So I was called to stop a family feud from degenerating into full-blown disintegration this evening.

Husband and wife, at each other's neck because of husband's infidelity.

And gross insensitivity.

He was caught, literally pants down, humping his side-chick.

No, not on his matrimonial bed.

But does it matter?

Unfaithfulness is unfaithfulness - no matter where the field of (guilty) play is located.

Happened that husband (okay, some ladies would wish I call him "horseband" henceforth), a businessman, has his factory/office at the other extreme end of town where the family residence is.

Takes him at least three hours to shuttle between home to work each day, each way.

In mind-bending Lagos traffic.

So he told wifey, a Registered Nurse, that he would like to rent a place close to the office where he'll stay, Monday through Friday, when he'd return home to be with his lovely wife and three lovelier kids.

That was two years ago, when husband was 50.

Wifey, ever the loving and caring gentle spouse, saw the sense in it.

And agreed to the arrangement, albeit reluctantly.

Hubby wasn't growing any younger, she rightly reasoned.

First weeks of the home-every-weekend arrangement, hubby stuck to the deal religiously.

A couple of months into it though, a weekly return-to-home, grew into a fortnightly return.

Then, a once-in-a-month thing after the first six months or so.

Each time wifey, now 45, complained of being denied her conjugal rights and pleasures, hubby always blamed it on a problem or the other at the factory.

Problems that, according to him, needed his attention at all times.

Wifey didn't understand.

He had a staff of all hues and colours.

Why would he need to stay behind to fix all the problems?

But she accepted.

And endured on.

For the sake of family stability.

And hubby's business successes.

No, according to her, she wasn't all that trusting.

Or naive.

Hubby has a history of dalliances with willing pretty young things.

And has always denied whenever he was caught.

Truth is, he was good at playing away games - as he was at playing home ones.

Only problem was, the away games were apparently getting more than the home ones.

And whenever wifey raised these concerns, hubby was always at the extremities proclaiming his innocence.

On a few occasions, he has invited the wife and the children to spend sometime with him at the "second" home - to put her mind at rest.

But wifey's mind was not at rest - a woman's intuition is sharper than King Solomon's sword.

So on this night, as she tried fruitlessly to go sleep, after not seeing hubby for close to one month, she got a crazy urge to see him.

No, not for a piece of pie, according to her.

She was almost beginning to forget what that even tasted like.

But to prove to herself that her mind wasn't playing chess games with her.

At 10pm, while sensible human beings were getting ready to sign off for the day, wifey got into the car and drove over two hours across town.

From Lekki, on Lagos Island, to Ota, in Ogun State.

Alone.

No driver.

No companion.

She said she knew exactly what she was going to find.

And was prepared for it.

But didn't want a third pair of eyes - or ears - witnessing it.

A few minutes after midnight, she arrived at her destination, quietly woke the gateman up, and walked into what was initially meant to be her husband's temporary, week-day home.

Went round to her husband's bedroom window.

Window was ajar, curtain pulled apart but room darkened.

Hubby had always preferred the breeze of fresh air to the manufactured air of airconditioners.

Especially when he's about to do his thing.

The muffled scream and the grunt that she heard at that auspicious instance, could only be one thing.

Having been married to the man for all of twenty years, it was a grunt and muffled scream she was all too familiar with.

Hubby had just landed back on earth, from a trip to Cloud 9.

She walked around to the door, and gently knocked.

And apparently not expecting his wife at such an "ungodly" hour, uncle, still groggy from the recently concluded trip, opened the door without thinking.

And was confronted - standing in all his naked glory, his manhood limp and looking south-south from the exhaustion of the marathon he just completed - by his wife, from across town.

She violently brushed past him without a word, and headed for the direction of the slaughter slab.

The freshly slaughtered body was still lying down, naked, innocently thinking it was the man that had come to start a another journey into Neanderthal.

Until she felt a strong, angry hand yank her off the bed violently, and another dazed her face with a brain-resetting, pleasure-clearing, dirty federal slap.

As she screamed out in pain, something in her voice made the wifey dash for the light switch almost simultaneously.

Then she stopped dead in her track: standing scared-shit in front of her was a face she was all too familiar with.

It was the face of someone who had lived with her once for over a year.

The "husband's niece" the horseband brought home two years prior because she was in town for her National Youth Service.

After her service year, she had been given an employment at her husband's office as an Admin Officer, with her blessing.

The shock of the discovery paralysed her mind.

And her mouth.

Madam quietly and calmly pulled herself together, got into her car, and drove all the way back to Lekki.

I was called-in in the morning, by the husband.

He was convinced beyond all doubts that the wife was going to divorce him.

And strip him bare of everything he's ever worked for.

"No, Uncle Ade. I'm not going to divorce him.

Why would I?

Divorce him and take my children out of this home?

Destabilize their life and their education?

Walk away and let one idiot come and enjoy the things I've spent half of my years on earth building?

Naaaah, Uncle Ade. I'm not going to divorce my husband.

I have not the slightest intention of doing that.

But I'll wait for him.

In a few more years he'll grow old and weak, needing the companionship of a caring, loving, listening wife, won't he?

Men age faster than women, you know? And they get ravaged by illnesses quicker and more debilitating than us women.

I'm a Nurse, remember?

I'll wait for him.

When all these young girls are done with him and have all gone, he'll come back to his senses.

And then he'd meet me here.

I'll be waiting."

The coldness of those words chilled my mind.

And I remembered a certain old man whose story I was told.

He is in his mid to late 80s - weak, fragile, sickly.

And totally helpless.

And at the mercy of his long-suffering wife.

He is forced to go to buy his own food, cook his own meals, wash his own clothes, clean his own room, and tend to himself each time he is sick.

Of course, not many 80-plus man can do any of those things for himself.

So he suffers.

Greatly.

I was told he was once extremely mean to his wife, at the height of his wealth and power.

Abandoned the wife while he chased everything in skirt, in his youth.

Now the chicken has come home to roost.

"Tell him if you want, Uncle Ade, I'm not bothered.

He's not going anywhere, no matter what.

Neither am I.

We'd grow old together in this home.

And we'd take it from there."

******************
POSTSCRIPT:

WOMEN!!!
I plead with you with everything I've got: please do not hold this kind of extreme grudge against your husband - even if he deserves it.

See, ehn, no one knows who is going to be healthier than the other in old age.

No one knows who is going to die first - except God.

Resolve to forgive, love and live in harmony with your husband.

If he's not giving you the life you envisaged,

if he's been callous

and disrespectful

and you're convinced you can't change him,

please take a walk - instead of planning to take your own pound of flesh in his old age.

It is just not Godly.

******************

MEN!!!

Eti yin melo?

How many ears do you have?

Listen up and listen good:

If you've taken her to be your wife, please make her your absolute best (and only) friend.

Treat her right.

Uphold and uplift her.

Take excellent care of her.

Love her with everything you've got.

Treat her with respect.

Protect her from the rain.

Shield her delicate skin from the sun.

Make her happiness, yours.

Make her well-being, your priority.

Apart from the immediate joy and satisfaction derivable from loving your own flesh of flesh and blood of blood, you're also laying a soft bed for yourself to sleep in in your old age.

In a well-loved, well-taken-care-of woman, you're investing in your own long-term well-being.

And happiness.

© Ade King Ebimomi