CHRONICLES OF A MARRIED MAN – 60

If you have been married for a while, you would always have that one couple or family that you are seemingly in competition with, whether knowingly or not.

The influence of your peers or peer pressure as we loosely call it doesn’t end in your adolescent years. They are carried over to the universities which is seen in how we want to “pepper” our peers with our new gadgets, babes and other stuffs. We ultimately also take this behavior into our marriages.

Most of my bedroom gossips with my wife these days often begins after viewing WhatsApp and Facebook statuses of her married friends or my colleagues’ families. The most recent is her cravings of wanting to have twin girls after seeing that two of my colleagues had twins within the last one year.

Having silent competition with your married peers is normal as far as I am concerned. Sometimes it becomes a form of motivation towards attaining certain goals in life and living the kind of life you want. Who doesn’t want to be the best couple in town that have everything working out well for them? Who doesn’t want to show off with “anko” matching outfits with his wife and kids?

We all always have that one couple we want to outdo or at least want to be like. Such desires are what brings the competition and sometimes it is taken to the wrong dimensions. When it gets to that stage where we try “bite more than we can chew” just so we can feel like we belong or doing better than the next couple, is what gets us into trouble.

When my wife was pregnant with our first child, my cousin’s wife was also pregnant too. He came up with the idea about our wives giving birth in the US. It sounded like a fantastic idea at that time, as it was a trend then. Afterall, who doesn’t want his child to have US citizenship?

He started planning in earnest and followed up with the process. They even took an unnecessary trip to Abidjan via road, all in the need to have a stamped passport as it was their first passport. The stress of the whole journey almost cost them the pregnancy. At the end of the day, they had to cancel it.

When I told my wife initially about the idea, her response was in her usual sarcastic way. “To go and give birth abroad unto what na? say I want to born Jesus ni? As if this pregnancy stress I’m going through is not enough, you want to add more to it abi? Ogeni leave that matter please”. I quietly respected myself and faced front.

The ironic and honest truth at that time was that, I couldn’t have comfortably afforded it then. The mal-adventure would have caused some form of financial imbalance for me on the short run if I had gone ahead with it. I just wanted to do what people were doing.



In this era of social media, it has become worse that we create so much unhealthy competition and pressure on ourselves because we want to create that façade about our marriages that in reality no one cares about. Many couples are thinking about how to solve their financial problems, the issues with their cheating husbands, their in-law problems or just trying to manage their fragile marriages that they are not even thinking about your online dramas. They just view your status and go back to their business.


I recently saw a very disgusting baby shower picture of an industry colleague of mine whose wife posted an almost naked picture of herself with her baby bump all in the name of pregnancy photoshoot. Viewing the picture, I was thinking who is this woman trying to impress now?

Whenever my wife tells me “You are not romantic! You are not social media savvy; you always behave like the ancient Urhobo man; So and so husband did this and that ...and all the yen yen yen.” I just look at her and smile. I have learnt not to argue with her. I will approach her at a much more comfortable time to discuss such issues and make her see how silly some of those ideas are.

As a marriage survivalist, I have learnt a couple of lessons and adapted over the years.

First, the competition never ends. You have to know your limits and when to stop. There will always be new couples’ trend, a new car, bigger houses, finer and more expensive schools or one thing or the other that the other couple is do better than you.

In as much as such competitions can be healthy sometimes, learn to work with what you have. My junior colleague is still paying for the “one in town” baby dedication he did last November. He was bitten by the first child bug, and he outdid himself. Of course, we all helped him “deal with” the food and alcohol he supplied that day.

I already told him to avoid me this January. Baba has fees to pay. I told him the Lord is his strength

Secondly, know your partner. Because I know my wife’s attitude towards money, I have learnt to monetize some of these things. I also tell her most time to go and do what she wants without me. I always have some “reports” to do.

During the dedication of our last child, I told her to calculate the total amount we needed for the event. After giving me the bill, I gave her a fantastic offer. “How about I dash you the money and we don’t do any party for this dedication?”, I asked her. She took the offer. We just took the child to the church, did the prayers and came back to eat Sunday rice.

I would have spent more than three time that amount if the “misdirection squad” had arrived for that occasion.

Thirdly, do what works for you like I always say. The truth is that many couple derive some form of happiness from these activities that we sometimes frown out. If you know that doing “people dem” makes you happy and feel fulfilled in your marriage, by all means please indulge.

Since last year, my wife has derived this emotional bank account statement. Whenever she says “my emotional bank account is low”, I know I will have to take her out, do clubbing or get her one expensive item. That way, I keep her happy.

Don’t let anyone bully or guilt trip you into making you not to do the things you enjoy as long as you can afford it and within the limit of respectable behavior. Marriage is already hard, make the best of it.

Conclusively, we can be in competition if we want to. It brings out the best in our marriages. But nor go do pass yourself.

E go be


Ciao!