My wife and I

I love my wife, I loved my wife, it’s quite confusing. Ara used to be a sweet and gentle babe. I couldn’t wait to marry her. Ours was a dream wedding, I was so happy I thought I was going to run mad. She was all that and then some.

I started noticing some of her annoying behaviours after we had our first baby. She would not let anything, not even the baby get in the way of her comfort. I got scared for the baby’s safety and got a nanny. She didn’t seem to bother.

After the second and third children, I realized that the concept of Ara and I was an unbalanced one. I was fulfilling the roles of both parents. She would sit at home and complain about everything, the country, the economy, the kids, me, even her family.

I was relieved when she got a job. She was on the morning shift which meant she had to leave early to resume by 7 am and close by 3 pm. She was the perfect employee. She would wake up even before the roosters began to rustle and prepare for her work day.  At 6 am, she would leave the house. There was never a thought given to the kids well being or care. After work, she would eat whatever she found in the house and sleep or watch movies.

So I became the head nanny. I would bathe the little cuties and prepare their meals. The nanny tried to take charge but I let her take the backseat. Every child deserves at least a parent. Naturally, the children and I bonded and they preferred me to their mother. That got her really pissed. She basically ignored and avoided us.

That’s when I met Hauwa. She was quite the opposite of Ara attitudinally. Where Ara will hold in selfish emotions and be passive aggressive in the most annoying manner, Hauwa was selfless and expressive. She could even give a scold as harsh as my mother’s. she would call to find out where I was and send me home to my boring wife.

Hauwa was a chef. I took to ordering meals from her. She made the best Ogbonno, Egusi and Vegetable soups. Her stew was to die for. She even made snacks and chops for munchies. I would order 2 litre bowls of each and refrigerate in smaller bowls for the kids and I. If Ara noticed that there was food from elsewhere, she never said anything.

Hauwa is very well behaved. She always says that she will never marry any woman’s left overs and I know that whoever succeeds in snagging this one is one lucky dude. I envy him.

I heard my wife complain the other day about the smell of perfume on my clothes, it’s actually the incense that Hauwa burns in her place, the place that I have to go because I don’t want my children to starve and I cannot add the duties of a family cook to my almost single parent role. I did not bother correcting her. As a matter of fact, I even have female perfume in my car that I spritz on the way home from work. I am past caring.

I hear her on the phone complaining to whoever it is she talks to about my behaviour. She doesn’t even care that the kids can hear her, kids that even now treat her as a step mother. It hurts me.

My friends are really pissed off with Ara, none of them comes to visit anymore. One of them, a lawyer has even drafted divorce papers. I stare at them every night. I wonder what I would lose, I really have no wife, my kids have an absentee mother, and I am so unhappy and unfulfilled. This is the one thing that drags me down the most.

Tomorrow I will hand her the papers to see her reaction, just before she rushes out to her beloved morning shift. 

credits

story; ojonugwa sapphire abu

photo; pixgood.com