[Eve]

Who bells the cat?


The lure of the flesh has always been a stumbling block between man and his God. This indeed was stressed by the Almighty when he decreed that a man should take a wife unto himself if he finds it uncomfortable to stay pure. The provision over the ages has, however, not been satisfactory enough for most of our men who find it irresistible at one time or another to stray into the warm embrace of other women, religion, law, vows and promises, etc not withstanding.

For many of these men, the idea often starts out as adventures, for the fun of doing it, or to join the bandwagon. But oftentimes, child's play may become life size. Adventure becomes misadventure and without planning for it, a second wife is born. So how does he break the bad news to his wife?

First, let’s take the story of S, a Pharmacist, as she narrates how her husband married her colleague at the same office. (I am sorry guys the first bit of the story is missing but I am sure you won't find it difficult piecing.)
Her story:


Life continued as before, until a few weeks later when another colleague again sought my audience for another private discussion. The same story was related again, but this time with a challenge that I must confront F with the accusation. I was troubled, but even more embarrassed at having to ask such a ridiculous question. But the seed of doubt had already been sown in my heart. It had taken root and just needed me pondering over it to germinate.

I could not help it any longer and before I knew it, I somehow found the boldness to confront F. She outrightly denied the story and even tearfully started to rain abuses. F’s stomach grew bigger and about a month after the scene, she stopped coming to the office. On enquiry, we found out that she’d been transferred to ...... Local Government Council. She had also moved with her two children to her mother’s house.

An uneasy calm reigned in me as the stories continued. Of course, my husband denied all the things I told him and subsequently, he stopped discussing it with me. A rift was wedged between us over the matter, me insisting that there must be something to the stories going on around town, and he insisting he knows nothing of F’s pregnancy and that there must be a mischievous and malicious twist to them. He even insisted that those making up the stories were my friends who wanted to hurt me for undisclosed reasons. He asked why he and his friends were not aware of the stories, or were they not living in the same city with me and my friends? Soon, his attitude changed. He went about with a frown permanently plastered on his face, at least when at home. I almost believed his gimmick until he confessed with his own lips after F put to bed.

He walked in late that night asking me to rejoice with him, he’d just had the baby girl of his dreams. It was as if I’d been hit by a moving train. He did not need to tell me the mother of his daughter, as the answer was glaring. I wailed all night like a wounded lion, cursing, shouting, swearing, you name it. The boys were forced out of bed as I couldn’t keep my voice down, and I’m sure all the neighbours must have heard me too.

K locked himself up in his room to run out of the house at the wake of dawn. Confused, I rushed down to the office to inform others of what had transpired. No one appeared surprised, staring at me with a “didn’t I tell you so” look on their faces. I had been thorougly humiliated and taken for a ride. I wept all day and the same continued for several weeks.

I was informed that my husband threw a lavish party for F’s baby which was well attended even by some of our staff members who wanted to get the gist fresh. It was held at F’s mother’s house. I gradually slipped into a state of depression. I lost appetite for most foods, sleep, and couldn’t attend to myself and my children. It seemed as if my world had collapsed totally and I didn’t want to live anymore.

The shame and pain were just too much for me, especially as K showed no sign of remorse. All around me, friends, colleagues, and relations had the same thing to say. It was always, “you better don’t kill yourself over such a silly issue. Men are not reliable. Think of your health and your children, after all, you have a good job and he can’t take that from you.”

The adage that the wife is always the last to know was so true in my case. For a long time, people had been seeing K and F in every nook and corner of town. I was told how they’d been seen together at one function or another, or how she visits him at the office or clinic. They had even confided in their close friends that they both hit it off the first time they met. Surprisingly, that was the day K and I paid her a visit after she lost her husband. I could not have expected a woman in mourning to be eyeing a man, not to talk of the husband of a colleague who had come to sympathise with her. Piece by piece, I heard all the dirty details of how the two low-lifers collaborated against me. And in my quiet moments, which now appeared to be all the time, I gradually pieced the whole thing together. I realised that I should have suspected them all along, if I had been observant enough.

I was really troubled and at 35 years, I was already looking 60 years plus.

The future looked quite bleak to me and I lost all sense of humour. It was a real hard blow for me. Soon, I started getting all sorts of advice from friends and co-workers. I was made to understand that for such a person to have been so callous, wicked and uncaring, F could go to any length in getting rid of me if she considers that I will be a threat to her happiness with K. That really sent me wild because the thought had never crossed my mind.

Some of my colleagues even told me things about her that tended towards such things. They all concluded that I would be foolish, moreso a second time, to just sit by and watch in self pity while my matrimonial home is destroyed. If I could not wrestle my husband back from her grips, I should at least ensure that she doesn’t send me packing out completely.

Despite all the encouragements given, I could not summon up courage to do anything about her. I was too scared to visit a herbalist or Alfa or prophet with such a proposal as conceived. What if the poor woman was innocent after all? At least, if K had not approached her, the whole thing wouldn’t have happened. I was lucky that I didn’t encounter any problems with my in-laws as most of them did not approve of what he’d done.



To be continued ............

[BlueHue]

Wow!! Eve My Sis,

You are Good
I am hooked

[awuraaama]

BlueHue, on Mar 27 2007, 11:29 AM, said:

Wow!! Eve My Sis,

You are Good
I am hooked

Same here....

[Bula Matali]

update !!!!! UPDATE!!!!!

[awuraaama]

Eve we are waiting patiently

[Eve]

cont/d...

They asserted that if he must take a second wife, why should it be one from my office or that I knew very well. Though my mother-in-law saw nothing wrong with what happened since her son as she claimed could afford to have more than one wife and, most especially, more children. I did not blame her because she was not a first wife and I’d heard that she married my father-in-law for his wealth, having come from a poor family. So what could one expect from such a person. As they, however, didn’t reside in Lagos and I had no reason to visit, I could not be bothered.

Everyone blamed me for not having more children, attributing everything to it. If he had things to do with his money, he wouldn’t have enough to spend on a second wife. K soon started staying out all night, or so late that we would have all gone to bed before his return. I was reliably told that he’d rented an apartment for F close to her mother’s house. Some people asked me to go and challenge her. But, the idea was too low-life of sort for me. What would my friends and family members say or think on hearing that I’d done such a thing. Besides, if she did anything nasty to me, she would be absolved of all blames as they would query my presence at her residence.

Apart from the late nights and absenteeism, money became a problem. Besides our monthly feeding allowance, K never wanted to hear anything about money again. He would complain that business was not doing fine and that since there were two of us now, he had to manage his resources between us. I could understand because he was trying to wrap up construction work on our house, but if the woman were not there, things wouldn’t be so tense. Besides, I was sure that K was helping F in taking care of her two other children, when he had not even met the needs of his own.

On completion of the house, my husband informed me that F would also be moving in with us. I least expected it and it was the worst blow of all. Someone that didn’t know how the land was bought or how the foundation was laid would now be matching around the place! I’d thought that since she’d kept her distance over the years, then, we should just keep it that way.

Again, people started hinting that she can’t just be having her way like that if she was not using anything. If she wasn’t doing it by herself, her mother must be helping her out. I’d had enough by then. If I didn’t want her to have it all, I must protect myself. So, I joined a spiritual church and, since then, the Lord has been performing wonders. Though F now has three children for K, she has not been able to eject me from my matrimonial home.




The End.

[Eve]

The next story is by J, (50), mother of six and a businesswoman. She said she least suspected a thing. Her story:


“Sometimes, when I remember how it all happened, or, should I say started, I still think it’s all a bad dream that I’ll soon wake up from. S woke me up early one Saturday morning and informed me that I would be accompanying him to a function. I asked why he did not tell me that the previous night or even before then as I would have tried to adjust my plans to accommodate the outing. Besides, what sort of outing was it and who was hosting? He insisted he could not tell me. That he was just given the invitation card late last night too. But, that prepared or not, the outing was a must and I was going with him. By then, his countenance had changed, and he became really angry with me.

He asked why I was querying him, insisting that, as my husband, he had the right to ask me to follow him anywhere. I was baffled, asking if we’d had a quarrel prior to that morning. He refused to answer and walked into the bathroom.

I decided to ignore him and set about my own business for the day. I went to wake my daughter, the last born, despite the fact that it was just about 6.00 a.m. We usually crawl round town together on weekends as I could not imagine leaving her alone in the midst of all the workers that usually come around. The first two are in the university while the others are boarding students in the secondary school.
When he returned from the bathroom and discovered that I had no plans to follow him, his anger returned full blast. He told me that I was looking for his trouble and would get it. He said the outing was very important to him, in fact, a matter of life and death.

If I failed to accompany him to the place, it meant that I had no respect for him and was ready to leave his house. I was shocked. What was going on here so early in the morning. I quickly told him this was surely the devil’s handwork and that he should get hold of himself and not allow the devil have his way with us.

He just turned around and told me that I am the devil at work who wants to disrupt his plans. We started arguing back and forth and finally, he confessed that he was the host of the ceremony we were attending.



To be continued.........

[Eve]

Naturally, the first thing that rushed through my mind was a naming ceremony, my husband had impregnated someone and she’d had his child. But I was too scared to ask him just in case it turned out to be true. So, I sat down calmly and asked him when he had been planning such an important event without hinting me about it. He told me he didn’t need to plan anything for a long time. So, what was the big event all about? My God! You would be shocked at the way we were talking about this thing as if it were a normal everyday occurrence. He was behaving as if it was the usual thing and that he did not owe me an explanation. Or he did not owe it to anyone to be decent about his actions. He just blurted out that a girl got pregnant for him and he wanted the baby, so he had no choice but to marry her.

Though I could not have expected anything short of a pregnant second wife, I was still shocked nonetheless. I asked how old the pregnancy was and he told me six months, retorting that he didn’t know what that had to do with me. Then, I asked for her identity and he rebuffed me saying that since I would meet her later in the day, there was no need for the question. I had never been one for much words too, but I managed to ask if what he’d done was good. He should think of all the long years of suffering together, and after 26 years of matrimony. Just when things seemed to be turning out fine and we should be thinking of settling back to enjoy the fruits of our labour, he’d decided to take on more problems. He replied that the financial aspect of it had nothing to do with me as he would not be spending my money.
I was quiet again, and the next minute, tears were rolling down my eyes. I started abusing and cursing him. If he had dealt fairly with me, God will be the judge between us. Little did I know that I was in for more surprises. He quietly told me not to curse him on his wedding day, a day of immense importance in his life. I stood staring at him for a while, not knowing what to say. I called him a fool who ought to be ashamed of himself. How was he planning to explain his action to the children? He replied that it wasn’t my headache, but his. I started weeping aloud, but he warned me about embarrassing myself, stressing again what could happen if I failed to follow him. That was how I attended my husband’s wedding ceremony, though lots of people later told me that I was stupid to have followed him. I should have stuck to my guns too. In fact, he was sure that I would fall for the trick and it must have been planned in collaboration with the lady. However, that is not necessary now as the deed was already done.

All arrangements had been made by my sister-in-law, S’s older sister. Sister B and I had never really got on well, especially in the early days of our marriage. We’d had cause to clash a couple of times. But it was always settled for us by other relatives, while I would be asked to apologise to her being the wife in the family. However, over the years, we had both been able to mark out our territories, identifying each other’s limitations. A false display of peace and affection naturally settled in over time since we hardly ever saw each other unlike how we used to in the early days. I never visit her, so it was just natural that she too never visits me.

We only meet on neutral grounds at family occasions. And so it was no surprise that Sister B was the Chief Hostess and Master of Ceremony and Chief Bridesmaid all rolled into one. She was all over the place, determined to see that all went well, and I would see how she was capable of arranging her younger brother’s life. Sister B’s friends were ladies in waiting, or what could I call them being the organisers, running back and forth. Sister even had the guts to kiss and greet me, “Congratulations, may the union bear good fruits.” I was cold to my bone marrow. Imagine being kissed by a cobra. I managed to mumble a reply of sort, but I was really hurt. This time, Sister B had hit me below the belt.

That was not the only shocker waiting for me. It turned out that the wedding was no little party at all. It was neatly packaged with all the trimmings. But for my bias and bitterness, I would have given Sister B and her team a pass mark and even recommend her to wedding organisers. She made sure she brought all the necessary items used for such ceremonies, nothing was left out or negotiated. It was as if she was organising a wedding for a young couple. All the yams and fish and goats were accurately numbered. To crown it all, when the bride was led out to meet her husband and guests, she was wearing the same fabric with me and Steven. No thanks to Sister B of course.

The girl and her family turned out to be a nice piece of work. She must have lost her bearing somewhere along the way perhaps due to the influence of bad company.




To be continued...........

[awuraaama]

hmmmmmm

[BlueHue]

Eeiii, things happen!

hmmmmm!

[hipic_junction]

There is more?

[Ewiase]

hipic_junction, on Apr 10 2007, 06:30 PM, said:

There is more?

she is bringing the fufu and you've already started drinking the soup.

[Eve]

For this was obvious from the look on her parents face and the reluctance of her sisters to fully participate in the whole sordid party. But for Sister B and her lousy friends, very few people would have guessed that a wedding ceremony was actually taking place in that neighbourhood. It was our side of the family that provided everything. from food to bandstand. Sister B spared no expenses, of course, on her brother’s bill. At the end of the ceremony, the bride’s parents handed her over to me, insisting that it was me they were giving their daughter to as my own daughter, sister and mate, and not to my husband.

Her parents could not hide their discomfort as they openly shed tears. But Sister B kept assuring them that the whole thing was destined by God. That their daughter was in good hands and was stepping into a good family and would have nothing to regret by her action. It was as if she was the one marrying the girl and not her brother.

I went through the ceremony like one in trance and finally, we were on our way home. The three of us at the back of our Mercedes Benz and my eight year old daughter in the front seat. Sister B, a friend of her’s and two of R’s friends followed us in another car. No member of R’s family followed us.

In fact, I can’t imagine what I would have done if they had decided to host another party at our home. Did I hear you ask which home? Yes, mine. The one I’d shared with my husband and children for almost 15 years, since it’s completion. Sister B poured the traditional water on R’s feet while they prayed for her.

She did not allow any detail to slip her by as she went ahead to insist that they must take something before leaving just to mark the occasion, if only just mineral water. She went to the kitchen refrigerator by herself and invited one of R’s friends to assist her with the trays. They all sat down chatting as if nothing had happened. Sister B did her best to ignore me completely as she spoke to everyone but me. But could I even speak to anyone? I was dumb struck, even the few times S spoke with me, I could not reply him. A huge lump just stationed itself in my throat.

I was battling with a lot of emotions at the same time. Should I burst out in tears? Hold it back? Shout and order them out of my house and life? I kept looking at no one but Sister B. Even for a little while, I must have concluded that she was responsible for the whole thing. She had arranged R for her brother just to spite me for all the hassles I’d given her all those years back. Yes! Why not? She never forgave me, but was waiting for the opportunity to Bare her fangs at me.

I did not know when they all left. I’d retired to my room on the pretence that I was going to change my clothes and never returned downstairs. That night, R shared my husband’s room, while my daughter shared mine. As little as she was, she understood all that was going on and could only say sorry mummy.

I told her not to worry assuring her that everything would be alright. The next morning, R came to greet me in the sitting room, addressing me as Mummy, after all she was only a child. At 28, she was four years older than our first daughter. That morning, we had a little family meeting with S presiding.

He informed me of the need to make room for R’s accommodation. I was to move the girls downstairs to the second room which hitherto, I had been using as a store for goods from my shop. He did not mention an alternative storage place for my things. So, it was implied that I had to look out for myself. I moved my daughters’ things out of the room so that R could get a room to herself. That was how R became my husband’s second wife and has shared my home till date.

I later found out from the driver after interrogation that all our workers, including the house-help knew about the wedding ceremony. Everybody knew except me. He drove S around and had all the details and must have passed it on. I was the only one in that house without the slightest idea of what was going on right under my roof.

I was forced to evaluate myself, and my relationship with our workers and neighbours. Was my behaviour so terrible that I didn’t have just one person among them who could call me into confidence? The driver told me that S made him swear to keep it a secret with promise of a pay increase or he would be sacked. Since he was yet to find another job, he could not turn him down.

To say that the children were shocked on arrival home is to say the least. My eldest daughter advised that we move out on completion of my own house as she couldn’t stand all that was going on. But even if I could, where was I to take six full grown children? I would have to run a life time race to clothe, feed and educate them. If S were dead, that is another thing entirely.



The End.

This post has been edited by Eve: 17 April 2007 - 10:00 AM

[BlueHue]

Christ!!

[awuraaama]

hmmmmm Eve please dont keep us wating for long

[Bula Matali]

Bula passes by and takes notes

[hipic_junction]

So what do you all think of Sister B?

Or, should I wait till the story is over?

[Ewiase]

hipic_junction, on Apr 12 2007, 08:43 PM, said:

So what do you all think of Sister B?

i think she is the devil incarnate! may nothing like this happen to you girls and may the men also learn from this.

[awuraaama]

Ewiase, on Apr 12 2007, 08:52 PM, said:

hipic_junction, on Apr 12 2007, 08:43 PM, said:

So what do you all think of Sister B?

i think she is the devil incarnate! may nothing like this happen to you girls and may the men also learn from this.

I just wish she will go through this and know exactly how it feels like

[babydoll1]

I sure wont be anything like sister B to my brother/s wives or girlfriends, i wonder what inspires people like to behave like that its not like they can marry their brothers.
I always thought get on with the in-laws no matter what, i dont see how anyone can ever win a spite/revenge game with their in-laws, the people that have known your partner all thier lives and knows how to manipulate them.

[hipic_junction]

Women who are happily married, and busy with their own marriages, hardly have any extra time to waste on their brothers.

[BlueHue]

hipic_junction, on Apr 13 2007, 02:36 AM, said:

Women who are happily married, and busy with their own marriages, hardly have any extra time to waste on their brothers.

Hipic,

So truer a sentence said.

The woman is a bitch. Lets wait to hear the rest of the story.

[Eve]

Our third story is narrated by W, (47), a business woman who says she had to gate crash at her husband’s secret wedding ceremony to another woman. How and what happened later? Find out below as W tells her story:

My husband did not tell me anything when he was going to take on his second wife. Though they are now separated, he will never forget what I did to him. Same for his family members and advisers. Today, many of them that used to enjoy my respect and attention whenever we met or they came to visit, are not worth a dime by my ratings now.

Most of them are either too ashamed to come around to our house, or too scared of what they think I might do to them. For they all believe that I am one crazy, unpredictable woman. And so would you after reading my story.

What they do not however know until now that I could not have done anything without the assistance of my husband’s best friend and his wife. Whenever I tell anyone this story, they salute my courage and wisdom. But for my actions, J, my husband would have swept me aside like a piece of garbage, after all I’d gone through in my life with him.

I would forever remain grateful to D and L his wife. D and J, my husband had been childhood friends since their secondary school days. I’d met D first, through J and then later, L, through D. It was as if fate had a hand in the whole thing as L and I sort of struck a cord on meeting. And so, all four of us were able to continue the relationship without having to deal with emotions such as jealousy or lustfulness that such closeness usually breeds.

It was not as if L and I shared a special bond or feelings for each other, but we could tolerate and respect each other’s views. Besides, we seemed to share similar taste in many things, especially clothes, food and housekeeping matters. You know, the normal women’s stuff. As for the guys, they did some business together once a while, even though they were in different professions.

So, I was not surprised when the lady called me up one day to ask what my schedule was like the following day.



To be continued…………

[hipic_junction]

Eve,

Are you trying to pull a fast one?

[Eve]

hipic_junction, on Apr 17 2007, 01:12 PM, said:

Eve,

Are you trying to pull a fast one?

Moi?