Battle strategies that ruin your love life!

A guy once said ‘Romantic Terrorism is the worst form of terrorism because it demands for the most outrageous of expectations- LOVE!‘

It doesn’t matter that the dude was a cab guy in a movie or that he said those words in French. Too many people are turning their relationships into battle fields, fighting for love in precisely the wrong manner. For them love would be too scary if they gave up control. Their constant battle strategies would make Sun Tzu proud.

The only problem with this is that you either end up jumping from one failed relationship to another or stuck in a relationship with a partner who is suboptimally happy and too scared of you to walk away before the opportunity to run presents itself.

To have a happy, mutually satisfying relationship, you have to stop being a bully. Romantic Terrorism might make your partner ‘behave’ but it will not make them love you the way you crave.

Unless you are dating a puppy or kitten, here are some battle strategies you need to let go of today! 

1. Sulking: You jut out your lower lip, wrinkle your forehead, droop your shoulders and walk around in a mournful manner with a ridiculous pout just because you are pissed. First of all sulking is unflattering and immature and secondly you end up forgetting the reason you were upset and instead going down memory lane to dig up a whole lot of unresolved issues so that by the time you finally are ready to talk, your partner feels the full impact of every crime he has ever committed in his life. This gets wearisome when constantly on repeat, the sulk brings the funk into your relationship.

2. Keeping Malice: This is an informal term used to describe a long period of going invisible due to the grudge you hold for someone. You ‘disappear’ for days. No phone calls, no pings, no texts, no visits avoiding your partner like a plague till he or she has to forcefully break down the barriers just to have access to you. It’s usually accompanied by prolonged begging and involvement of a third party and it wears down a relationship fast!

3. Sex deprivation: This is an age old battle strategy and the hallmark of Romantic Terrorism. It’s been passed down from generation to generation because our mothers knew that it would be very hard to stay angry with a person you cared about when that person’s body was intimately connected to yours. This behaviour is akin to depriving a child of food because he was naughty. Many good men have strayed because of this.

4. Silent treatment: This is a form of keeping malice but different because you are physically present but emotionally distant. You do not react or respond to any circumstances around you and just go through the motions of the day oblivious to your partner’s existence. This can be highly frustrating as many people can’t stand being actively ignored.

5. Monosyllables: Yes, No, Ok, Mmm, uh-huh etc. Many people have perfected the art of giving monosyllabic responses when they are upset. They feel superior to those who keep malice and give the silent treatment because they are mature enough to carry out conversation despite their anger. Someone please tell them they ain’t any better!

6. Feeding insecurity: She got you mad so you decide to flirt with those hot babes in front of her so she knows she isn’t that special…He got you upset so you call up your old boyfriend for a hearty chat while he listens in dismay. This is destructive behaviour and feeding your partner’s insecurity does not a healthy relationship make!

7. Nagging: You tell your partner everything he or she is doing wrong, did wrong and has ever done wrong- on repeat, all day long. Hoping that your accusations constantly grating on his nerves will bring the change you desire! Wrong!

8. Temper tantrums: You get so mad that you slam doors, break stuff, drive like a maniac, throw things and yell. Soon your partner would think he/she was actually dating a maniac and run for health reasons!

9. Compulsive behaviour: You max out your credit card, empty your partner’s bank account all in the name of comfort- shopping, you get drunk every time you have a fight with her, making her worry. You gain ten pounds every time you are upset with your partner, substituting food for the love you actually crave. Compulsive behaviour may attract pity from your partner and give you the false impression that you are doing a good job handling your problems on your own but it doesn’t do your love life any favors.

10. Waterfalls: A lot of women use their tears as their most potent weapon. They have the ability to control their partners by turning on the waterfalls and can do it at will. These crocodile tears are the reason a lot of men don’t take a woman’s tears as seriously as they should. Tugging at your partner’s emotional puppet strings daily will cause them to snap when you least expect it.

The list is endless, would love to hear about those I omitted from the list. We have all been victims to this form of terrorism not necessarily in a relationship but from others we love. We all have that one friend or family member or partner whose idea of love is control.

A lot of us are guilty of romantic terrorism as well. Many learn too late that you cannot force someone to love you. Controlling your partner in a bid to make them love you the way you want and to compel them to behave exactly the way you want, leaves you in a relationship which you cleverly think is perfect because it is perfect for you but highly vulnerable because your partner secretly seeks a relationship where he or she can be free; free to love the way they know how to and free to act without fear and when they do find such a relationship they will move on- Leaving you alone in your kindgom.

Communication and understanding are key in a relationship. Let go of these battle strategies and allow yourself be vulnerable for a change, you just might be amazed that your love life gets better and the hurt you always feared would come upon you if you lost control was actually only a figment of your imagination.

Let’s make love not war.

Have a great weekend Chutzpah fam,
xoxo

 

Ten Reasons He won’t marry you part 2.

It’s a few days to the new year and Lord knows getting a man tops your to do list for 2014. You have done all it takes or at least been sorely tempted to, READ  HERE if you doubt that. But the truth is that just when you think he is gonna be the one, he does something wacko and while you are still wrapping your head around whether he deserves your forgiveness or not you get the memo that he is walking down the aisle with some young woman he just met! Why is it hard to find a good man? Why do the men misbehave so badly and then suddenly hang up their boots and pledge undying love and fidelity to a new woman who hasn’t worked half as hard as you have or put up with half as much sh*t as you have? Why is life totally unfair? Does it even pay to work hard at changing a man when he is gonna just run away and be the better man with some undeserving female? My friend Dee gritted her teeth when she read part 1 of the ten reasons he wouldn’t marry her and she and the other women I spoke to had lots to say.

In their opinion, these are the TEN reasons why men do not give you an engagement ring when they know how much you want and deserve one.

1. He doesn’t think you appreciate the huge favor he is doing by marrying you: A man is expected to hang up his boots, have a monogamous sex life, provide financially for the upkeep of a home and make decisions and to him it’s like the mother of all sacrifices. He forgets the wife has to cook, clean, keep a job, carry a baby and yet still look sexy, raise kids, keep a home, nurture him…heck the list is endless and as far as Dee is concerned a man doesn’t marry you because for some reason you don’t realise what a huge favor he is doing you when he pops the question and he refuses to propose to a girl who doesn’t appreciate that or who isn’t worthy (doesn’t mean he won’t date her though).

2. He wants a younger babe: F believes that the longer you date a man the less likely he is to pop the question. Growing old with him in a relationship is not the same as growing old together in a marriage. In a relationship the babe gets stale after a while and soon the dude thinks it is his right to have a sexy, young woman at his side after all *cough cough he is a young man! Soon he spots a college hottie and you are history!

3. See finish: R is convinced that her man had ‘seen her finish’ which is why he didn’t marry her. See finish means he has seen all there is to see about you. He knows you so well that he can predict your every move and write epistles on your flaws both real and imagined. For a woman, see finish makes you feel comfy like you really are a couple but for a man, it spells only one word ‘BORING’ and soon he is blowing your faults out of proportion and gone in a flash into the arms of the mystery lady he met at the bar!

4. He was just killing time with you: J laments about how her boyfriend of four years had convinced her when they just started dating that the differences in tribe and religion didn’t matter. Now that the relationship has gotten to the marriage stage, he is using those things which supposedly didn’t matter as reasons why they shouldn’t get married. As far as she is concerned, men will say anything to get into your pants and stay there till the next bus arrives!

5. He wants a virgin: Ridiculous as it sounds V couldn’t help cussing out her recent ex who had left her with PID and the trauma of two abortions and gone to marry a good little girl from his home town. His excuse was that he needed a woman who could bear children since he was his mother’s only child and he wasn’t sure that after the abortions (which by the way, she had for him) she would be able to!

6. He wants a trophy wife: Q is a baby mama and a high school drop out and she wouldn’t have felt so bad if all her man did was get her pregnant which of course made her drop out of school but he had the nerve after all she had done for him to marry a girl with a fancy job and many degrees when he was the reason she hadn’t done much with her life. She knew the reason lover boy didn’t put a ring on it was because she didn’t fit into his high profile life.

7. He doesn’t like your appearance: Your slightly overweight bod kept him warm at night and he kept telling peeps how much he loved the meat on you but now that you are talking marriage you are too fat. He feels child birth will worsen it and now he has a long list of things you need to change before marriage which may include liposuction, plastic surgery and skin bleaching!

8. He doesn’t wanna get married period: O cried her eyes out when her perfect boyfriend walked away when she gave him the marriage ultimatum but a year later she met a quiet guy who worked in the building across her office and two years later she was married. Her first child is 13 now and her ex is still single. He has had countless girlfriends but they leave when they realise he ain’t ever gonna go the whole 9 yards.

9. He hasn’t made money yet: S thought her man was ready, he had a good apartment, a well paying job and some money in the bank and it shocked the hell out of her when he told her point blank that till he had his first million in the bank and a house of his own, he couldn’t even consider marriage and if she was gonna face facts, that wouldn’t happen in the next five to ten years. She didn’t wanna be a forty year old girlfriend!

10. He didn’t get a vision from God that you were the one: God to him may be the voice in his head or his mama or pastor’s voice but N thought she would scream her head off when her boyfriend said he prayed about marrying her and didn’t get a conviction. He didn’t need a conviction when he dated her for two years. He didn’t need a conviction when he got her pregnant. She didn’t believe for one minute that God approved of her boyfriend blaming Him for his inability to man up but all that didn’t matter as she kissed the thought of him getting down on one knee goodbye.

So there you have it, ten reasons he won’t marry you- The woman’s version.

God knows the end from the beginning and even when it hurts like hell and you don’t know why it is happening to you, believe that He makes all things beautiful in His time and that He has a beautiful plan for your life. It can only get better…

Compliments of the season chutzpah fam,
♥♥♥

 

10 Relationship Myths You Have To Let Go of Now!!!

Disney, Love songs and Romantic comedies not to mention all those romance novels have played a huge role in conditioning our minds and infecting our hearts with less than realistic love notions and like die hard Arsenal fans many of us have clung to our ideas of happily ever after well into our thirties taking each failed relationship in our stride, eyes fixed on the elusive Mr Right but perhaps it is time we went back to the drawing board.        

Here are 10 myths that really ought to be on the shelves along with the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus.

  1. Love at First Sight: Because you didn’t feel a spark the first time he said hello or get butterflies on your first date doesn’t mean he can’t be the one. Attraction is important no doubt but sometimes getting to really know a person may surprisingly be the spark you need to light up your world.  

2. Men Love a Damsel in Distress: Yes men like their women to be feminine and to make them feel needed but there’s a thin line between needed and ‘needy’!!! If you don’t have a job, qualifications or even dreams of your own and feel the need to rely on your man for EVERYTHING he’s gonna get drained and weary of you soon enough even if you are sexy and wild between the sheets. Forget the Disney cartoons, he doesn’t want a sleeping babe and a kiss doesn’t solve everything.

  3. Sex Strengthens a Relationship: No it doesn’t. Many times it takes the place of emotional intimacy, kicks good conversation to the curb, pulls the wool over your eyes where your partner’s flaws are concerned, makes you more territorial since you are giving your all in quote and keeps you longer than necessary in a relationship doomed to failure.  

4. All Men Cheat: No they don’t. Most men do however, but going into a relationship with that mentality gives your man the excuse to misbehave since you don’t believe he is capable of staying faithful without the checks and balances you have put in place. Expecting so little from your man eliminates the opportunities he has to impress you not to mention pushing him to misbehave cos like my friend T once said, “She already expects me to cheat so whether I do or I don’t, I am the villain, I might as well…”

  5. Happily Ever After: Many people look at love as something that should work out beautifully without much effort once the two people are finally together. We are in love with the slogan ‘…and they lived happily ever after’. Nobody imagines that after Cinderella spent the entire cartoon trying to unite with her handsome prince in spite of the challenges, she’d have anything less than true love’s perfection once she became his queen. Once a relationship falls short of a happy ever after, many of us tend to start looking out, we begin to doubt the authenticity of the relationship but girl, relationships are hard work! At some point in the relationship love becomes a choice not a feeling, sometimes the choice to love your man after seeing his worst side can be difficult but he is going through it too and choosing to love you. If you think it’s gonna be rosy all the way then I’d suggest you curl up in bed with a Harlequin Romance novel and forget real life men not to mention marrying one for better or worse. The fact that your relationship isn’t perfect is evidence that it is real.

  6. My Man is The Strong Silent Type who doesn’t know how to express his feelings: We all know a guy or two who fit this description but beware, looking for cues because there are no words may leave you in a fool’s paradise. ‘He loves me but prefers to show it because talk is cheap’, ‘He doesn’t like talking about the future but I know he wants to marry me cos he shows it in so many ways’, ‘He doesn’t like confrontation, when I am upset he picks up his car keys and drives off somewhere for a few hours so he doesn’t say or do something he will regret’, ‘He hasn’t asked me out yet or referred to us as an exclusive couple but with all the action going on we are definitely dating, asking out isn’t his style’, ‘He doesn’t like PDA nobody needs to know our business…’ The examples are endless and should serve as pointers. Your strong, silent man could be avoiding commitment since not saying the words you are dying to hear means he isn’t making any promises and so therefore can’t be accused of breaking any. Also a man who runs from emotion may not be feeling any and just be with you for the ride or worse still he may be hiding something far worse. My patient Z came for treatment after one of the regular beatings her hubby dishes out. She refuses to leave him because of the kids plus she has no means of sustenance. I asked her if she hadn’t seen pointers to this particular behavior while dating and she said he always ran from confrontation during the relationship, always needed to cool off for a few days, she assumed he was just very sensitive. The rest is history. Anyway moving on, ironically we all know a man or woman who is painfully shy in public but has a bubbly personality behind closed doors with the people he or she loves and trusts. If your man still has too many unpenetrable walls around him one day he may gravitate to someone who can do a rent-a-ghost number on him. 😉

  7. The Tall, Dark and Handsome beau: Some people are late bloomers in every way- Looks, careers, finances etc. Now the funny thing is when they do arrive they usually do so with a bang! So before you dismiss that gangly young man whose clothes are threatening to swallow him or that guy in love with you who only earns 80k/month, dig deeper. Avoid the shoulda, woulda, couldas and most of all avoid the mythical Mr Obvious! The tall, dark, handsome, very sexy not to mention extremely rich and successful man cos if you are not seeing past these qualities, chances are you and a hundred other girls are seeing them and he being the sharp guy he is senses the incoming traffic from all over making him the proverbial rolling stone that gathers no moss! Many a girl has been rudely awakened after catching a glimpse of a carelessly tossed aside admirer now transformed into the man of their dreams just when it’s too late to reconcile. Be guided.  

8. Picking a Fight is the only way to revitalize a boring relationship: Please put your inner diva on the shelf along with this myth. A good man doesn’t want a diva for a lover. Picking fights just to stir things up a bit and just so that you can have the big, mushy makeup is immature and wears the relationship thin in the long run. Instead of using negativity to boost your seemingly boring relationship, channel all the positive energy you can muster into reigniting the sparks and reminding him of all the many reasons you fell in love with each other.

  9. Mini-Breakups are the ultimate wake up call: Don’t breakup if it isn’t over for good. Don’t breakup after every fight. Don’t breakup just so he can beg you to take him back. Don’t breakup to punish him! Grow up babe, there are other ways to handle a relationship issue than to cut off your nose just to spite your face. Tell him you need some time to think and then go incommunicado for a while if you must. Breaking up at every whim shows a lack of commitment to the relationship and like the boy who cried wolf, one day you may have run out of chances.  

10. Packaging is Important: Agreed Cinderella may not have bagged the handsome prince if he had seen her in rags scrubbing the fireplace hence her godmother was needed to ‘package’ her right but this has totally spiralled out of control and women are not only packaging their looks like Cinderella did which to a degree is perfectly acceptable since men are visual creatures but have gone ballistic packaging their personalities, character, resume, flaws and kinks till the finished product is a far cry from who they really are. Technically this sort of packaging leads to a relationship founded on a pack of lies and then you wonder why he runs at the first sign of the real you. You can’t keep up the charade forever, be yourself, it’s the only role you can play perfectly.  

Love is definitely a work in progress even for old timers and dispelling these worrisome myths is the first step to embracing the wholesome, lasting relationship you crave. Goodluck! 😉

 

It’s all for the money $$$- A tale of one Lagos big girl….New beginnings: Part 2 Episode 1

Hi Chutzpah Fam, due to popular demand, it’s all for the money has been continued…thanks for the feedback readers ♥

People say that when one chapter of your life closes, another begins. I sighed dreamily at the words ‘The End’ that signalled the concluding scene of our wedding video. The guys who did the video were incurable romantics and the priceless scenes captured on film along with the 80s love songs had me squeezing Barry’s hand in a way that clearly showed my emotions were on overdrive. They really don’t sing love songs like they used to…I really wished that was the end it would have been a most perfect ending but unlike real life, the end wouldn’t come till I was 6 feet under and right now I had way too much to live for. I couldn’t believe 6 months had rolled by so quickly. Marriage was beautiful. I had friends who would say otherwise but really life had a way of throwing you lemons and peaches and if I was eating peaches at this stage of my life it didn’t mean I hadn’t sucked my lemons dry.

Most of the women who had become my close friends had lived with a silver spoon all their lives. Amaka’s dad was an ex-governor and she had never worked a day in her life. The husband and the spa which were her two most prized possessions had been handed to her by daddy. She was your cliche fairytale princess. She reminded me of Bree in Desperate housewives, Barry had loads of DVDs and I’d spent a good part of my days catching up on the series I missed in my hustle days. I laughed because watching Friends or 24 now when people had moved on from them reminded me of the fact that even though late, I had definitely arrived. I couldn’t imagine any of the girls I had hustled with sitting down to watch Desperate housewives. The English would have been an issue and as for our mindsets, we would have never been able to identify personally with what we watched. Thank God for Bukky Wright and Yoruba movies jare. Anyway back to my friends. Amaka had a life everyone outside envied, she was regularly featured in magazines and was a style icon. Her yellow skin was pampered and spotless and she had a body that would make you jealous. Her husband was tall, dark and handsome and was the oga in charge of one of her father’s most successful businesses but things weren’t what they seemed. Amaka didn’t talk much but it was obvious to me that something was amiss. They had no kids and Amaka said they weren’t ready which was kinda odd to me cos they had been married for 5 years and then there was the little issue of Amaka’s love for coffee. She drank about 30 cups a day, I kid you not and while I used a teaspoon of decaf coffee downed in milk to make mine, she took hers strong, black and very bitter judging by the way she heaped the coffee grains into her cup like it was sugar sometimes I could swear she was high on caffeine. I had asked her once about it and she laughed in that way she always laughed, a laugh that sounded toosh and gentle like it had been practiced and perfected and told me that she needed the bitterness in her cup to remind her of the realities of life. Well like I said before she was perfect.    

 Then there was Siki, I had bumped into her at a supermarket one day and she had shouted ‘Modinat’ which had me quite embarrassed since I didn’t go by that name again. I had wanted to get rid of her fast and did all I could to form busy but this childhood friend of mine was not going anywhere. Ever the slut, she had used her bottom power to get herself out of the ghettoes and was dating a famous Ondo state politician whom she proudly pointed out was just one of her options. This girl knew me from way back and trust me when you’ve struggled to get a new identity the last thing you need is someone from your past wanting to be chummy. Anyway fate has a way of stirring things up. She’s the biggest drama queen in the universe and true to type, she brought Siki into my life a few months later. She moved into my estate, newly married to Tosin, Barry’s Nigerian boss. She had failed to mention that he was one of the people held spell bound by her powerful toto. I wondered why the yeye thing hadn’t slacked since. Her hubby had opened her a big supermarket around the corner and I had been forced to embrace her or make an enemy of her and trust me nobody wants a loud-mouthed Yoruba girl as an enemy. As a Yoruba girl I should know. Anyway I had to welcome her into the group to keep Barry happy since she was his boss’s wife and Amaka wasn’t too pleased. She was all for pedigree and pedigree was the one thing Siki and her expensive perfumes, bleached body and Brazilian hair did not reek of.   

      Mamus hadnt minded the new addition. We called her the mummy of our little group. She had lost her husband some years ago to cancer and her son lived abroad with his wife. She travelled a lot but when she was around she made us her business. She was nice and very accommodating and people said she was the first person to move into our estate and that she owned some of the other houses in the estate. Mamus knew everybody and everything. People tended to open up to her when left alone with her for a few minutes. She was the one who had warned Zainab that her hubby might be taking a second wife soon and also advised her on what to do and a few weeks later Zainab’s hubby had realized he couldn’t love two women equally and had called off the Nikkah. We loved Mamus and she loved us back. After Zainab’s incident we hid nothing from her and the more she knew the happier she was. She always teased me that I held back, I guessed she must have spoken to Barry at some point and realised he also had parts of my life he had no information about. I always wondered why Mamus needed to know so much, maybe her older age made her feel like it was her right but that secret was my secret and it was bad enough that Siki was in the picture, I wasn’t ready to let on anymore about me than was necessary.   

     Zainab was the last girl in our circle. She was also the only one with a 9-5 job. She left her twins at home with a nanny and drove to her job at Zenith bank every day. She refused to get a driver the same way she had refused to allow her widowed mother-in-law come take care of the kids. She hadn’t forgiven the woman for trying to get a second wife for her husband. When she had tackled her, the woman had said she wanted a wife who knew her place was at home taking care of her husband and kids. Zainab had been so outraged and would have acted rashly if not for Mamus’s timely advice. Now she had her husband eating out of her hand and was polite to her mother-in-law which only made the woman more afraid of her. She even sent the old hag a card and a basket of fruit every two weeks and nobody would have ever suspected that she detested her mother-in-law save for the woman. Zainab was ambitious. She was a goal-getter and a workaholic. Her husband was a business man but with the money she brought in from the other businesses she did outside her 9-5, her hubby was content lounging about and rarely brought home any money. She didn’t mind though, contrary to her mother-in-law’s opinion she was very much dedicated to her man and kids she just didn’t agree that a woman had to take the backseat in life just because she was a wife and mother. I agreed with her jare.     

     I looked around at the four women sitting at Mamus’s dining table drinking cranberry juice and vodka and gisting nonstop and I smiled contentedly. This was my new life. I was a responsible married woman and had friends who loved me. Even Siki had grown on me and sometimes I was actually grateful that there was another ex-hustler in the group. Mamus considered herself single and on nights like this she would regale us with tales of the men she dated. She was quite discreet especially since she had a penchant for younger guys but she always saved all the juicy details for us. Thursday nights were our nights and we took turns hosting the girls. That night as we sat drinking, the door bell rang and since I was sitting closest to it, I got up to open the door.

“Who is it?” I called out laughingly as I unlocked the door
“Mamus darling-”
Our eyes collided and time seemed to stop…

….to be continued…..

 

My Chemical Romance

    A long time ago, people didn’t marry who they loved, they loved who they married…

Sounds like a really, really, really long time ago right? But so many things have gone wrong in our world, and amidst the wars, destruction, economical crises and famine, there’s a new scourge. One that was such a shocker in times past but is now almost like pure water. Divorce!

People don’t plan to get divorced or so they think but what I’ve always pointed out is that you don’t get a brain transplant after you say ‘I do’.

In our grand parent’s time, there weren’t things like relationships in the way we look at it today. There were courtships. A man looked and looked, till he saw what he wanted and then courted her for an acceptable period and then they got married and after that, however she turned out, he was stuck with her. He sometimes added a new wife but never ever disposed of the former unless she was adulterous or tried to kill him. 🙂

Courtship wasn’t a trial and error phase. It wasn’t a time to test the goods and after eating half the food on the plate, reject the meal that was served. No! Courtship was a time to prepare for a life together. To get acquainted with each other’s families, to become your intended’s friend, to develop a love that was a product of a decision already made. They weren’t hasty, no. They did their homework, asking people who interacted with the woman about her because back in the days, men were wise… They knew that a woman who was openly being courted would hide her flaws and mask her true nature.They knew better than to try and discover her true character for themselves. Instead they watched her from afar, let her be in her natural habitat, saw her relationship with the world. And if they liked what they saw, they made a move.

The women had many suitors, they’d stand and talk for hours and though the men begged for a little more of their time and affection, they carefully guarded their hearts till they found one that they could trust. They asked questions, they sought counsel. They watched him at work and watched him at play. Wanting to be sure that he was a man they could love and submit to, a man worthy of their respect. There was no compulsion to tell the world that they belonged to a man who had not made his intentions clear or known. Being his ‘girlfriend’ was not a craved-for title. They selected a partner based on what was important to them. If their heart was set on material things, then they picked the wealthiest of the lot and if their heart was a romantic one, they picked the one who made their heart glad but it was a process. And it was made very clear to them that they had to stick to their decision.

Fast forward to the 21st century…men and women are in a constant hurry. A man picks a woman based on three things. Her looks, the sexual chemistry and the facade she puts up as her personality. He doesn’t care to dig deeper before he commences because he either isn’t ready for a long term commitment or feels that if she is all wrong, he can start over like a great gamble till he finally gets lucky. Even when he asks about her, the questions would not make it into a standard personality assessment test. They questions are cliche…What do you do for fun? What are your likes and dislikes? What turns you on? What’s your Biodata? Every sharp woman knows the sensible answers to these questions. I could morph from reverend sister to intelligent nerd to fun, feisty girl at the drop of a hat depending on who or what was at stake. All eyes on the prize! Women are no better. When money isn’t our driving factor, then we focus on his looks and even when we claim a depth above the average woman and focus on his character, our limited senses don’t unravel even a hair’s breath of information about a new beau before we jump in, head first. And we have a perfect excuse for our foolhardy haste….an entity called LOVE 🙂

People say ‘you cannot help who you fall in love with‘ and yes you cannot help the release of endorphins from your brain or the Oxytocin that gives you butterflies…These hormones work in sync with your limbic system, giving you the ‘high’ we call love. But where is that love some months down the line when you cannot stand to look at your ex? or when you walk away from a woman you once claimed to love, without batting an eyelid? If truly we have progressed over the centuries and developed a society that makes love the guiding principle for its copulation rather than a pairing of people with similar structural and social encoding then why is divorce so rampant? Could it be that a chemical romance parading as sexual attraction has totally redefined what we call love? Why risk all on a love that could in time, change to indifference and hate if subjected to the right amount of pressure?

Wouldn’t it make more sense to be with someone whom you had developed a genuine friendship with, one who knew you in and out, your flaws and virtues and then allowed the love to blossom? Than to love a perfect stranger only to realize you couldn’t live with his/her flaws. When a person takes his time, it is assumed that he is dull,has options, or too much shakara. Everyone is quick to swallow the eager fish only to be in agony when the bones get stuck in their throat. The average woman has dated four men by the time she is married and slept with a bit more than that. Every time she changed relationships, the excuses were the same. He cheated or they weren’t feeling the love anymore or they grew apart or there were storms they couldn’t weather or she discovered something new about him she couldn’t live with etc. We do the same thing every time but expect a different outcome. And then she gets married, already used to leaving at the first sign of trouble and you expect it will be different this time? Marriage isn’t much different, the storms are pretty much the same, the only difference is you can’t jump ship when there’s a storm. Seems like everyone is forgetting this. The men even more than the women. Now pastors are getting divorced, senators are getting divorced, beggars are getting divorced… Haba! Only celebrities used to get divorced back in the day…

Here are the top ten reasons for divorce worldwide:

– Disagreements on financial issues concerning bills, debts, spending, budgets, savings and wife’s earnings.

– Inability to discuss/disagree/dialogue without conflict/misunderstandings/boredom. Poor communication prior to marriage will escalate after tying the knot.

– Problems with sexual frequency, quality, and infidelity. Sex before marriage to ‘test the goods’ has not been shown to reduce this in anyway.

– Physical, Psychological, or Emotional Abuse towards spouse or children.

– Growing distant, disinterested, and eventually bored with each other. This often occurs if you were never friends and have nothing in common except the love you share. When the love wanes you find yourself cohabiting with a stranger.

– Differences in ethnicity, religion and culture. Couples may find themselves being pressured by the expectations of their spouse, or their spouse’s family to conform to the ideals of the other.

– Disputes over the appropriate upbringing of a child. If you were brought up by indulging parents and your spouse was brought up by disciplinarians, your child rearing styles may clash and be criticized.

– Addictions; An addiction is an acquired compulsion to repeatedly engage in an activity, putting it before everything else, to the point that it negatively affects other priorities and prevents you from spending quality time together. It may include food, gambling, drugs and alcohol, the Internet, games, porn, your career/job, religious activities, partying, football etc

– Disillusionment: The ability to adapt to changes in married life often depends on having realistic expectations about a spouse and the marriage relationship itself. It is common for disillusionment to set in when romantic or other unrealistic expectations are not met. Marriage is not an escape from your life or a ticket out of poverty, like all beds of roses, it has its thorns.

– Personality clashes: marriage seems to amplify faults and personality incompatibilities may lead to a divorce.

If you have these areas covered before jumping in, it could save you a divorce and eventually, less children will suffer the psychological effects of a broken home. Patience is key, it is better to study a person well before committing. Hurrying into a relationship will lead to more heartbreaks and result in more cases of commitment phobia. Take your time, Do your homework! Save a marriage today! 🙂

Have a bomb-free week and a fabulous holiday….xoxoxo 😉

 

Friends with Benefits; the rule book!

There are relationships and then there are friends with benefits. Once a man or woman is not in a relationship, chances are there’s an FWB lurking somewhere. What is this fad that has gained so much popularity in the last century? For some people, it is a prelude to a commitment, for others it is a way to avoid commitment altogether and yet for some, it is their way of sitting on the fence.

The Urban Dictionary defines friends with benefits in the most simplistic way; ‘Friends by day, sex partners by night’. Day and night may not necessarily be in relation to the sun but more in a social sense. Day meaning when you can be observed and night representing whatever goes on behind closed doors. With the permissive society we live in, it is unsurprising to hear people publicly announce their friends with benefits status.

Now if the parties involved are not careful, this escape route can become a path with treachery and heartbreak along its way. So here are the 10 COMMANDMENTS OF BEING FRIENDS WITH BENEFITS. I like to call them the ‘Rules of engagement’, after all, if you are gonna play ball, you have to abide by the rules!

COMMANDMENT NUMERO UNO: Thou shalt be honest! Do not start a friends with benefits secretly hoping for more. Be honest from the start about what your needs and expectations are. Remember that being dishonest can lead to future disappointments and jeopardize your friendship.

COMMANDMENT NUMBER TWO: Thou shalt not be friends with benefits with a friend who is in a relationship! There are a lot of other names to describe getting involved with a person who has a commitment with someone else and none of them are pretty. If you go ahead in this kinda situation, you risk the feelings of jealousy, insecurity, low self- esteem and guilt that come with most affairs especially when you can clearly see your friend has genuine feelings for his/her lover and you are just a sexy distraction.

COMMANDMENT NUMBER THREE: Thou shalt not spread the word! Being friends with benefits is a mutual agreement and should be embarked upon discreetly. You don’t wanna put your other friends in an awkward position or have people mistake you both for a couple. You are first and foremost, friends!

COMMANDMENT NUMBER FOUR: Thou shalt not expose the other person to risk! Sexually transmitted diseases are real and they no dey show for face. If you cannot abstain, you owe it to your friend to be faithful and if that is not possible, use protection. Remember that regardless of whether you have a commitment with this person or not, it is your duty to protect him/her and yourself! AIDS is real!

COMMANDMENT NUMBER FIVE: Thou shalt not act ‘daddy and mummy’! No playing house, no acting like a boyfriend or a girlfriend. That’s the fastest way to bring on trouble! Don’t expect him to call more or check up on you more. Your emotions and disposition towards each other remain that of friends. If you cannot handle this, you have no business being in an FWB in the first place!

COMMANDMENT NUMBER SIX: Thou shalt not get too attached! Getting all romantic or mushy is a big minus unless it is mutual but statistics show only 1 out of 10 FWBs progress to a relationship so don’t count on it. If spooning, sleep overs and mushiness will get you too attached, desist from it. Try to hangout with other people when you are not getting down and dirty to reduce the ‘us’ time.

COMMANDMENT NUMBER SEVEN: Thou shalt not close the door to real relationships! Don’t get it twisted, friends with benefits can never substitute for a wholesome relationship, neither can you build a future on it. Doing so would be like building castles in the air! Remember it is a temporary arrangement.

COMMANDMENT NUMBER EIGHT: Thou shalt not become territorial! If you are a possessive person by nature, resist the urge. If you don’t really wanna date her/him, you may feel on some level that you don’t want other guys/chicks to date her/him either and this is unfair. If you are a jealous person, it is better to avoid the whole FWB idea because the slogan for this business is NO STRINGS ATTACHED!

COMMANDMENT NUMBER NINE: Thou shalt not be FWBs with close friends only acquaintances! More often than not, FWBs never develop into anything more. The parties slowly drift apart and life continues. Secondly, a future girl/boyfriend who learns that you used to be intimate with one of your close friends will instantly feel threatened and want the friendship over and done with. In the worst case scenarios, FWBs can ruin close friendships because once you’ve seen your friend naked, the easy air you guys once shared may be gone forever. If you wanna keep a friendship, don’t complicate it!

COMMANDMENT NUMBER TEN: Thou shalt cut loose as soon as both parties stop being on the same page! If you notice your friend is falling in love with you or getting too attached or getting involved in a serious relationship, call it quits before someone gets hurt. You are first of all friends and friends look out for each other. Don’t let sex override your loyalty.

A friend with benefit implies that you are actually friends and should not be used for scenarios where strangers decide to be together without any form of commitment. Very rarely, true love blossoms and it becomes a story worth telling. If the love is one-sided, it ain’t true and if you know you haven’t the strength of mind to carry out an FWB, wait patiently and prayerfully till your authentic-genuine article-limited edition-one of a kind-lover walks into your life and you’ll be glad you still have a friend to gist about your new found happiness! 😉 🙂 😉

Have a lovely night peeps….xoxoxo 🙂

 

New thingz

photo courtesy http://www.nollywoodgossip.net

I was having lunch with my friend J at Southern Fries, when a chick walked in, there was another chick with her but no one even noticed. All eyes were on her and her ‘hey-mama’ skirt which had all the men and their little men at attention and the women gaping. The lower curve of her butt cheeks was peeking at the world and all that separated it from the chilly afternoon air was a pair of fish net tights. We really had to commend the efforts of the skirt for managing to cover her upper cheeks. She wore Karen-couture (The latest in boob-baskets guaranteed to display your boobs to the far-sighted, made popular by Karen Igho, BBA winner) and had a brazen look on her face that made the icecream melt a bit faster. Someone started coughing and we turned to see an older man choking as his wife glared angrily at him not even bothering to help out. Our vixen got her food and sat down facing her audience, legs apart, red thong teasing the crowd as she slurped on a milkshake and I could see a lot of the women looking faint, their sensibilities thoroughly insulted, wishing they could have her thrown out but she was a paying customer and it didn’t help that there was a tomboy sitting beside her with a proud and possessive look on her face enjoying the scene her lover had created. Soon the novelty wore off and heads hastily dropped as cold chips were remembered. I was intrigued but J assured me that it was becoming a fairly common scene in Abuja though it struck me as odd because I always regarded Southern Fries as a family-type eatery and it was a Sunday afternoon…that paying customer robbed many a man of their post-church anointing! 😉

I flew into Lagos last week and I was half expecting to see water everywhere but Lagos was dry and it seemed people had moved past the floods and the loss of lives and property. The last time I was in town, school children would sing ‘rain rain go away’ when it began to pour and old folks would hum the lines to the old hymn ‘Showers of blessing’. Now once the sky turned a dark grey, people began to speak in tongues and beg God to preserve their property and lives and my gym instructor says more people are taking swimming lessons. Seems that instead of umbrellas, an insurance cover is the best sort of protection from the rain in Lagos. Maybe there was a reason planking was such a great fad, seems like that’s the sorta skill we need to be learning to stay afloat! The floods brought a sense of foreboding that returned with each drizzle and only the sun coming out again could clear the air. I got a Blackberry broadcast days ago warning about a tsunami forecasted to be hitting Accra, Lagos and PortHarcourt soon and panicked. If we couldn’t handle floods, we’d be like the Lost City of Atlantis if a tsunami struck. The broadcast claimed it was reported on Al Jazeera but the news was as false as the lions escaping from the U.I zoo. Thank heavens! Our people say the cow way no get tail, na God dey pursue the flies. May the souls of those who died in the floods rest in peace!

I had a fabulous weekend with my girl R, catching up on eachother’s lives, trading spicy man-gist while sitting with an orgasmic cheesecake at Ice cream factory and it was heaven as always and while I was at it, I spotted a Lagos celeb and began mentally comparing his photos to his real life persona, meanwhile my friend was sizing up his hands. I didn’t realize this was going on till she commented that he was lacking in the trouser department and was obviously a nervous and narcissistic person. I choked on my hokey pokey icecream and stared at her in horror. After verifying that she hadn’t colored with him, I asked her how she knew such scandalous info about this near stranger and she said she had looked at his hands. According to R, a man’s hands said it all. If his thumbs were small, so was his package, if his nails were very short, he was a nervous person (guess biting his nails had to do with that) and if his hands were small, he was narcissistic. I laughed so hard cos I did think privately that he was a Nigerian Johnny Bravo. 🙂 While still giggling about that, my friend C changed his BB status to ‘You can tell a girl’s hustle by looking at her legs’. I immediately pinged him to ask what exactly my legs said to him…the answer has been censored… 😉 Seems our body parts say more about us than we’d want to. A woman’s nails speak volumes of her cleanliness and a man’s feet whisper more tales about his package. Wonder who funded all this research? 🙂 Anyway ladies, the next time you meet a hot, new guy, be sure to ask him to show you his hands but remember that it’s not the size of the fish that matters but how well he can swim in the ocean. 😉

How I’d missed Lasgidi, so many things had changed since the last time I was around. Lagosians are no longer afraid of LASTMA. Surprise, surprise! Reminds me of a father who kept flogging his son till one day the son learnt to ‘chest’ it and stretched his hand out defiantly to collect his koboko… and they’d even learnt to do that and still keep their money in their wallets. And has anyone noticed the circus on Lagos roads these days? First we had mopo and yellow fever, then in came Lastma and now we have VIO and some other uniformed peeps. Everyone demanding respect, particulars and egunje. Feels like an owambe with different officers in their various aso-ebi demanding attention and exacerbating the Lagos traffic! Had to part with a thousand naira when my cab man was apprehended for not having a particular license and the guy was in tears as he hadn’t a kobo on him…Lagos, only the strong survive.

On a closing note, we slept in July and woke up in August! Happy new month peeps, let’s take out the clutter of dreams unfulfilled, broken promises, relationships going nowhere, procastination and ideas put on hold and embrace a new month and a fresh new start. Have a great day peeps…xoxoxo 😉

 

Her side of the story…

  I glance at his sleeping frame and my heart constricts, I rub his tummy and he sighs in his sleep, I snuggle up to him and try to sleep but with every toss and every turn, I know sleep will not be kind to me tonight. Why should it be? I am a thief, living off borrowed goods. I look at that body that has become so familiar to me, I can hear his laughter in my head, he makes me so high, makes me so glad, touches my heart and soul, this lie that I call my own. When did I stop being that person with morals? When did I agree to this pact that tastes so sweet but stings so deep? I hold tight to my treasure, I’d never have embarked on the quest if I knew the prize was not mine for the taking. Could he be any more perfect than he is? I love him I whisper. Words I can never say out loud. I talk about him everyday, I smell his perfume even in my sleep. Yes I’m sprung, but would I be judged any less harshly? These were circumstances beyond my control. Nobody told me that he’d steal my heart, no one thought a warning necessary. Oh I wish I knew some magic, so I could erase the ties that held him bound and vanquish the enemy and rightful owner who claimed his heart and kept him from being entirely mine. Oh how I’d managed only a farthing of his love, oh how I’d made do with the littlest share of commitment. What could I do to make it all make sense? Why did fate punish me so, making our moments together bittersweet?

We were friends, he knew me like the back of his hand. Knew my quirky side, knew my craze, knew me when I was scared and afraid but we had crossed the line. I hadn’t meant to taste those lips, hadn’t realised I’d ever wonder about his mandingo. But now here we were, neither here nor there, still friends but less friends and more of something more, something dangerous, a liaison laden with trouble. This wasn’t the plan, a little fun was all it was meant to be. A l’il sumtin sumtin to warm up a cold evening and add flavour to an otherwise normal friendship. Now I was royally screwed, desperately needing to keep up the maturity charade and put up paper walls to save my aching heart and pick up the pieces of my ego that crumbled into little pieces every time she called and he became a different person. Stolen moments, stolen kisses, a love twice removed from my fantasies. What could I do to save myself from this sinking ship? I was fiddling with the mechanics of the ship, refusing to jump ship, refusing to catch one of the buoys tossed at me by boys at sea. Maybe if I was pretty enough or wifely enough, the papers would finally read B’s property, rather than B’s loot! Mama had taught me ages ago that you couldn’t keep stolen goods, they always got you in a heap of trouble. What was I to do? He plagued my thoughts, plagued my life, plagued my dreams and his only offence was a smile.

I could blame him for not telling me about her, I could blame him for doing all the right things and saying all the right words. I could blame him for not sending me straight home the first time he saw the love in my eyes. I could blame him for wanting more when he had all he needed. But I couldn’t blame him, wouldn’t point fingers when it was me that chose to stay. I chose to be a thief; to love a man who would never give me more than an artery leading to his heart, to keep a woman awake at night, worrying where her man had been. Well I was awake too, tossing and turning all night and every night. Wondering and scheming, too afraid to utter words other than ‘God please’. Thieves were allowed to pray, the one beside Jesus hanging on the cross was saved by his supplication. Maybe my sleeplessness was punishment, surely she must have called on the powers that be to rob her enemies of peace. When I was a little girl, I dreamt of a man such as this, he was all I ever wanted, nobody warned me that he would be taken, nobody warned me that I would be hanged for stealing…I PLEAD LENIENCY…for he stole my heart too!

Written for every woman who has to wait her turn for the love of her borrowed diamond, guard your heart diligently young woman for out of it flows the issues of life. If your hands hold so tightly to what is not yours, how will you receive the gift of love that the Father so graciously pours upon you in season?

Have a lovely evening peeps…xoxo 🙂

 

Making your man give up his bone!

  Women seem to think that they can train their men like lab rats or a cute puppy that’s taught to sit and roll over in exchange for certain treats. We always have the best intentions. Wanting only the best for our significant others. After all if we are gonna be divas and the men are gonna be our better-halves then they have to be a whole lot better than average. And like real estate, getting a man who fits your exact criteria may be either impossible or just more than your resources can attract so we’ve all resorted at some point to purchasing the run-off-the-mill house and hoping with love, care and some choice prodding, we can revamp the house and bring it to its former glory. Sounds like a plan right?

Well what do the men have to say about this? Research shows that after nagging, behavioural modification (manipulation) is man’s second biggest phobia in relationships. The fastest way to send a man packing is to give him a healthy dose of phobia 2 wrapped in phobia 1’s unattractive package. Why do men resist change? A woman will re-invent her entire being if it would please her man. I know women who would give a chameleon a run for its money because their appearance and outlook undergo constant change as dictated by the men they date. I have been an Arsenal fan, a Man-U fan and a Chelsea fan and that says nothing of my taste in sports/football clubs but more of my taste in men and my eagerness to please. And in comparison, I must say I have had it good. Some women have gone beyond the edge of reason tryna to be ‘Stepford wives’ and while only a small percentage of women will resist changing to please the man they love, most men in contrast, expect you to love them for who they are and leave them exactly how you found them. Take my friend T for example. He waved a red flag immediately I started talking about taking him with me to church for weekday services and accused me of behavioural modification. T’s a well-grounded fella but the thought of having a woman control his affairs made him squirm. It took gentle female persuasion to make him relax. What is it about tryna make a man better that has him running out the door faster than you can say ‘Jack Robinson’? Is it just his ego or the fact that manipulation and control are deep-seated in the heart of behavioural modifications and are antonyms to the love they represent?

I’ve always been a woman on a mission and many times I’d get bored if I didn’t have an ailment to nurse in the relationship. Amongst my more memorable ones were saving an ex from potential lung cancer, saving another from potential hell fire and saving a phlegmatic ex from potential mediocrity. One thing these men had in common was their resistance to change. It was akin to a man refusing to be saved from a burning building. How could I be a superhero if my heart throb didn’t wanna be super-saved? Like all men, they wanted love, they wanted understanding but more importantly they wanted acceptance. Now one would rightly quote that men are like leopards who don’t change their spots and that you shouldn’t smell what you cannot eat but c’mon you must realize that at the start of a relationship every one puts their best foot forward and vices are often downplayed or hidden! Hence we are faced with a dilemma of sorts. How do you keep your man from running while you pimp him up? I had a friend O, who had a really great relationship till she decided her man had JayZ’s million-dollar potential but wasn’t ambitious enough and it was up to her to unearth this potential and push him towards high-reaching goals. The pushing finally scared him off. He felt she was hard to please and he’d never be good enough for her, yet all she was tryna do was be the strong woman behind her successful man. Tough luck huh?

So what’s the secret to making a man give up his bone? Is it possible? Is it easy? As easy as making a dog give up his bone one would say. But I know a girl and I’m sure y’all know a girl like her too. A super human who somehow transformed her man into a tailor-made, excellent finish, well-bred specimen and you’d be amazed what she had to work with in the beginning. So how did she do it?
What did the women who dated him before her do wrong? Could’ve been something or could’ve been absolutely nothing! Sometimes all your hard work may be for some clueless babe coming after you to enjoy. Annoying innit? After my last breakup, I began questioning the save-your-man theory. If he was gonna leave in the long run, I might as well give the next babe some work to do but a wise aunt pointed out the fact that #dearfuturehusband whoever he was, would only be my dream man because of the experiences and behavioural modification he’d gotten from previous relationships. Agreed?! Yes the world is round and what goes around, comes around! #Q.E.D 😉 So how do we get our significant others to drop that one thing that makes them frail human beings? Just so that he/she can ascend to the realm of perfection…

The matter is quite a sensitive one and it could blow up in your face if not handled properly landing you in a hot ‘soup-opera’ starring as the bad guy with your man on the war path if he even concedes to stick around…
So here are some guidelines to follow:
– Constant appreciation makes criticism easier to handle.
– Remember you are both on the same team.
– Correcting each other should not be with a holier-than-thou attitude.
– If you say the same thing three times you are nagging.
– Prayer is your secret weapon!
– A perfect man/woman will make your imperfections stark and inexcusable, do you really want that? (We will not even delve into the matter that perfection in itself is a myth)
– Remember that there’s a woman out there who will gladly accept him warts and all.
– Time and Maturity are factors! (Don’t bother your head about issues that your man will inevitably outgrow as time and maturity set-in).
– It’s a tough world out there, no one wants to come back home and be judged.
– Communication is key. Unlike a goat, a man will change if he sees reason to. Make him see what he stands to gain and that your motives are unselfish.
– Be patient with him and soft-spoken. Gentleness calms even the most stubborn man.
– Tell him how happy the change would make you rather than telling him how sad/angry/disappointed the habit makes you.
– Boost his ego. Make him feel like a king and he’ll cross seven seas to do right by you.
– Do not command/threaten/bully him into changing.
– Understand where he is coming from and why he is the way he is and then take it a step at a time.
– Examine yourself. Sometimes putting all your energy into changing someone may be a psychological way of running from your own faults/weaknesses. #doctor-heal-thyself!

The only constant thing in life is change and people regardless of gender are all about self-improvement but if your motives are less than honorable and your man feels he is failing to measure up to an invisible standard you have set, he will get discouraged or defiant and find a person who makes loving less like engineering maths. Men are simple creatures. My male buddy, N always says women have 85% of the power in relationships but immediately they make the man realize that fact (mostly by being controlling or rubbing it in his face), the man regains all the power!

So Ladies, a behavioural modification is possible and even quite successful with the right approach and amount of sensitivity but when it becomes a behavioural manipulation, it can only lead to disaster. Remember to give your man a treat when he’s doing good and encourage him! #teamcheeryourman 😉

Guys, this post also applies to you! There are ways to make your woman ditch the wrapper and hair net forever 😉 or forsake that annoying habit…without manipulation!
…learn to speak her love language and a change in behaviour will be easy as pie! 😉

Shout out to my friend T, who inspired this post!
Have a lovely night peeps and if you haven’t voted, please go to http://www.nigerianblogawards.com/vote.php to vote for ‘Memoirs of a woman with Chutzpah’ in the 5 categories we were nominated! Thank you.
xoxoxoxo 😉

 

Don’t love me with slaps!!!

  I just googled ‘windeck’ the title of the Cabo Snoop hit song and it means ‘sex’ *scream! Did i actually promise to make a 2 second sex video for my fans if I win? Course not! Paris Hilton I am not!!! 😉

I got a shocking blackberry broadcast this morning about some dude killing his wife 5 days ago. Heaven knows why on earth I got the news so many days late since some of the contacts on my BB are self-proclaimed CNN reporters abi na WikiLeaks?!! They somehow manage to be at all places at once. Informing us about police fights in Mushin and Agbero fights in Bauchi at the same time! Anyway this broadcast was very different because it not only carried the news of Titilayo’s demise but a picture of her husband grinning menacingly at her on the wedding day! Also there was a note attached to it about domestic violence and that got me thinking…

When I was younger I used to think stories like that only happened to poor people living in face me, I face you apartments cos every time Frank Olize’s Newsline reported a gruesome story such as this, it was always in that setting but Titilayo (May her soul rest in peace) was a Lagos girl and worked at Skye Bank, I imagine she did the same things we did and gave her man the same dose of shakara that we all have given our significant others so why is she six feet under while we are going about our daily business doing the same old s**t? It hardly seems fair! How does a sane prince charming morph into an unrestrained beast? One who not only stabbed his wife to death but took delight in cutting off parts of her body, parts that probably attracted him to her in the first place. What could she possibly have done to deserve this? Reports say her parents warned her about him but hey, everyone knows someone whose parents warned them about a certain man and they ain’t dead! Heck! My mama warned me about two of the men I dated and though mama turned out to have old people’s foresight, my heart was the only part of me scarred.

I look at the cute little boy sitting across from me in his mama’s laps. He has the cutest dimples in the world and he definitely will become a heart-stopper one day but will he be a Kolade? How can one tell? Some people blame it on dysfunctional families but hey, I know lots of men with family drama and they haven’t murdered anyone yet neither have their fathers. Could it be an evil spirit masked as blinding rage or a borderline case of schizophrenia? In those days parents would investigate families before giving out their daughters but nowadays if there’s money and prestige, mental stability and psychiatric history seem to be pushed aside. Could Titilayo have cheated on him and if she did was that enough reason? How many signs did she ignore while they were dating? How many times did she forget a hot slap after a reaffirmation of his undying love?

I can relate with domestic violence because I was hit by a guy once. We’ll call him K. He’d been on my case and I’d been giving him the regular UNILAG girl shakara, one day we got into an argument late at night while walking down the street of my house and he flipped and threw me slaps that made me see stars yet undiscovered. He pushed me on the floor kicking and cursing like I was a lifeless sack of garri. I screamed, I begged, I tried to run and I fought back but it was a lonely road, he was high on weed (a later discovery) and I was on my own. An hour later (nose almost broken), he had calmed down sufficiently and with tears in his eyes, threatened to jump into the silent lagoon because he knew he had lost me. The irony of the matter was that while my insides were screaming bloody murder and ordering all the mammy waters not to have mercy on him when he jumped in, I mustered all the energy I had left into an audible plea. I was actually begging him. I reasoned that if his body was found floating in the Lagoon, I would be charged with murder even though I was innocent. He walked me to my house giving me strict orders to put ice packs on my swollen face and not let my family see me till the morning. I barely made it to my house. Now little did he know that my family is close knit and akin to the Italian mafia. By morning my neighbourhood was crawling with police and he was on the run. Some days later, he checked himself voluntarily into Yaba Left. I heard that he had abused every one of his ex-girlfriends yet each of them had dated him for years at a time. I wondered what would make a woman stay in a relationship while a man got his kicks off punching her.

Over the years I have heard stories of women who have lived with violent men, some getting maimed, others long dead. They stayed cos of their children, they stayed cos they couldn’t live with the shame of a failed marriage. Who is taking care of the children of the deceased now? Who is paying the hospital bills of the battered wife? My friend W said she stayed in an abusive relationship for years because when he was not abusing her, he was the kindest, sweetest, most generous man alive. It makes me remember Eminem and Rihanna’s song; ‘Love the way you lie’, I love that song but no one should willingly be in a relationship that burns them to the ground. My friend became a bully after a while, taking out her aggression on course mates and room mates and beating them up at the slightest provocation. Some people would have envied her for having such a devoted boyfriend but only her inner caucus knew about the stone in her shoe. Thankfully today she is with a good man who may have faults but would never raise his hand to hit her.

When I first started dating, my mum gave me two nuggets of wisdom. First of all, she said; ‘Never manage a boyfriend, because he will do much worse as a husband’ and secondly, ‘Before you commit to a man, make sure you know the limits of his temper’. Yes once in a while, you can find me provoking an otherwise sleeping lion (aka boyfriend) just to see if he bites. Many times it isn’t intentional, PMS ensures it happens often enough! Marriage may hold surprises but we don’t want our jack-in-the-box to be a coffin!

So what to look out for in a man….(I know it can be hard to spot an abusive man when love blinds our eyes)

-He pushes too far, too fast, planning your future together right away. (The relationship moves forward very fast. Abusive men woo as fast as they can. They know that they can’t sustain consistent good behaviour for very long)

-He hates his mother and is nasty to her.

-He wants your undivided attention at all times and it is mandatory.

-He must always be in charge. (Overly controlling and always wants things to go the way he wants them to go).

-He always has to win.

-He breaks promises all the time.

-He can’t take criticism and always justifies his actions. (He makes excuses to justify his behavior or actions instead of feeling sorry).

-He blames someone else for anything that goes wrong. (Denies every single mistake and refuses to claim responsibility for his actions).

-He’s jealous of your close friends, family members, and all other men. (He can always find reasons for not spending time with your friends and family and he may try to discourage you from spending time with them also.)

-He always asks you where you went and whom you saw. (Uncontrollably jealous and extremely possessive).

-He has extreme highs and lows that are unpredictable. (Mood swings and Bi-polar behaviour)

-He has a mean temper. He starts fights and always wants to bicker and start conflict with others.

-He often says you don’t know what you’re talking about. (Invades your personal space and treats you without respect).

-He makes you feel like you’re not good enough. (He’s not happy to accept you the way you are and  reminds you regularly what a wonderful guy he is and how lucky you are to have him)

-He withdraws his love or approval as punishment and destroys objects around you, especially those that are dear to you when angry.

-He pushes you to do things that make you feel uneasy, like taking the day off from work or even breaking the law.

– His vulnerability may appeal to you. (You might find yourself saying: “he just needs someone to really, really love him (and heal his pain.) Why does it need to be you? Feeling sorry for someone is no basis for a loving, equal relationship.)

– He expects a big return on his investments. (He may seem happy to put your needs and wishes first for a little while, but it won’t be long before he starts saying: “Look at everything I do for you. You should be doing X, Y and Z for me.”)

– All the women who he’s had relationships with in the past didn’t understand him and let him down or behaved badly and he admits to hurting and attacking a woman in the past but blames that person for making him do it.

– There are areas of his life he refuses to talk about.

– He’s got a history of alcohol and/or drug abuse, and possibly violence.

– When you first meet him, there’s something about him that you don’t like. If you choose not to trust your intuition, you’ll probably pay for it. Big time.

–  He’s all sweet with you, but he acts differently with other people. (Rest assured that, with time, you’ll become ‘other people’.)

– There are times when his behaviour leaves you feeling like you’re dealing with someone you don’t even know.

– He exhibits low self-esteem.

– He is unable to identify and express emotions in the right way and shows it by being angry with you when he is angry with somebody else.

– He lies to you constantly and plays with your emotions in any way possible such as calling you names, degrading your being, ignoring your emotions, depreciating your achievements, insults you in front of others and poisons your mind with constant bad-mouthing and threats.

– He is cruel to animals and weaker people.

– He forces you to have sex even when you are ill.

– He has an over bearing, aggressive personality which you have mistaken for confidence and he is a control freak.

If you have any doubts that your partner may be, or may become, abusive, take the relationship slowly and listen to the advice of friends and family whose judgement you can trust. If you don’t like what they say and find yourself replying: “But you don’t understand. He’s not like that…”, the chances are, you’re wrong and they’re right.

For one woman (Titilayo), it is too late. She will never hear the birds sing or the wind in the trees or more appropriately the horns blaring in Lagos traffic! She loved a man, she gave her all and he repaid her with death! May she find rest for her soul. I sympathize with her family and friends.

Dear reader, it is not too late to get out of that abusive relationship!

Men please take note, women can be abusive too! I guess the reports are less because it’s far more embarrassing. Pele dear but if you are in that situation run for dear life oh cos women have been known to murder their better halves!

Please treat your wife like the delicate flower that she is…whether she’s a rose or a wall flower!

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Have a great day peeps…xoxoxo 😉