojerinde Akintunde
Nawa ooooooh, this marriage wahala. Loving thr story now