Seven years ago, and precisely on 9th May 2015, I started a journey to forever with my left ventricle and peaches – Mabel! We captioned it #MayDee2015 and oh boy what a journey it has been filled with highs and lows! First, I am eternally grateful to God for sustaining us as a family and for the gift of two fantastic girls in February 2016 and January 2022. Two years ago, when the pandemic shut the world down, I penned down what five years of marriage have taught me as a man, husband and father. So, in commemoration of our anniversary of perfection, fullness, completeness and rest, I figured I have a few more (well, seven) things to say.
Finding love right where you are
The line ‘we found love right where we are’ is taken from Thinking out loud by Ed Sheeran which is one of our favourite love jams! The media space is now deregulated (I’m sorry for bringing my work into this), therefore we consume quite a lot of information from diverse sources all around the world. You read stuff on social media where certain conditions are set before folks tie the knot. This, in itself, is not a bad thing and my next point speaks to this. However, these set conditions are beginning to make people postpone living their lives all just to meet a condition. Putting it into context, after 15 months of friendship, we started dating. So, as we celebrate seven years of being married, there is a bond of friendship that is about 16 years old. We were just becoming ‘adults’ and in the university trying to make something out of life. As of then, marriage was the last thing on our minds.
We finished school and it seemed it would crash. I served in Anambra and she in Katsina. This babe came to visit (she loves to travel) thrice during NYSC. After NYSC, life, as they say, started. I got my first job in November 2011 while she April 2012. Both our take-home pay was 30,000NGN, though, by May 2012, I got an upgrade to nearly 70,000NGN. I should add that she left home and her comfort zone in Ibadan for Lagos to work and the conditions, I must say, were not palatable. In between those years, what we did and continue to do is create MEMORIES. A rule we have is that when we have to choose between buying a thing and creating a memory, we do the latter.
The memories we created ten years ago are still with us today. So, there is no formula for this ‘love thing’. What works for one may not work for another. Finding love where you are, also means that you are pursuing your individual goals. And if it is meant to be, there will be an alignment somehow and somewhere down the road of life. Without this alignment heading into marriage can be a costly mistake.
You either know what you want or what you don’t want
I smile when I see many ‘tensioning’ and ‘God when’ online. In my conversations with younger folks, I have had to tell them it’s okay not to have a clear and defined picture of your future at some point. Yes, the ‘aspire to perspire’ gang may negate this but I will back that up with the fact that even if you do not have that full picture yet, you should have a picture of what you do not want in your future. Right from our Industrial Attachment in 400 level, Mabel used to say “I will never work on the Island”! This was because of the stress that comes with commuting daily from the mainland in Lagos to the Island. Men, that was an audacious declaration. But guess what, though at that time she had a zilch idea of the kind of career she was going to build, I can confidently say she has never had reason to work on the Island since moving to Lagos in 2012.
As for me, I just wanted to make a difference in society while earning some money and living comfortably. If that will take me to the nooks and crannies of the world, I am ready. The journey to self-discovery is in different layers and so as you piece the puzzle together it begins to make sense. Sometimes, you need to change jobs while there are times you need to stay put. With a strong 2:1 in Computer Engineering, I knew in less than a week of my first job that this was not what I wanted to do with my life long term. But that was what I had in hand, so I worked like crazy there for one year. Now, being in tech is the in-thing around the world but the truth remains not every person will be a tech sis or tech bro. I switched from IT to Project Management and then moved to specialise in the social sector because of how I am wired. I struggled inside me with managing projects that do not affect the ‘everyday person’. Having run IT (hardware and networking) projects, real estate projects, business consulting/management projects and FinTech projects I took a step back shortly after we got married in 2015. I resigned from my job with good prospects and without anything on the horizon, I made a switch. In little over a decade of my career and working on my sixth job currently, I have gone through different phases – learning & digging down, discovery, incubation, volatility, sensitivity to times & seasons and influencing others to be better. I have seen patterns in each phase that helps in shaping the next layer. And as the years roll by, the picture of the future gets clearer and clearer.
Oh, and I should add that Mabel rubbed off on me somehow. The job I resigned in 2015 is the only job I have done located on the Island and I worked there for just six months. That’s if Lewis Street in Obalende counts as the Island, though. Sometime in 2019, I said, well I won’t say I will not work on the Island but people that live in Ikoyi do not have two heads. If that sort of job comes, it has to fit the bill of moving my family to somewhere in Ikoyi.
Money gives you options and makes romance sweeter but start with what you have
If you have heard the cliché, ‘no finance, no romance’ then it is pretty straightforward. Some couples build wealth together, others bring it into their union. It all has pros and cons. One thing is sure, money is important. However, because it is a resource, how the couple treats and perceives it will either shape the marriage or crack it whether it is in abundance or it is in short supply. Money tensions spill into other areas and lead to distrust eventually. Is it not amazing a married (wo)man does not know how much their spouse earns? At the point we were getting married, we had to draw up a plan and budget of the costs to agree on who takes care of what. We both knew our incomes so it was easier to manage expectations and not have an over-bloated expenditure for the wedding. A starting point was to first agree on the 3 things we thought as the most important for us at the wedding.
The first was good music (our friendship started with a dance). We secured a fair deal for a live band and a DJ. The second was nice visuals. The highest single vendor costs handled by us as the couple went to the vendor who handled our photos (pre-wedding, traditional and church wedding) & video. We have adopted Silversquare Images as our ‘official family photographer’. Amazingly, they have captured Tiffany’s christening, 3rd & 5th birthday shots as well as our 7th-anniversary shots! The third thing was the memory we wanted to hold on to – our honeymoon. On a family income of about 150k monthly, we obviously could not afford an abroad peng honeymoon. I recall Mabel had resigned to fate because by a week to the wedding there was nothing on the horizon. I had about 50,000NGN in my account after major commitments to our vendors had already been met. I searched online for a resort until I got something on the now-defunct DealDey.com. With around 40,000NGN, we sealed a 4-night getaway that we will never forget. It was minimal but we came back very refreshed with several plans for our family after being at a beachside resort.
The concept of looking at the family income together has enabled us to be realistic about what we can do per time. As a couple who both are active in paid employment and building individual career paths, we are not oblivious of the global economic issues – inflation, un/underemployment. So personal development to boost our family economy is none negotiable. Little wonder that the most expensive one time venture we both have paid for individually to date is the acquisition of knowledge in form of higher education. I had an issue with the ‘your money as the man is our money and my money as the woman is my money’ statement. While that statement is not entirely untrue, I think it has been used to manipulate men and put so much pressure such that like our fathers, the one and only KPI wired into us is to provide for the family, full stop. I made this mistake early on in our marriage but I now know that providing does not stop at financial. It is spiritual, mental, emotional and physical! It’s an all-around and all-party effort. Contributory percentages will vary for sure, so sitting back to consistently review the family budget is crucial. Taking records is also important to measure growth over the years. We have looked back and can pinpoint when by God’s mercy there was some sort of acceleration in our marriage financially.
The Parenting Puzzle
The process of bearing little humans is one I am yet to fully wrap my head around. Like, what was God thinking for pregnancy to run for nine months? That is literary a year ‘gone’ in a woman’s life! Add post-partum and upbringing, then we have an 18 to 20 years timeline on our hands. We became parents barely nine months after we got married and oh boy that was a thing. We were still learning to navigate the husband and wife thing and then boom, baby girl Tiffany signs in. After that experience, we borrowed brains and agreed there was no point rushing to bring another little human into the world. Of course, the remarks here and there knowing our society kept coming but we stuck to our guns. Yes, the joy of being a parent and being blessed with such a gift is in itself a miracle and testimony. We knew not figuring out how to parent will eventually strain our marriage. And with kids these days seemingly coming with an upgraded operating system from heaven, one cannot afford to slack.
We do not have it all figured out. There are those times we know we goofed or snapped after being pushed to the limit. At the beginning of 2022 when Theodora arrived, the energy it zapped reminded us why we sort of paused. Raising kids can turn into the focal point of marriage with spouses neglecting their needs. We get busy ensuring the kids are sorted and forget fundamentally, that a man and wife are enough to be a family unit. We formed the habit of checking on each other while adjusting to the new addition to the family and even taking ‘time off’ individually to recharge for a while when needed. For those that have super support systems, kudos. They do come in handy. For us, we knew it was for a limited time so within three weeks for Tiffany and four weeks for Theodora, we were on our own. Parenting is hard work and all hands must be on deck to keep the ship sailing in the desired direction.
Love is beautiful; faith and hope sustain it
Many years ago, I read something that goes like this – ‘a woman marries a man hoping that he changes but he doesn’t; a man marries a woman hoping that she does not change but she does.’ I say to people that marriage is just like life itself. There will be the highs and the lows. The hope and belief are that we are not tested beyond our capabilities. Everything will be tested by fire and water. When this happens, the foundation it was built on will determine the outcome. If all we relied on was what is seen, then reality about the unseen which is eternal sets in. Dating and being married for a cumulative of 15 years, I certainly do not doubt that love is a beautiful thing. We have to say it as it is though; it goes through different stages.
I recall many years back Mabel hinted that I came across as an unserious dude (due to some playful and nonchalant behaviours). But wait, it was my early twenties, you wanted me to be acting like I am thirty?! Anyway, a few years after marriage there was a time she commented that I am now too serious. I said, woman, you have to stick to one oh! (LOL). But I knew what the message was behind those conversations. The love has evolved sort of and though life happens to us all, we have to consistently ask ourselves like that movie – why did I get married? So, I say to people that love is great but love (eros) is not enough. There are times the natural you will not want to love. It is not because you are a demon or something, it’s just natural. But we have to then dig deeper. This is where faith and hope come in. What is your anchor? Where do you seek refuge? How do you see your marriage/home at the end of the storm? What do you need to do to get things going and held together? As I heard recently, the testimony is not that you are or got married. The testimony is the quality and character of your spouse.
Navigating a changing world
The world is changing at such a fast pace. Technology is disrupting everything now. We have influencers who can easily become mentors to people with their utterances and lifestyle choices. Some of the issues affecting marriages have also been on the front burner in recent times such that the sacredness of the institution has been questioned over and over again. But as I have learnt from several teachings, when the purpose of a thing is not known, abuse is inevitable. And to understand the purpose of anything, you refer to the manufacturer’s manual. So where did it all start? What was the reason given for a man and a woman becoming one flesh? The marriage institution and the family unit are God’s framework for building systems and maintaining a balanced world. A major number of societal ills, if investigated properly, will be traced to a faulty family structure. So, we cannot afford to be casual about the way we interact as spouses and how we model life for the children. And trust me when I say that ‘do as I do’ most times trumps ‘do as I say’ in this regard. The currency of trust must never be eroded if we are to build healthy families in a changing world.
As important as the dating and courting period is, there are signposts we pick about our partners. Some of those qualities we love about our partners during that period could become an issue after marriage. The confident woman while courting comes across as arrogant after marriage. The patient man becomes too slow in action. The template of ‘I am the head of the family and whatever I say is final’ is long gone. If the CEO of an organisation does not have a competent human resources officer or chief financial officer, then you will begin to see cracks in the recruitment decisions or finances of the organisation respectively. Wisdom teaches us not to belittle the contribution of the least in the organisation. Have you noticed the power the security man at the gate wields? That is the first port of entry. The same goes for the front desk officer. You do not have to meet the management team before understanding the organizational culture. When I apologise to Tiffany for something I did not do right, I smile inside. Even our parents in the face of all pieces of evidence will look you in the eye and say ‘I am your parent and I know more than you.’ I have found how what I felt was the right decision for the family after discussing and seeing Mabel’s perspective was stepped down. Nobody is a doormat or figurehead. We should always leverage our strengths as a couple and continuously work on those weaknesses until the perfect day.
MayDee7: To completeness and adventure
Our decision to get married happened sometime in 2013. I think we had an 18-month plan that was supposed to terminate in February 2015 before changes in Nigerian election dates that year had us shift to May. My bad, I gush over proposals and all posted these days, but ours was more like, okay so where is this heading? I still did the one knee thing behind closed doors a few months before we got married so it is not held over my head (LOL).
Seven years and counting, and I still cannot get enough of this amazing ‘tech sis’ of a woman. Again, I reiterate that there are still some rough edges here and there, but seven years have taught us that some things take time and that making the most of each day is important. As far as the commitment is unwavering and trust is held sacred, better days are ahead.
We are excited as we unlock the next level of our journey and a new dispensation beckons in our journey to perfection. I love love you Peaches and you rock my entire uni, meji and metaverse!