Chapter 1 - THE SETTING

I can’t even believe I am writing this book. But after incessant and constant harassment from my boys, Arthur, Perry, and John, I knew this story had to be told. This is not one of those books that claim to be expert at a subject; neither is it a book out to discredit or validate anyone’s ideas, opinion or believes. The objective of this book is to share with you the secrets of how I came to choose my wife and hopefully you will learn a thing or two that may assist in your decision choosing that special someone. Is it not funny that there is every book under the sun that tells a woman how to maneuver relationships with men but yet none outside of the religious realm exists to advise a man how to choose the right wife? Why is there a discrepancy? An annoying discrepancy that generally assumes that one solution fits all when it comes to men choosing a life partner?


Hello Ladies! I got news for you. Men will now also play the ‘decoding’ game and this book starts the journey here on end. I can hear many of you beautiful sisters anguish, hiss and hate on me right now because you want to retain that monopoly. But please hold your fire until you peruse or read to the very end and I promise you, like many of my ex’s, you will come to the conclusion that what I have shared is beneficial to you equally. I know you will thank me later…………My ex’s did.


Yes, I am married to a beautiful damsel called Tanya, but before choosing Tanya as my rightful partner and wife, there had been dates with Janet, Julie, Andrea, Keisha, Tonya, Selena, Karen, and Lolita. Though all beautiful in their own right, they failed to win my heart having failed at one hurdle or the other during scrutiny. Without scrutiny, I would have thrown caution to the wind like most men and marry any one of these beautiful girls without good reason for doing so other than she is beautiful, gives good sex and my friends think I’m with a hot chick. This ludicrous way of choosing a wife is equivalent to crossing ones fingers and hoping for the best. I feel this is the primary reason my friends Arthur, Perry, and John are having marital problems and debating the dreaded D word.


Growing up as in London, I was forced to take cognizance of conjugal relationships from an early age, I think at around six years old, mainly because of my parent’s quickie divorce. That impending separation gave me my first feeling of hopelessness and helplessness. Subsequently not long after, like a roll call, I witnessed my aunts and uncles on both sides go through unavoidable and protracted divorces. This is a painful memory for me and set me on a trajectory that will forever guide my thoughts, steps and processes. These experiences quickly cultivated an emotional and intuitive side of my being that otherwise may have remained dormant forever.


My adorable parents loved education and made sure I was literate by putting the fear of God in me. They made me so fearful of getting D’s and F’s I literally developed the fear of failure, a good thing though because it would later propel my success in life. Unbeknownst to them I wasn’t studying because of the big corporate jobs they always envisaged for me, I was more afraid of the perorate and lampooning that followed each time I came home with anything less than a B. Alright, enough said of my early childhood, I hope you have through my eyes grasped enough information about my background to enable you appreciate why I approached the subject of ‘choosing a wife’ with military precision complemented by an analytical and engineering mind.


As soon as I turned sixteen, a pretty girl whispered into my ear in the school library. There I was smiling sheepishly at the opportunity of a first date, to which I nodded affirmatively. The library did appear as an odd place for her to ask me out, especially considering I had sat next to her earlier in music lesson. But this was not the moment to try understanding her thinking or rational, I was just going to relish and enjoy the anxiety and excitement that goes with going on a first date.


I don’t want to divulge this girls name because I dated her simply because I wanted to act or pretend to be a gentleman. She wouldn’t have been my first choice had I been blessed with natural confidence at 16, but saying no to her in the library would have made for an awkward situation for her, primarily because we took the same classes, and more so because we had friends in common.


I convinced myself and indulged in the relationship, and while I was enjoying and using it as a study guide on women, she was on the other hand using the relationship to dream. This was weird because by the second month of dating, she had projected us into our mid-thirties, floating around somewhere in the globe with two kids, a dog and a mortgage. The dog, I didn’t mind, but two kids and a mortgage! I’ll pass for now. This is no lie; she had the whole thing, pictures and all, documented in her journal and every time I confronted her, she laughed it off.


I was by no means a saint myself; I was guilty of writing too. I had penned my observation of her reaction to many random situations. Like how she viewed the world and certain people, what fuelled her desires, her creativity, her likes and dislikes, etc. I sometimes deliberately create situations just so I can document her reaction. At the time I did not know this was going to be the basis for formulation of ‘THE PROCESS’ which I will explain in greater detail later on in this book. Suffice to say our relationship lasted until the end of high school after which I decided to end it rather than watch it die a natural death due to lack of care on my part.


Exposure to dating at that early age confirmed what I always believed. That being married to the wrong person is synonymous to being in prison or captivity and the only way out was going to be equivalent to a jailbreak with casualty. Casualty doesn’t have to be in the form of physical violence or physical harm, but could take many forms including emotional distraught, financial ruin, etc.


Another important thing I took away from early dating and relationships was that women choose men they want to marry, even though traditionally men initiate relationships, but ultimately women choose who they want to settle with. Case in point, if a man wants to marry a girl, no matter what he does, how he professes his love, how many flowers, shopping trips, chocolates he can afford, ultimately the woman has to choose him, she has to say yes or else the man is just loitering. Women are positively calculating how good a man will be for marriage. They weigh the whole package, they decode men; will he be a provider, will he be faithful, will he be loving, will he be good company, not necessary in that or any order, but women are deep and thorough before accepting in their mind that they can see themselves spending the rest of their lives with this person. Men on the other hand are visual pickers and that’s where we need to change. We need to change that fast; we need to do as much decoding as women. It’s not enough that she has a pretty face and a nice ass; our focus should be away from the vessel, we need to concentrate on the content of the vessel.

Ok

Chapter 2 - SO YOU ARE READY FOR MARRIAGE


Whether they have a girlfriend or not, men generally feel they are ready for marriage when certain items on their checklist are met. The number of items on a checklist that need to be met can vary on an individual basis, for some men its 2 items and for some its 7, but overridingly all men need two or more of the following met on their checklist before they can say they are ready to jump the broom.


 A feeling of being educated enough

 A stable job or career

 A place of abode

 Close friends are getting married

 Family and friends pressure

 Money in the bank

 Next logical thing to do in the evolution of life

 Girlfriend pressure

 Society and media pressure


So you have gone through your checklist and realize it’s time. You are starting to attend events, functions, concerts, direct introductions and dating with razor sharp seriousness. You even turned and wolf whistled that beautiful girl in the mall until she faded out of view. I know exactly your approach and it is does not bode well for the future. What you are doing is what most men have been doing wrongly for years i.e. looking for that that picture perfect girl to spurn your offspring without any form of vetting other than she is eye candy.


Yes I agree she is gorgeous, yes we can all see she is smart, yes she does have her own business and yes she is caring because she proves it with owning two cats. But you have missed the most important thing you should be thinking about at this point. You should only be thinking about numero uno, yourself, this is the one time you get a pass to be selfish. Now get a piece of paper and do as I did, write down in bold letters the things you want in a wife. Your list can be long or short, just make sure you write down the things that you most desire to see in your wife. Here is the list I used when I was searching for Tanya.


She has to be clean (not just tidy)

She should not be a snooper

She should not be overly jealous

She should be intellectual

She should be sexually compatible

She should not be too exposed to wealth and not to worldly

She should know how to cook and be a good cook

She should be a good entertainer


The theory behind my thinking is this; if a woman is not able to do any of the things on my list, then her inability becomes a pet peeve of mine which ultimately would cause a huge friction later on in the marriage. This friction can lead to a breakdown in communication and ultimately an affair ensues. Here’s a quote to buttress my point.

“If you take care of the small things,
The big things take care of themselves.
You can gain more control over your life by
paying closer attention to the little things.”
~ Emily Dickinson, 1830 – 1886


I am not naïve; I agree that you may not find all the qualities you want in one woman, just like she may not find all the qualities she wants in you. So here’s how you address that, add a weighting system to your list. Did I hear you sigh, ‘what is that” Well, you should have been a little more attentive in math class. Here’s how you do it, using a scale of 1 to 8, add weights to each item on your list in the order of importance (I used 8 levels because I have eight desirables on my list). So 8 will be the most important thing she must possess and 1 will be the least important thing she must possess.


So after doing that, here is my list.

She has to be clean (not just tidy) -----8

She should be sexually compatible-----7

She should be intellectual----------------6

She should not be overly jealous-------5

She should not be a snooper------------4

She should know how to cook and be a good cook------3

She should not be too exposed to wealth and not to worldly-------------------2

She should be a good entertainer----------------------1


Judging by the newly and carefully arranged list, it is safe to say that I will more than likely have a happier marriage with a woman that possesses the first 5 items on my list than a woman that possesses just the bottom 3. By the way do you know that every woman do keep a list of their own? Sometimes it’s not written in black and white, it could just be a mental thing. I am of the strong belief that one would have found their soul mate if their list and that of their intended partner are an exact match or are at worst closely aligned. In my experience, you know a woman is ready for marriage when her list goes from fantasy to reality, such as;


Tall becomes Successful
Dark becomes Provider
Handsome becomes Spiritual


Let me stop the digression, I am not here to help women get a husband, I am here to help you get a wife that has similar ideals as you. So let’s get back to the business at hand. Now that you have your list of desirables, we can head off to the next chapter where I will show you how to maximize the list to your benefit, but not so fast, hold tight, fasten your belt as this ride is about to get bumpy.

Chapter 3 – THE PROCESS


I remember like yesterday the uproar I received the first time I narrated details about THE PROCESS to a few platonic female friends at a barbeque. OMG! You should see their faces light up in anger like a wounded lion. You need to stop immediately someone bellowed, they protested vociferously, this is of the devil, you are so wrong for that, you are simply paying for a smash, another yelled. I listened attentively to their rebuttal but wasn’t prepared or going to let their thinking derail my carefully thought out plan and procedure. I stuck to my guns, I was the one looking for a wife, I was the one suffering from the fear of failure, and remembering the pain and memories of the countless divorces I had witnessed gave me impetus to argue passionately for what I believed.


I remained unperturbed in the midst of the escalating protest; at 36 years of age, an Engineer with my own successful company, I had battled tougher opponents in the boardroom and could care less what ammunition these girls threw at me. They scorned and raged even further when I suggested the reason some of them where in shaky unions was because their husbands hadn’t vetted their suitability and compatibility using THE PROCESS.


Our argument got very heated quickly into the dark, so heated my friends’ neighbor called the cops. Explaining to the cops we were adults engaged in a tit for tat civil debate got them about turned, but not without a parting shot to keep the noise level down or risk arrest. Quietly one by one, the men began coming round to my side of the debate, they visualized and realized my argument made sense. I prayed I hadn’t broken a few homes that night, because I succeeded in separating couples along gender line.


It was not until I rightly accused the girls of hypocrisy that they reached an aha moment, they started to really pay attention to what by this time had become ‘the boys’ way of thinking. Yes we were all probably under the influence of something by this time, but I had been subdued by a spark of genius and had drawn their attention to the phrase women everywhere championed - ‘you have to kiss a lot of frogs before you find your prince’, they nodded agreeing, and then I countered and questioned why it should be any different if men decided to separate the chaff from the wheat in order to find themselves a rightful partner.


That broke the camel’s back. I didn’t let up because I was convinced THE PROCESS was a just and fair way for men to access suitability of a potential wife meeting their needs. What I found rather cruel and unjust is the way society have over generations’ railroaded men, encouraging us to do the honorable thing but not showing us how to choose the honorable one.


If you jolt your memory and think back to all your previous relationships, you will come to the realization that women have been scrutinizing men for thousands of years. Where is the proof you may ask? Well, here it is. Assuming both parties are single, why won’t women jump in bed with every single man that approaches and says to them ‘I love you’? Fester on that for a moment.


Well, let me put you out of your misery, it’s because women vet men and would only allow access to the cookie jar based on a subjective complex algorithm that frankly no man could ever understand, candidly that is enough proof, but for further clarity I will choose to go further. Married men are advised to skip over the next few lines. As part of the research I conducted before writing this book, I found through an anonymous online survey that 90 percent of married women polled said their husbands were not their first choice. My married friends were shocked and dismayed when I relayed this information to them. Simply speaking, nine out of ten married women married someone who was not their first choice. Their husbands may have been their second, third fourth or even fifth choice. I challenge you to ask the married women you know so you may erase any doubt.


I inferred from that research what I knew all along and that is that women vet/scrutinize who they want to marry otherwise 90 percent of women would have ended up marrying their first choice.

On the contrary let’s look at what men haven’t been doing. As society stands today, if a single girl approaches a single guy and tells him ‘I love you’; before you can say Jack Robinson, that man will be all up in the jar. 9 out of 10 men will attest to that, the 1 not attesting is either a liar or delusional. The problem here is men are not conditioned right like women are, a woman would be scrutinizing in such a situation. That guy should have been scrutinizing and vetting to see if that woman meets requirements in his list of desirables. Primal instinct should always take a back seat.


Women in every aspect of life want a level playing field, then it is only fair that they abide by the equality idiom – ‘what is good for the geese is good for the gander’.

Now that I have convinced you THE PROCESS is right and fair, let’s cover a few ground rules.
The Process should not be used as a substitute rather as an addition to modern day checks including credit, background and criminal.
THE PROCESS can only be initiated after a successful first date. The general idea is that your first date is when you engage in small talk and know if you want to proceed to the next stage with the potential partner.


Where observations from regular daily activities and occurrence do not present opportunities to score your partner, you will have to create or induce scenarios.

Under no circumstance should you disclose to a potential that she is being tested.

With your list of desirables, just like I had done a few years ago, you now have to use THE PROCESS to score every girl you take on a date until you find your wife. Understand that to score some of your dates you may have to create scenarios where observations from regular daily occurrence do not present answers. At this point I suggest you peruse your list and think up of scenarios for each item. These scenarios will be needed when occasion calls for it. Remember, nothing is cast in stone, if a scenario doesn’t work for you, change it, your focus should always be on getting results.


With all that said, it is now time for you to get cracking and start testing, but just before you go, I want to regale and share with you my own personal journey leading up to the selection of Tanya as my wife. As I had previously declared, I dated a number of girls prior to Tanya; I will now let you into that world. You will have front row seat to the scenarios I played, witness why each of the other girls did not win my heart. Hear about my meticulous planning, and of course you get a chance to comment on the infamous helicopter ride that made my female friends cringe and at the same time rise up in arm.

Nice read. Keep it coming

Chapter 4

Date: JANET


After my third year swotting towards an Engineering degree in a London college, I decided to take time out to mourn the death of my dad who had unexpectedly passed away due to terminal illness. He had been a big influence over my life and I needed a break from routine to make sense of his demise. On that faithful morning when my aunt’s voice blurted down the earphone ‘he is gone’, I remember feeling my knees buckle almost instantly. Cold blood running down my spine quickly engulfed my entire body; I glazed in a daze as the ephemerality of life caked in my thought. My mind and thought process quickly succumbing to a figurative question mark. Why, why is life so cruel I kept thinking, why are we born to simply die; we live, we eat, we fart, we poo and then we die? I was spiraling downhill and needed some intervention to maintain sanity.


I rented a collection of vampire themed movies, barricaded myself indoor and feasted for the next couple of weeks wishing for my dad’s immortality. I watched myself balloon in weight as deaths excruciating pain took hold of me and refused to budge; it soon became crystal clear that these vampire stories were nothing but hopeless fantasies that exist in peoples head. Nothing was helping me heal; I needed to do something drastic.


I packed my bag and traveled abroad to the MomoCon, a fan ‘anime and gaming’ convention staged across the pond, specifically Atlanta, Georgia. After an exhausting 9 hour flight, I landed at the Hartfield Jackson International airport looking well overdressed. I hated how quickly my shirt had become wet from my own sweat; this made me realize the pinstripe suits in my suitcase weren’t going to cut it through the extremely hot weather. But this was no time to worry about that, I was jet lagged and all that appealed to me at this time was an inviting hotel bed.


The following morning I woke up bright and early, polished a plate of pancake and waffles from a local diner before traveling to the convention center. I sashayed into the convention hall in the red polo shirt and military khaki shorts I had picked up just that morning. I took a deep breath, panned my eyes in all directions, taking in the all the razzmatazz of good and bad costumes on display. I began to search for the free gaming area when I turned to the silhouette of the active and busy hostess in front on me;

"Wow" I said, as I stopped dead in my tracks.

"What?" she said with a distinctive frown.

"I just noticed how gorgeous your eyes are" I said with a gleeful smile.

Seriously, Janet’s green eyes consumed me to confusion. I know so because my utterance wasn’t the usual pre-planned cheesy cliché - ‘your eyes are like diamond’- I would normally have said if I was fishing for attention. We had a quick introductory conversation; she complimented my accent and took my number, promising to call later that day.


Two days went by and I didn’t hear from her, so naturally I stopped thinking much of our encounter. It wasn’t the first time a girl I was interested in would stand me up, and like my late dad used to say, ‘it’s a game of numbers, move on to the next.” So I left Atlanta a week after I had arrived and soon landed at Orlando international airport on my way to Disney. I turned on my phone and lo and behold it was Janet’s message on my voicemail.


She explained away her misfortune of contracting food poisoning and spending her entire week in hospital. We spoke briefly after that, but due to location and commitment constraints, we could only spend the next few years communicating via many forms of social media, particularly email. We felt connected, but the opportunity to progress the friendship did not present itself, well not until 6 years after making initial contact.
Janet let out a big elation when I told her of the construction job I had just landed in Atlanta. Almost immediately she put her realtor skills to good use, settling me effortlessly into a two bedroom condo in a nice suburb area of Cobb County.


Her 5ft 2in petite frame complemented my 6ft athletic build, her dress sense was superb, she always had her dark brown hair in a long or short bob coordinating well with her dark brown complexion. Her face is a pleasure to behold, straight nose, cosmetic teeth, full lips and pronounced emerald green eyes.


After about six months of dating, things started to heat up, I was beginning to see potential in Janet, and why not, she was caring, loving and sensitive. She seemed to always have it together. My opinion of her intentions based on her utterances and how she made me feel was that she was keen on us jumping the broom; she had only recently enquired of me where I saw the relationship heading. Janet wanted my commitment to a future together and truthfully I wasn’t having cold feet, I just wanted to be sure that committing to the future with her was the right thing to do.


We set off in my Mercedes the Friday after Memorial Day to a pre-arranged dinner at the Sun dial restaurant located downtown Atlanta. I had pulled up at her place at exactly 6:30pm, and there she was standing by the door to her apartment looking absolutely ravishing in the beautiful patterned red dress I had bought her on a shopping trip. It was rather uncanny that I was decked out in a checkered blue and white shirt she had bought me on the same shopping trip. I bobbed my head along to the song on the radio as we raced through side streets on a mission to link the I-85.


Turning down the volume and giving me a blank stare drew my attention. She had passed the jealousy test a while back so her reaction surprised me a tad. I agree the phone ringing relentlessly can be annoying but my choosing to ignore it was for good reason. Janet’s palpable irritation bothered me to the point where I felt it was best I answer the phone. I requested her courtesy to which she nodded ‘ok’ as I pulled into a gas station.


I parked, stretched and reached for the brown file lying on the backseat of the car. I held tight and climbed out, walked over to the hood. I responded to the incessant ringing phone, intermittently glancing at Janet whose beautiful green eyes seemed to follow my every move as I paced back and forth, gesticulating, stooping and scribbling into the open file in my hand. Not long after, I hung up, thought for a second before walking back over to Janet on the passenger side of the vehicle. I slapped the file on the dashboard, felt my throat dry and excused myself to go buy water from the convenience store provided by the gas station.


I woke up the next day feeling hangover. I made a mental note of the time and couldn’t believe I had slept that long. I must have been really tired, I thought. I lay there reminiscing over the previous evening, and then rushed over to the bathroom after realizing the repulsive smell was from my own breath. I hated that my breath stunk like a skunk; nothing remotely close to the butter poached lobster or JD and coke I had consumed throughout the night.


I freshened up and proceeded downstairs to the garage, retrieved the flash drive in the digital video recorder tucked away in the cars glove compartment. I sat on the dining table and fired up the laptop. I forwarded the video to the exact moment we drove into the gas station. Yes your guess is right. I had tested Janet last night and she didn’t even know it.


I watched on video as she quickly grabbed the file on the dashboard. She flipped hurriedly over pages and you could infer reading activity from her eye movement. Her watching me scribble in the file at the gas station was not innocent after all. Suddenly I watched her toss the file back into position, and not long after I showed up in the video capture.


Yes this was a damn shame because of the strong feelings I already had developed for Janet. What else could I do, I had to be true to myself, think with my heart and not my head. My list of desirables clearly states I don’t want a snooper for a wife. Yet, Janet is a snooper. She had to go.


Janet’s violation;

She should not be a snooper------------4

The issue I have with snooping is that it shows a lack of trust from the one snooping. Not that there is ever a legitimate reason to snoop, but if there was one, I was confident I had not given Janet cause to distrust me neither was I doing anything that warranted snooping. Being in a relationship should not translate to disrespect for each other’s privacy. If Janet had felt pressed or insecure and desired to know what I had scribbled or transpired, I would have appreciated if she had chosen to be inquisitive with words. She could have asked;

“Are you ok, you seemed restless talking on the phone?”

That would have made me think she was acting from a position of concern and that would weigh heavily on my mind in deciding whether to open up to her or not.


I hope ladies can learn from this experience. It’s best to be upfront and build trust, snooping does nothing other than damage TRUST which is the foundation or building block upon which any relationship that is going to stand the test of time stands. No man likes been snooped on and any man that discovers he is been snooped on only finds clever ways to disguise and hide things. If you suspect anything, be upfront and be inquisitive with your words.


Countless relationships would still be intact if snooping was not as damaging. The need to want to snoop is already an indication of mistrust and that’s when it’s time to act mature. Arrange a romantic date, have real adult conversations, allow yourself to be vulnerable, speak of your fears, and express how you truly feel. I can guarantee you a better outcome than if you were caught snooping, or if you confront your partner based on information you gathered snooping. I certainly didn’t want to join the statistic of marriages gone awry due to snooping, so it was an inevitable ‘adios’ to Janet.