Chronicle Of A Married Man -15

“You have to quit your job, you have to choose between your job and this marriage!” Sound familiar? 

Oftentimes, this is a conversation we had to have in our marriages.

This ultimatum was given to my aunt by her husband. It took the plea of my grand mum to make her quit that job. At that point, the marriage was already heading for the rocks. 

This was my aunt’s dream job. She has always wanted to work in the bank since her university days. With sheer determination, intelligence and hard work, she rose to the position of a manager at that branch and her husband wanted her to just throw it all away.


On the flip side, her husband is well to do, he can afford to take care of her and make her comfortable without her working. At that time, she only had one child after 6years of marriage and had suffered 4 miscarriages. The doctor’s verdict was that the work stress was contributing to the miscarriage and her inability to bear more children. So basically, she threw away her thriving career to save her marriage.


However, the irony of this story was that; 9years later the marriage was dissolved. The husband had two children with another woman. My aunt would have none of it. She felt betrayed. My family’s plea to her to remain in the marriage fell on deaf ears. She even blamed us for making her lose her career. And she didn’t bear other children.


Just in case you are wondering how my aunt ended. She ended just fine; you don’t rise from nothing to becoming a bank manager by playing dumb na. Even after she quit her job, she set up one of the biggest supermarkets in town. She is fine by the way.

So, back to the issue. Should a woman quit her career to save her marriage?

 Naturally, my answer to this question will be a simple “yes”. We could go on and on about the need for a woman to have a thriving career and be working to be supporting the family and for her to be independent; and for security just in case the marriage goes south. I understand these things, I have a working-class sister whose husband is jobless right now. I know how she has been supporting her family.

In as much as I said “yes”, when it comes to marriages, there is no right answer to these questions as marriages and conditions are different but I want to believe that before the husband will make such demands of his wife, he should have considered the pros and the cons. 

However, there are always ways around these issues if they couples could have a talk and find the best solution to the problem. The bottom line for me is, the woman should be willing to make such sacrifice!

Then you might ask, can’t the man quit his job to take care of the home? Can’t the man also sacrifice for the woman or what if the woman is earning more and is bearing part of the home expenses? Sure! The man can But what are the realities in our homes today especially here in Nigeria?



I have always encouraged woman working for obvious reasons; but when it gets to that point where it begins to affect the home, the children’s wellbeing and the life of the marriage. At such point a decision has to be made. 

There’s also the option of taking a house help, a cleaner, cook or an external support that will make things easy. After all we have women who are CEOs of multinational organizations who have families and they don’t have issues. But if you and your husband can’t afford such external helps or if it affects your health in case of people TTC, kindly do the needful.


For argument’s sake, we can say all we like but let’s always allow the reality of our individual marriages guide us in decision making. If you are fortunate to have a job that allows for maternity leave, annual leaves and support family life, good for you. There is a big difference between quitting your job and staying idle. Even if your husband asks you to quit your job, it doesn’t mean you should stay idle.

My wife has never done an office or a tasking job. She has always been the type that works from home with her kind of business. I have always encouraged her to work. But child bearing has always had a way of disrupting woman’s life; during the pregnancy period and first six months after child bearing everything is always suspended.

 My wife would have been an air hostess, I would have given her all the support but the reality is that I work minimum of six months offshores every year, so who will take care of the home since both of us will always be away from home most of the time?

I believe the reason why couple normally have such issues with quitting their jobs for family sterns basically from two things: Trust and Security.

Many women don’t trust their husband enough to want to live life at his mercy especially when they are not working. We had cases where women are stuck in abusive marriages because they don’t have money or means to survive after leaving the marriage. They don’t also trust the man enough not to rub it on their faces that they are jobless. Some wealthy men who insisted on their women becoming full-time house wives will still make it a point of duty to remind them “I am taking care of you; you should be grateful”


Having your own money gives you security as a woman, lots of woman have had the sad experience of starting from square-one after divorce with years of doing nothing. Even many widows are on this table too, having lost their husband and with no means of livelihood. 

Let’s not also forget women who support their husbands financially.

So, I won’t blame any woman who insists on not quitting her job or in other cases relocating with her husband thereby losing her job. However, we should all learn to look at the bigger picture when making decision. Remember the marriage is a two-party affair.

For us married men especially those in the O & G business, Covid-19 has taught us to empower our wives because anything can happen.

Na so I talk am reach this week.

E go be!


Ciao!