Hi guys, it’s been a minute. 2020 brought in a busy timetable for me but I am not complaining. With a Web series (Witches) to complete-a dream come into reality and then a brand-new season of ‘Lasgidi Cops SCU’ to develop has been hard work whilst looking for the Naira and travelling for School breaks. But we move as they say and I am very saddened that it is the halt due to this pandemic called COVID- 19 that has enabled me time to do this post now
Soo I got my first letter from a man!! !Normally they just like the posts but I got a first call for help from the man’s point of view. It was another reason to sit down and write. So here goes!
Reuben and Tomi met at University in Ife. They got engaged very quickly but decided to wait till they were more financially independent to get married
Reuben
Tomi is very beautiful. Dark with a very voluptuous figure and the most alluring eyes and dimples. Never have I walked into a room with her without the glances. I am not bad looking too if I say so myself but I knew I had a looker
Tomi was posted to Jos for her NYSC and that was the beginning of trouble.
I travelled many hours to visit her after about a month apart. One thing about us was our chemistry was on point. One month without each other was a big deal.
She stayed with an older friend who lived with her aunty who was head mistress of a School there.
I noticed the Camp Commandant would drop in regularly and from the conversations it seemed like they got a lot of privileges. When I asked Tomi about this relationship, she nearly bit my head off saying I sounded like I would rather she suffered. I didn’t understand how she couldn’t see how it appeared from my point of view. And for the whole weekend we didn’t have any sex with her saying she wasn’t in the mood
I left Jos on the long journey home very heart broken
When she got back to Lagos, Tomi got a job at big Insurance firm but she wasn’t very happy there.
I studied IT and got a good job with a Telco. This was before the telecom’s revolution with the big Telcos so I was in charge of the call roaming and my pay was good
I was happy because it meant Tomi and I could finally start our marriage plans
She always loved cooking and soon she started catering as a side hustle. That meant she was always busy and always had some event or the other. Whenever I asked her about this, she wondered how I didn’t see the value in what she was trying to achieve. She said now was the time to work as hard as she had the time to. She started talking about quitting her job and doing the catering full time as the demand got higher and she had even added events planning hence she was always out. Always at parties even though she claimed she was working at those parties. Once or twice I would bump into her at the parties and she would bump me off saying she is busy. This was really beginning to affect our relationship. We were always arguing.
The Company I was walking for soon folded up with the coming in of the GSM companies…
I literally hawked my CVs everywhere after that to no avail. I fell into deep depression
I felt Tomi was not sensitive all be it she was very generous and bailed me out of quite a few bills. I often wondered where she was getting all the money from. I bottled up a lot of these feelings as I didn’t want to sound like a nag
She finally left her job and went full time into the catering.
Then it happened… There was a story that went viral about a married woman who had gone to a hotel to accost her husband and his lover. I don’t read blogs normally but of course people tagged me on it and there it was, in the dreaded Comments section. The lover was named and it was my Tomi Ikuomola.
I was broken. I was embarrassed and I was ashamed. The matter was everywhere. When I couldn’t reach Tomi on the phone I went to her house. She was broken. She swore nothing had happened but she wasn’t sure nothing would have happened eventually. She didn’t know he was married and he was her former work Manager who had helped her a lot with her work and setting up her business. She was going to tell me about the guy Tunji. She said I had pushed her away. And our relationship was no longer fun but something she was bearing. We talked and after a while we decided we still loved each other and we decided to weather the storm together. Amidst all the stories we stayed strong together. Afterall Tunji’s wife didn’t leave him. I asked Tomi that we should spend more time together and talk about where we went wrong and so not to make mistakes and we were getting along I thought. Then she called me and said she had had enough and it was over. She didn’t want to continue in the relationship. I couldn’t believe it. Technically she had cheated, I had forgiven her and stood by her and she was now dumping me
I cannot get over it. Please help me
Tomi
I ended the relationship with Reuben and I feel like I have been given a new lease of life! I feel free. Free to live my life to the fullest. I can never take him back and now I am happy it has taught me to look out for myself more especially when choosing a partner
I loved Reuben almost at first sight if that was a thing. He was very shy and I could tell he liked me but couldn’t approach me. I thus engineered our meet with the help of some friends and the rest as they say was history. In fact, we got engaged so soon after we met because Reuben kept saying from the first date that he had found his wife. I later found that what I termed ‘shy’ was actually great insecurities and Reuben was super possessive as a result of it. At first, I thought it was flattering but I later found he moved around with some friends that were gossips and more than love for me his fear was for him not to be a source of mockery if anything happened.
When I was posted to Jos for my NYSC, he tried to get me to change it to Ogun State like him but my father is very strict about things like that. Jos was where I was posted and that was where I was going with his prayers
He quarreled that I didn’t challenge my father enough and it was because I wanted to be away from him to get up to all sorts
When he said he was coming to visit, I should have known it was on an investigative mission but I had missed him. I was very excited. My much older friend offered me a self-contained room in her aunt’s quarters. I was very grateful. She had her separate quarters but we were all in the same compound. Reuben saw a nice car parked in the compound and asked whose it was. I explained it belonged to the Camp Commandant who was a relative of my friend. Truth is they were lovers but if I told him that I would have no peace unless I stopped being friends with her-as though she would tarnish me or I had no mind or morals of my own. Even with this he kept making insinuations all weekend of someone he didn’t even see. He noticed some officers came to drop off water for us and he actually said if it wasn’t encouraging the Camp Commandant, I shouldn’t take any of the water. If it wasn’t that he travelled a long way I would have wanted him to leave that evening.
Getting back to Lagos in started work in an Insurance firm. I have always liked cooking and I have also always been quite entrepreneurial so once I found out I could I started selling lunch packs to my coworkers. Word soon got out and people in other offices started making enquiries. This was taking a toll on me already as I used to get up extra early in the mornings to cook.
Tunji was my manager. He was always very nice to me. He actually suggested me getting help to be able to cope with the orders. I decided I wasn’t passionate enough about loss adjustment to give up this my side hustle so I quit. He helped me with my business plan and later introduced me to his friend who worked in a Bank and I got a loan for small businesses. Reuben did not encourage me at all in all this. All he cared about was who I would be meeting whilst marketing my company. Again, it was Tunji who suggest I try parties as well and recommended me to cater for our Boss’s wife’s party. That job alone was my break. I was very grateful to Tunji. We were always in touch and he always had time to listen to difficulties I encountered and often had solutions.
Reuben on the other hand was always complaining I was working too hard. He wasn’t very business savvy I always knew and decided that because he was very clever hopefully, he would always have a good office job
Unfortunately, Reuben lost his job. The Company he worked in folded up actually. He went into deep depression. He behaved as though it was personal. I often asked him to spare a thought for the actual owner of the business and brush off his CV and move on. All the offers he got were beneath him he said. Any time I suggest he takes what he gets pending something brighter he would say I was being insensitive. I helped out where he would allow me to
He was even now more paranoid. He would often show up at parties he knew I was catering at uninvited to check up on me. He would say he’s there to help and start asking questions
He was suffocating me
I started talking to Tunji about it. He had expressed that he really liked me and honestly, I wanted to get to know him better. I was really confused because when Reuben wasn’t being taken over by the green-eyed monster, he was actually very loving and we were sexually in sync
So, it started with long phone conversations at night and funny texts that became amorous declarations. Tunji invited me to Lunch at a restaurant in a big hotel. Apart from the fact he kept getting up to take calls often and ended up switching off his phone everything was fine. Actually, I was enjoying myself. Reuben and I hadn’t gone out in a long time. He would say I couldn’t pay or we were busy fighting
Soo when this woman came shouting and sweeping all our food unto the floor shouting expletives at us and calling Tunji her husband I was convinced she was mad. Tunji couldn’t be married. He wanted to date me. I kept waiting for him to put her right or for her to apologize that she made a mistake but that didn’t happen. Instead she proceeded to attack him and tear his shirt whilst threatening I was next if I didn’t take off. At least she attacked him. Everyone was looking at me. I was so ashamed and I was stranded as Tunji had driven us there. I wanted to call Reuben. I needed him to save me but I knew there was nothing that I could say that would make him believe I was deceived and that nothing had happened.
So I went home dashed, ashamed, annoyed, broken and very alone. Little did I know my nightmares had only just started. I didn’t realize Tunji’s wife was prepared. She was going to make a scapegoat of me. She had called the Blog and warned Tunji who thought she wouldn’t dare before coming. The next thing I knew the story was up that his wife had come to fish him out of a Hotel room and in the dreaded Comments section there was my name. My friend Kike called to warn me and before I could call Reuben his gossip friends had called him. His worst nightmare.
We tried to move on. We spoke about it and for a whole year after the sordid situation we stayed together. Reuben had gotten a very good job and wanted us to start our wedding plans but he had terms. Unsaid ones. I couldn’t go anywhere spontaneously. He felt justified to just drop in uninvited to parties I was working at. Now he didn’t even bother to give any excuse why he was there. He didn’t say so directly but he blamed me for his fraught relationship with his gossip friends. Then of course I didn’t dare question his flirting with other girls. The worst part was every so often he wanted me to recap everything about Tunji. I had to convince him nothing happened all the time we worked together. The day he brought out a Bible for me to swear there was nothing between the Camp Commandant and I, I told him the true situation about the Commandant and my friend, Reuben said obviously that was what we were doing in Jos. The way he looked at me, I decided I needed my freedom! I had served my time in this prison. I was tired of apologizing. I waited for a few days and told him I was done. He was so shocked. He even inferred that I dare break up with him after he did me a favour of forgiving me. I’m done
Me
I wrote this like this after speaking to both parties because it is often amazing how two people seemingly in the same relationship and on the same journey are on very different roads. This I find is the bane of many marriages because had Tomi not ended the relationship and they got married that marriage is doomed even from the start
The double standards in this patriarchal society of ours makes me feel Tomi did the right thing and I couldn’t help Reuben. I bet Tunji and his wife continued their lives as normal and she is probably breaking up another date as we type because she cannot leave her marriage simply because her husband cheated! She’d be chastised and sent straight back to him but Tomi on the other hand should be thrown in the bin as the dirty girl that she is and the fact Reuben didn’t do that she would be expected to be apologizing forever.
5
I am not a writer but reading this made me pull out a note pad and I made random notes!
– the poisonous effect of our personal insecurities on our relationships
– is it possible for two people to be in a growth cycle in their lives at the same time???
– how there must be enough love in the bank to see each other through our dry and low seasons or else the relationship is doomed
– the importance of mutual respect in a relationship – brings to mind our conversation about the friend who can only find validation as they wife of………..! Each party must bring some value to the table and not feel indebted to the other party for their existence.
All said Tomi did absolutely the best thing for both of them!!
But one final thought! There is a manipulative side to Tomi maybe – she did after all ‘engineer’ the relationship in the first place! 😊
I think it is possible, in fact very possible for 2 people to be in a growth cycle in their lives at the same time if there is sincerity of purpose. If only Reuben and Tomi talked more. If only we took advantage of counseling more in this Country perhaps they could have ironed out their insecurities and doubts earlier.
As for Tomi being manipulative, are you sure you are not just looking for a way to blame her in this saga as we have been socially tuned? 😂😂