₦airaland Forum

ehi4life:
Delta ibo, so you see my pain eh

Am scratching my head, trying to understand what kind of pain you are going through. Has any Igbo girl jilted you before? Am just curious. If it truly happened, what were her reasons?

A guy who is so busy taking calls from his -ex is definitely enjoying 'something' on the side. If a guy refuses to take a girl's calls, or pretends as if he is on a business call when he is actually talking to other girls, then that guy is still a player.

Don't let him break your heart. A guy who truly loves you, will have eyes for you alone & would be itching to make you his bride, not spending his valuable time calling or receiving unneccessary calls, from other single chics.

Sit him down & ask him to define his relationship with those babes. If he says its' business, tell him to confine the calls to office hours.

A chap who takes so many calls from other single babes, definitely enjoys hearing their voice & likes being in their company. If he didn't, he would find a way to stop all their calls. Who knows if his antics will stop, after the wedding?

The wedding vows say "forsaking all others," not "carrying them along with you." Think girl, think!

babyosisi:
If he does not give his blessings,please don't marry this man.
I believe parents are given some sixth sense by God.

Are parents omniscient? I don't think so! I have seen several marriages where the parents refused to agree with the choice of their children's spouse, but after the wedding they came to understand the person better & actually ended up getting along with him/her.

Sometimes, ignorance can be a contributing factor to their dissent.

babyosisi:
My best friend,an Igbo girl was engaged to a Yoruba man,her father said over his dead body will his first daughter marry a Yoruba man,he died a few years later and they went ahead and got married (_{sadly,over his dead body})
He eventually left her for his secretary and accused her of witchcraft.
She regrets disobeying her fathers words.
This is just one story but having said that,I know several marriages of Igbo women and Yoruba men that are exemplary.

Would things have turned out differently if the man had been Igbo? Like I always say, I have seen people from the same town or village get married & their marriages crashed less than three years afterwards & vice versa. I have also seen Naija folks marry from a totally different country, and those marriages stood the test of time & vice versa. Every marriage has its' own issues. It is how you resolve them, that matters. Simple!

I beg I don tire for all this talk. It is the content of a person's character that matters, not the colour of his skin, the ethnicity of his background, or the otdated criteria of his people.

oyb:
bride price is a part of our culture-yes,
but whats this buisness of bankrupting yourself to get married?
is that part of our culture as well,
spend big doe to do trad wedding and spend d next one year drinking garri and dodging creditors?
well apologies to any ibos in the house, but yall knew anyway, it b/c bride price so many of your guys marry late,and that is uncool. cause it implies that there will b a serious age gap between hubby and wife.

guy must reach age of 35 to make doe reqd

guy must marry fine babe( 4 d monee spent)

guy doesnot want 2 marry chick his age, esp when hes paying big monee, (smaller return on investment)
so guy marriies fine chick who he probably doesnt really know, but who is a trophy wife.

really, i don't think people who are seriously into bride price are actualy marrying 4 love.

Ah, omo you said it all!! 

How come you know all these inner details of the South-East? Don't allow my Igbo brothers to fight you o!

But seriously though, among the Delta-Igbo communities, bride price is little - a mere token amount.  Among several communities in Anambra area, I hear it can go as high as 200,000 thousand naira, depending on the girl's qualifications & beauty. While in some areas of Enugu state which share the same border with Kogi state, bride price is also low.

Erm, can we get back to the topic?

In the South-western part of Nigeria, women can build or buy properties in their own name if they have the financial muscle to do so. It is not seen as a big deal. Women take chieftancy titles, or should I say, are conferred with chieftancy titles & recognition, as important people in their own right.

But if a woman is married to an archaic man with a fragile ego who does not own much, by way of material assets or landed property, he might feel threatened by his wife's ability to buy property, or build a house in her own name. This could cause petty quarrels & may even lead to the dissolution of the union. In order to maintain the peace, some women choose to keep quiet about their physical assets, (like land & houses), so that their husbands would not feel jealous.

Women can also inherit property through their fathers, or parents. Among the Yoruba people, two forms of inheritance prevail , in customary law.

They are the idi-igi concept & the "ori o jori" concept (hope I spelt that right!). In the idi-igi concept, a deceased man's property is shared according to the number of wives he has. The children of each wife, then divide the property and/or assets, among themselves. In the ori o jori concept, the property, assets & cash a man leaves behind, are shared equally among the entire number of children he has. It doesn't matter how many they are, or how old  each one of them claims to be, each child gets an equal amount.

In Edo culture however, the 1st son gets everything the man owns, irrespective of how many kids he left behind. If he chooses to be magnanimous, he might decide to share some of those properties with his siblings. If he is a greedy sod, he could decide to take everything.

My advice? if you are a woman, build or buy your own property. You could do so in another part of the country, if you don't want to do so in your own village.

Sweetypie:
okk,
he did not run away, he went 2 study,

i thank each and everyone of u for your contributions, one love

Don't they have phones in the place where he went to study? Or aren't we in the 21st century anymore, where mobile phones are common place & long distance call rates keep dropping every day? I beg, when person dey cry, e dey see road o!

2dye4:
laudate: i can tell your always going to be in a hurry, whats the rush?

Pray tell, how is Laudate always in a hurry? Outline it for us in chapter & verse o! Is it because I gave the girl some honest advice? Would you have preffered me to sugar-coat the message with a tissue of lies? The girl is already 24 years old, not 18, & has dated him for 5 years, but the guy is NOT ready to commit to her. So what other advice does she need? That she should stick around till she is 30 or 35, listening to every pathetic excuse he decides to come up with, at periodic intervals? Life is too short for that. A woman's time is like a market. By evening, everyone goes home.

2dye4:
There is no direct correlation between age and marital bliss.

Oh yes, I agree. But there is a direct correlation between common sense & marital bliss. Go figure!

2dye4:
life doesnt give no guarantees.u can't leave without risks, but d truth is with every risk comes an opportunity and a reward. av u ever heard the sayin "good things come to those who wait"?

Good, because life doesn't give guarantees, we need to wise, sensible & smart enough know when to cut our losses, if something isn't working out, so we can move on to the next level. A man of 35 or 40 years, can still chase, toast & marry a 24, 26, 29 or 30 year old babe, whenever he desires. A woman of 28, 30 or 40 cannot do the same. Since her 27 or 28 year old guy is not ready to commit, she needs to break up with him, open her mind to dating another guy who is ready to love, respect, date & give her commitment (instead of excuses), so she can settle down in time, to a good marriage & motherhood.  How else can I spell it out for you?

There are too many single, attractive, intelligent young ladies in their thirties & early forties out there, who are not married because they spent the best part of their youth with some guy, hoping the chap would commit to them, but never did after he asked them to hold on.

So who do we blame in such cases? The lady who kept on hoping, without reading the handwriting on the wall? Or the guy who dumped them & turned round to marry a younger girl, when he was now ready to commit?

, one last word. I know a girl who dated a guy on and off for many years. He was always offering one excuse or the other, whenever she asked him questions about the status of their relationship. He even told her once that it wasn't the right time. Well, guess what? When it was the right time for him to marry, he dumped the girl after using her as a one-night stand & went ahead  to marry another chic he had barely known for 4 months, after he broke up with the previous girl.

Waiting for a guy? Hell, NO!! I won't advice any woman to do that. Think of your youth. Think of the fact that he hasn't paid your bride price. And think of the fact, that time lost can never be regained. Then move on.

Who knows? The right guy might just be round the corner.

2dye4:
Hey girl, one thing that is certain whether he says it or not is that he is not ready to commit,

Oh good! So you can see that too?

2dye4:
my advice, love him till he sees that he can't do without u, but dnt rush him. As fo those saying u should keep your options open, i suggest u dnt try that road because u mite loose both ways.

So while he goes off for 3 years in the guise of getting an education, she should sit down, twiddle her thumbs & pray he shouldn't change his mind about marriage? What if he does change his mind?

After waiting faithfully for 3 years, he comes back to tell her he has found some body else, what do you advice her to do? I have seen women wait for 5, 10 or even 15 years for a man to actualise his dreams, in the hope that once he is done, he will come back to make an honest woman out of them. The truth is that, it rarely ever happens.

Men are not wired that way.

By the time he actualises his dreams, he might decide he needs a younger babe, as a trophy wife to suit his new status. Meanwhile, our dear "lady-in-waiting" would have waited for so long, that the best part of her youth would have gone. Don't forget that while she is waiting & staying faithful, other suitors may be knocking on her door & she would probably be turning them down, thinking her guy would come back & marry her. Chances are that he may not do so. So where is she going to start all over again from?

@orp,

Quite frankly I don't agree with you. What do you mean by "Probably he saw something or abilities or strength  in the other girl which you don't have call him and probabaly tell you if you have any weakness and try to amend it."?

For crying out loud, they were dating for 3 loo-oo-ong years, not months or days o! So all this time, he did not see the abilities or strength she lacked? If truly, there was something he needed from her which she lacked, couldn't he have made it known to her in a more tender, humane manner & assisted her to acquire those strengths or abilities she lacked? Puh-leeze!

Lack of strengths or abilities, was not why he left the poor girl. He merely saw another free 'body' to bang! Period. His self-interest was what pushed him into the other relationship.

So my dear girl Anabib, do not demean yourself by ever coming down to his level to ask what he saw in the other girl, or what he felt you lacked. You would be playing into his arrogant, twisted hands & he would see you as a pathetic, whining fool.

Walk out into the sunset, with your head held high. And don't even dignify his calls with an answer. Its' time to turn & close the door on pain & hollow emptiness. May the good Lord heal your heart. Peace.

[quote author=angel_val link=topic=32499.msg744088#msg744088 date=1165416680]Am in love with an Igbo guy and he his promising to marry me.what should i do?[/quote]Um, 1st question: Ethnic identity. Where are you from?

2nd question: What part of Igbo land is he from? In some parts of Alaigbo, some folks are dead-set against their kids marrying from outside their clan, especially if he is the first son.

3rd question: How much do both of you love each other? How well do both of you "know" each other? Am talking of in-depth knowledge of character, what each person stands for, values you both cherish (not body parts o!) & what he is capable of doing & how secure he makes you feel in your relationship. Can he change his mind on a whim? Can you cope with pressure? etc.

4th question: Do you get along with his family? What do they think of you?

5th question: What does he think about your own tribe? Does he make sweeping generalisations about them? Or does he realise that the good, the bad & the ugly exist in every tribe, including his own?

6th question: How close are you to your parents? If you disagree with them on any issue, do you have a way of bringing them round to your line of thinking?

7th question: How secure & solid is your relationship with him? Does he talk & act as if he is commited to you? Mind you, what a man does, is more important than what he says o! Is he stable & man enough to take his own decisions & stick by them, come what may? What about your own feelings for him? Is it strong enough to withstand any storm? Do you feel that ten, twenty, thirty years down the road, you would still be as deeply in love with him as you are now? Do you think he to would feel the same way?


8th question: Have you sat down to discuss how you will raise your kids? Will they be trained to be bi-lingual i.e. fluent in both your own language & his own language? Or mono-lingual i.e. fluent in only his own language?

9th question: How much of his culture do you know? Can you speak his language? Are you willing to learn it, if you do not understand it? Are you comfortable with learning & participating in his cultural events?

10th question: Have you seen good examples of inter-ethnic marriages first-hand, that you can draw from?

Once you can answer these questions, you will be able to handle the issue.

Good luck.

Inter-ethnic marraige is not a bed of roses, neither is it a bed of thorns. Marriage is hard work. People have been known to go into it & make a success of it. At the end of the day, it all boils down to maturity level & what you feel is the best option for you. And how strong both of you feel about each other, as well.

Peace.

Ferlie:
See women o - if the guy no do anything - them go say him no commit, now this one see someone wey im wan commit after five years, she still dey complain, sometimes, i think woman only good to fok, na im be that.

Read the girl's post again. The guy is NOT ready to commit. Instead, he keeps making excuses, one after the other.

Guys are a funny breed.

AlphaDuo:
Guess you should just follow your heart, attending the wedding will probably not do any harm to you as a person. But it may be difficult for you to deal with the pain emotionally so you might want to just steer clear in that case. It might not be worth the time infact.

All the same, forgiveness is an important part of the healing and moving on.

She can forgive him from a distance.

Listen to Gracious. Her words are pearls of wisdom. Don't attend.

You guys probably have friends in common & those ones will attend. Trust me, they will come back to gist you. There is no need putting yourself through any unnecessary stress to attend the wedding, because of the guy.

Afterall, he thought you were good enough for him to bed, but not good enough for him to wed.  Look, a lot of people who knew you & him as an item when you guys were dating, would be present at that wedding. And I can guarantee, you would be the main subject of their gossip. So why would you subject yourself to the indignity of having people gossip about you, because you attended his wedding?

Believe me my dear, it is not worth the stress. If you showed up, he might take it as a sign that you couldn't keep away from him, if he is as arrogant as you say he is.

So why bother? If you must attend a wedding, attend the weddings of those people who truly love you for who you are & value your presence in their lives. Not a two-timing jerk who took delight in stringing you along & toying with your feelings, when he had nothing decent to offer you.

My two cents.

@Whitepearl,

Dump the jerk. He has absolutely no intention of marrying you. Right now, he feels marriage is a bondage, that's why he keeps making up excuses. If you agree to stick it out for 3 years while he gets a degree, what happens if after those 3 years, he comes back & dumps you, because he has found someone else? Lots of people go to school, while they are married. It just takes a little bit of juggling, that's all. "Cos where there is a will, there is a way.

Listen. You are 24. If you give him those three years, you will be 27, at the end of it all. If it doesn't work out after those 3 years, it could take you another year or two to be able to heal & move on with your life. By then you will be close to 30. And the older a woman is, the less choice of suitors she has. The pool of men she can choose from, will decrease.

You don't want that to happen. Trust me.

chinani: My dear, you deserved much better than this man gave you. Do not go to his wedding. He has not earned the privilege of your presence. Weddings are for family and friends. What kind of friend has he been to you? I think it will be better for you in the long run that you do not have to see him swear to love another. And what are his motives? You know him best and you have said he is a "proud person" so which stripes will he show now. Has this dog man learned new tricks. I think he wants to show you off as a pretty girl at his nuptials. He wants to be able to gesture at you and say, "Before I married I had girls like her he he he." Not on my watch!

Well said, Chinani! I agree with you 100 and 10% per cent!

Did the guy value you enough to apologise in person for the way things ended between both of you? Did he wish you well? Or did he feel you were something he could use & discard at will? My dear, kindly do NOT go. You have nothing to gain if you go & nothing to lose, if you don't. He doesn't sound like someone who deserves your respect or best wishes.

chinani: As for a gift? For what? Na wa @ the very thought of opening your wallet for a vagabond! It sounds as though you (or others) want to prove how mature you are or how much you've moved on. You don't have to prove anything. You can be an immature leper stuck in the past. Does it concern him? No, so use your money wisely and his gift isn't wise. This man wanted to eat his cake and have it to.

Do not drop a dime on this man! Not a kobo either!

Again I agree whole-heartedly. The guy does not deserve an ounce of the time, money or effort that would go into getting that gift. First impressions matter, but then, so do last impressions too. If he had left a positive impression on your mind, when you parted ways, then it would be a different story. But he didn't. Like someone said, he would probably use you to show off, feeling he has scored some cheap point, by getting married before you.

Secondly, the bride or her friends might even know you & those friends may set out to embarrass you right there. Don't give them a chance to make a fool of you. Spend that day praying for yourself & loved ones. Or take out that time to expend some TLC on yourself. You need it.

@Ronke,

Have you tried to appeal to them? What have you done to change their mind? Simply folding your arms isn't going to turn the tide.

And a lot of parents have been known to change their minds, after they have gotten more information, about their child's prospective spouse. Sometimes, time also steps in, to mellow their views.

A friend of mine was told by her father, when she was 26, that she couldn't marry a guy from a certain tribe. She protested, but he was adamant. When she clocked 32, her parents started to panic, that she would end up on the shelf. By this time, all her younger sisters were married. They actually gave her an ultimatum, that she shouldn't celebrate her next birthday, under their roof.

Well, she replied that when she intoduced her former guy to them, they objected based on his tribe. What did they now expect her to do? All the guys that have tried to date her since then, have also been from other tribes. Do her parents know what destiny God has in store for her? Reluctantly, her parents changed their minds. So she married a chap from outside their clan. Today, the young lady is quite happy & her family gets along well with her husband.

babe1:
I don't have problem calling people older than me uncle and aunt but no way in you no what will i ever call anyone younger than me aunt or uncle from my husbands or my side of the family and thats a big NEVER!

It all depends on the family you marry into, in Yoruba land. Some families are really broad-minded & don't care if you call them, by their first names. A few others are really conservative & would insist that you refer to your husband's younger siblings (who are within your age range), as Sister X or brother Y. Those who are much younger than you, are exempted from this rule.

Respect begets respect, my dear. If you show them respect, they will do the same to you. Period.

grafikdon:
There are numerous disadvantages of marrying from a different tribe as far as naija is concerned. I personally do not have a problem marrying from another truibe but the simple truth is that marriage in Africa is not a husband and wife affair, it is a union of families. The families of the bride and groom will merge into one big extended family where each will look out for other withouth a second thought. When you have two families from different tribe, no matter how enlightened there will be differences that may take a lot of adjustment and sacrifice to amend.

One can say the father/mother/uncles/aunts etc should not dictate the pace. While I agree with that, you must remember that friends will come and go but when the chips are down, only family will be there for you to the end, no matter how much they dislike you, they are stuck with you forever and have no choice but to attempt to bail you out. Bear that in mind before you raise your middle finger on your family members and tell them to to stick it.

There are so many obstacles and stumbling blocks on the way but once the two families get through these, that kind of union is usually glamourous. If I must marry oustside my tribe, I'll rather marry a girl from other West African countries like Senegal, Ghana or Cameroun, A French or Carribean woman, simply because I believe the Nigerian brand tribe mama drama is alien to them.

Bottom line: You can marry whatever but look before you leap. Inter tribal marriage is NOT a bed of roses.

I know couples who came from the same town, got married & their marriages crashed within the first three years. And I have met couples from different tribes who got married & their marriages stood the test of time, until they were parted by death. My grand-parents were a typical example. Their kids ended up being bi-lingual & well-versed in both cultures. At the end of the day, most cultures have quite a few things in common. Are you saying that there is no Nigerian culture that does not recognise truth, integrity, honour & respect for elders? Some people go out of their way to learn French, Spanish, German and other languages, just because their jobs demand it or just because they have to fit into their new environment , once they relocate to the West. Would they do the same for a Nigerian language? Hardly.

Everyone just has to make up his mind, about what he or she wants. Some people are too scared of the unknown & too lazy to learn new things, so that is why they take refuge in the familiar  stuff. Culture is man-made & is dynamic. The fact that you marry from your tribe, is NOT a sure-fire guarantee that your marriage would be idyllic.

Those same people saying "don't marry outside your culture or tribe" today, can wake up to sing another tune tomorrow when it suits them. What matters most in any union is love, trust , respect, understanding, communication, sincerity, patience, tolerance, compassion etc.?.

One of my neighbours are an inter-ethnic couple. The husband is Igbo & the wife is Yoruba. When the guy wanted to marry the girl, lots of his family members objected, just out of prejudice. One of his uncles was most adamant. He stood against the union. The guy weighed his options & went ahead to marry the girl.

A few years later this uncle was posted to Lagos on a job & tried hard to get accomodation, but it was difficult. He finally found one within his budget. But the landlord was reluctant to rent it out. So he called my neighbour & said " Please can you ask your in-laws to intervene? Or can you tell your wife to speak her language to the landlord to make him rent the house to me?"

Who would the uncle have turned to, if the guy had followed his instructions not to marry that girl?

Beneath our clothes, we all have the same features. I have an uncle who married a Liberian woman in the mid-sixties. They are still quite happily married, till today. Most of the time, we give the woman a lot of credit for her patience & understanding. I still do not think my uncle could have gotten a better wife, because of this woman's wonderful attributes.

Inter-tribal marraige is not a bed of roses, but neither is it a total bed of thorns. Which marriage truly is, a bed of roses by the way? All marriages require hard-work. it is a pity that for most of us, our mind-sets have been conditioned, not to think outside the box. And the stereotypes that have been perpetuated over the years about different cultures, have tinted the lenses through which most folks view other tribes.