COUNSELOR EDWARDS DIARY

It was now six months since the last time Dolapo and Ezinne spoke. They were married and had been living together for five years but for six months nobody said a word to the other person. Insane right? I thought so too. When Ezinne came to me to seek my counsel and told me about the situation of things in her marriage, I was engulfed with mixed feelings. I didn’t know whether to laugh, at the part where she said she would intentionally walk around the room naked after taking a shower and she would notice him twist and turn under the duvet trying to control his erection, or shout at her for allowing their children have to live under that condition, or sober up with her because somehow in the span of six months, the relationship they had managed to build together in seven years was breaking apart and nobody seemed bothered to fight for its survival. I am her counselor so it would be unprofessional of me to show any of these emotions.

How did it start?

Ezinne – ‘I’m a very jealous person. I know this for a fact because my last two relationships ended as a result of my insecurity problems. I met Dolapo when I was at my lowest point. I had just gotten out of a relationship, the break up was bad and somehow he was there. He was there for me’. She said teary eyed. ‘When I needed someone to talk to at 2am because I couldn’t sleep, he would stay up with me and talk till I dozed off. He was there. Every day after work he made it a point of duty to see me and make sure I was doing well. And it wasn’t long before my attention shifted from Stanley (my ex), to Dolapo. I had become very fond of him and him of me. We bonded easily and the chemistry was crazy. He was funny, he still is very funny – he would make these silly, stupid jokes that would have the sides of my belly hurt because of prolonged laughter. He was nice, he was kind, he was caring, he was generous, and he was what I just needed to complete me. He knew the right things to say, he was just right for me. So when the talk of us dating came up, I didn’t think it twice. Yes! Yes! Yes!

We dated for two years and on the eve of our second anniversary, he asked me to marry him. Of course I said yes, but let me tell you how he did it. Are you sure you want to hear it? It’s quite a long tale and beautiful one at that. She asked, with a big grin on her face.

Well if you think it would give me an insight about how to help you, you can go on.

I had always told him I wanted a public proposal, I’m quite vain. I knew I wanted to marry him from the time he asked me out but I also wanted to have pictures of him on one knee asking me to marry him. Pictures taken by a professional photographer – I’m vain like that. So from the beginning of the second year of us dating, whenever he asked us to go out id make sure my hair was well done, make up, nails, outfit all looking perfect just in case he was going to do it. Call me whatever you want but it is what I wanted and hell yeah he delivered.

Dolapo was a big Michael Bolton fan and it so happened that he was going to be the guest artiste at a concert in Civic Center. I wanted to give him a pre anniversary gift, so I got us tickets to attend the concert. We were there in the V.I.P, Michael was performing ‘Say you say me’ and as we sang along he received a phone call. He said it was important and he had to take it so he excused himself. I sat there by myself taking pictures and singing along while I waited for him. He was done singing that particular song and Dolapo wasn’t back still. I wanted to get up and go look for him, but each time Michael would make a failed attempt at speaking pidgin English and the whole hall would erupt in laughter, myself inclusive. I didn’t want to miss it so I sat back. ‘When he is done, he would come back’. I thought. Then Michael announced he was going to bring up someone to the stage, a big fan of his who had paid a lot of money to grace stage with him. Now I was getting angry ‘how the hell would Dolapo just disappear like that after the stress I went through getting us the tickets’. Lo and Behold, the supposed fan was Dolapo. My Dolapo was on stage with Michael. I screamed till I started to cry. They sang together and he kept winking at me while at it. I was so excited, so much that I couldn’t have thought about what was going to happen next. He (Dolapo), looked at Michael who nodded back at him and then he asked one of the bouncers to bring me to the stage. I was super shy. The cameras were on me, everybody was looking at me and for twenty seconds I stood there still in shock. I couldn’t move my feet. Then everybody started to clap and then I felt my left leg move till I was on stage. Then power supply goes off. How? Why should the lights go out? Not when I was about to have my moment. Then the lights came back on and as I turned, I and saw Dolapo on his knee with a cute little black box in his hand. Oh no he isn’t going to do what I think he is about to do!!! What? He was going to propose in front of this large crowd, at a Michael Bolton concert? I was crying. I cried, I cried so much Michael handed me a tissue. My make up was ruined but I could care less. I got proposed to at Michael Boltons concert, nothing tops that. It was beautiful, it was perfect.

Six months later we were married and in less than a year there was a baby. We named her Oluwafunmilayo Chiamaka Adeyemi. She was beautiful, very quiet and didn’t cry much. Just ate and slept. It wasn’t until after the baby we had our first major fight. All through the time we were dating everything was just perfect and smooth. We quarreled sometimes but in minutes everything would get squashed. So when this quarrel happened, I thought it was going to just end like the others but no. For three days he won’t say anything to me.

What happened?

When we were dating, there were times when I suspected him of cheating on me. He would receive calls and then stand up to go out and receive them. He would later come back to say, it was work. Other times he would take the call in my presence and whisper throughout the conversation that was after I complained to him about it. i thought that was over but he was now doing the same thing after we had gotten married and it was getting me really uncomfortable. One morning when he went into the shower after receiving one of such calls, I took his phone and looked up the contact. It was a stored with a guy’s name; I can’t remember the name now. I checked the contact on whatsapp and it was a guy’s picture that popped. He spent a while in the bathroom which afforded me time to go over his phone as long as I wanted but I found nothing. I simply concluded it was just me being paranoid so I stopped worrying.

After the baby came, the calls doubled. Worse is, he was receiving the calls in the dead of the night - which most of the time would disrupt my sleep and that of the baby’s, who slept in our bed. I complained and complained and complained and he would apologise and claim its work and there were foreign investors his company was trying to woo and because he was the best at what he did, the onus lay on him to seal the deal. In my head I’m thinking ‘is this man not mad? Do I look like a kid that you would be telling this kind of stupid lie to’. Anyway it happened again one night and I was fed up. When he was done with the call I simply got up took the phone from his side and went and dumped it in the water closet. He went mad and for the first time I saw him angry. He didn’t hit me, he just shouted and shouted then went to the bathroom to get the phone that was now already bad, but I really could not give a damn. I had tried and I felt he was disrespecting me so I did what I felt I had to do. That night he slept in the sitting room. For three days he didn’t eat the food I cooked for him, I would try to talk to him and he would act like I was invisible. On the fourth day I couldn’t keep up anymore so I begged and begged and cried and won’t let him go off to work without talking to me. He eventually did and when he came home that night even bought me a gift. We moved on.

After that incident everything just seemed fine again. I went back to work and we were once again this beautiful couple until the second baby came. It wasn’t the calls this time; it was the late nights and drunken state he used to come home in that worried me and even now sometimes he doesn’t even sleep at home. I tried everything I could to make him go back to my Dolapo, even going as far as getting his father involved. He would tell him things are fine and then come home and continue his silent treatment. It felt like everything I did pushed him even further away. He didn’t give me a reason for his sudden change of attitude, he just went off.  After a while I got tired of trying so I stopped bothering because I thought that eventually he would come around. But six months down, I don’t know who I married anymore.

I’m only now very bothered because I have needs. As a woman, I have needs. I need to be pleasured, I need to be adored, and I need to feel wanted by my husband but I’m getting none of it. I want to have sex, I want to have lots of sex because I feel like I would drop dead soon if I don’t or even give in to any guy that offers.

I don’t think my body shape has been altered in anyway by the pregnancies. I mean, I still get looked at by young men or does he have doubts about the paternity of these children? Because since we got together I haven’t been with any man other than him.

I just really need help, I need answers. I don’t have questions to ask anymore because there are no questions. I haven’t done any wrong here and thinking about it is getting me worked up. I’m thinking about fixing something I don’t know. I don’t have anything to say anymore, I just need answers. I need you to tell me that it would be fine because irrespective of whatever, I still really love him and divorce isn’t in my books.