Tonye and Gloria were university sweethearts who both graduated from the same popular university in the South-south part of Nigeria exactly 10 and 9years ago respectively. After graduation and youth service Tonye was unable to get a job despite his very good grades in an engineering degree for years; Gloria on the other hand was lucky to serve in a good oil servicing firm which retained her and offered her an excellent package despite her barely average degree grade. Tonye, who started a small recharge card and GSM business on the side was just able to get by while job hunting for a professional job while Gloria excelled in her area and was sponsored abroad to the UK for a Masters degree. Their love still stayed strong hoping that things would get better.


On her return a year later Gloria now had 5years experience, an MSc degree from the UK, a mouth-watering six figure monthly salary, a very tasteful apartment in an exclusive area of Lagos state and a brand new car, while Tonye who still depended on okadas and busses, made circa N20,000 a month and shared a scanty old flat with three other guys in an interior part of Lagos. Despite this and after much cajoling due to Gloria’s anxiety of possible results of delay Tonye decided to get married to Gloria and move in to her house while he looked for ways to start a more lucrative and befitting business.
One and a half years later Gloria who had earlier changed to a senior Engineer role in another oil producing company was able to finally secure a job for Tonye, where he had to start from the bottom due to his lack of experience in the field despite his age; he said in his own words, “I was the happiest man alive”


Now Gloria was one of the bosses, at work where she held meetings with her junior engineers who were Tonye’s direct bosses and gave instructions and commands which were transferred through to the lower cadre and her husband was one of those who had to make sure it was carried out.
Domestic chores were shared by both initially until they decided to hire a help and a driver. All equipment electronics interior décor, furnishing and fittings to the highest of tastes had been bought and put in place by Gloria long before they were wed.
Then one day there was a little argument because Tonye wanted to watch the football premiership and Gloria didn’t want to. She made a comment about him having to buy another Tv for himself if he wanted to watch the match that much, slowly the little argument erupted till Tonye threw the remote at the Tv causing a crack on the lcd screen and walked out into the room.  Gloria was so angry and she let out venom over the Tv she used her hard earned money to buy. They had a fierce row that lasted for days then made up.


Months after, another incident involving the unintentional breakage of an expensive sculpture happened which caused an argument that resulted in Gloria bringing out the previous incident and extended t to the point of mentioning words instigating how ungrateful Tonye was as she brought him out of poverty, fed, clothed and employed him. She gave him a good piece of her mind and for the first real time, Tonye’s ego was completely deflated as a man. He became a silent defeated man trying to be extremely careful of his wife’s “properties” letting her have her way with things. Gloria noticing the effect of this now regularly used it to her advantage whenever they had a misunderstanding or to get him to do something, anything even at work!


But one day Tonye had enough! ……………………….

@POSTER, You no complete your story well, Another Nollywood writer,

Tonye now earned a fair enough salary, though Gloria earned four and a half times what he got and when they had to make decisions about buying stuff, Gloria was always particular about highest taste and quality and would spare nothing at getting the best. This was a character she had from her hey days and many people admired about her. Being the man, Tonye tried to maintain his position by providing and paying for day to day needs in the house, food,  the crazy humongous rent with its various service charges,  repairs and maintenance as well as catering to his wife’s high taste whenever they went for outings or he bought her things.   He had to shop at the best places for he knew, even if she tried to hide it that she wasn’t ever impressed with nearly the best- she preferred the best and sometimes would even kindly offer to add some money to make up if it was completely unaffordable by him. He never really liked that so had to keep up and even secretly borrow resulting in him being completely drained from month to month without any tangible savings from his income. He spent sparingly on himself buying cheap and not too expensive clothes, shoes perfumes and accessories but saved dearly to afford higher quality of stuff for his dear wife and their various needs.

Gloria had a Range rover and was given a Honda accord by the company as her official car. They had earlier agreed that Tonye needed not buy a new car as they had two already, they decided it was smartest that Tonye used the Range which he drove by himself while Gloria was chauffer driven by her driver who was paid for by the company anyways. This was a sensible solution as they agreed it would look somehow to have a low cadre employee being driven in a senior’s chauffer driven official and besides being of various cadre positions, both had different job tasks which resulted in different resuming and closing contract hours. The senior car park which the car was parked was quite far from where Tonye’s office was and it only made sense to do things this way. So Tonye drove around in his wife's range Rover, and often left for work earlier to resume as demanded by his direct boss.

good story but u need to build more of their characterization, dreams, fears etc

biolabee:

good story but u need to build more of their characterization, dreams, fears etc

Thanks for your comment, however these are real people and a real life story still happening, although i have protected their real identities and other details for privacy, hence cant really add my own jibes that much. Tonye is my elder brother's friend, and besides i believe if you follow the story and relate to real life you can make up these pictures yourself.

Hmmmn quite an interesting story, technically Gloria is the husband while Tonye is the wife,
i don't think the marriage is gonna last long, if and only if Tonye works extra hard in terms of finance then he can be incharge as the man of the house, with this status he won't tolerate Gloria for long.

fire on swiftycool!
subscribing!

swiftycool:

Tonye now earned a fair enough salary, though Gloria earned four and a half times what he got and when they had to make decisions about buying stuff, Gloria was always particular about highest taste and quality and would spare nothing at getting the best. This was a character she had from her hey days and many people admired about her. Being the man, Tonye tried to maintain his position by providing and paying for day to day needs in the house, food,  the crazy humongous rent with its various service charges,  repairs and maintenance as well as catering to his wife’s high taste whenever they went for outings or he bought her things.   He had to shop at the best places for he knew, even if she tried to hide it that she wasn’t ever impressed with nearly the best- she preferred the best and sometimes would even kindly offer to add some money to make up if it was completely unaffordable by him. He never really liked that so had to keep up and even secretly borrow resulting in him being completely drained from month to month without any tangible savings from his income. He spent sparingly on himself buying cheap and not too expensive clothes, shoes perfumes and accessories but saved dearly to afford higher quality of stuff for his dear wife and their various needs.

Gloria had a Range rover and was given a Honda accord by the company as her official car. They had earlier agreed that Tonye needed not buy a new car as they had two already, they decided it was smartest that Tonye used the Range which he drove by himself while Gloria was chauffer driven by her driver who was paid for by the company anyways. This was a sensible solution as they agreed it would look somehow to have a low cadre employee being driven in a senior’s chauffer driven official and besides being of various cadre positions, both had different job tasks which resulted in different resuming and closing contract hours. The senior car park which the car was parked was quite far from where Tonye’s office was and it only made sense to do things this way. So Tonye drove around in his wife's range Rover, and often left for work earlier to resume as demanded by his direct boss.

I Like this, How did the story end, or is it still rolling? I will be glad to know the concluding part.

Hey, the story line is very interesting. I await the conclusion.

thanx guys, its good to see you are following this story,

CuteAngel:

Hmmmn quite an interesting story, technically Gloria is the husband while Tonye is the wife,
i don't think the marriage is gonna last long, if and only if Tonye works extra hard in terms of finance then he can be incharge as the man of the house, with this status he won't tolerate Gloria for long.

@ cute angel, maybe o, but just read on

saintneo:

fire on swiftycool!
subscribing!

@ saintneo At your order sir!

donex:


I Like this, How did the story end, or is it still rolling? I will be glad to know the concluding part.

@ donex, good to know u are following , stay tuned

francko:

Hey, the story line is very interesting. I await the conclusion.

@franco I thought it would be as well every body wants to learn a lesson from stuff
Sorry i wasnt able to post for sometime as the nairaland system has been down. its back up now, so lets go

At a time, Tonye was working on a project which required a lot f deliverables and took much of his time resulting in him having to close very late from work joining the crazy traffic hold up to get home. He would wake up very early around 5:30am while his wife was still asleep as she had a later resuming time, what did you expect- she was boss. He would tiptoe out of the room; prepare a quick bowl of cereal for himself, put one or two eggs to boil on fire to make quick sandwiches for himself and Gloria, while he hopped into the shower. Most often after dressing up he rushed his cereal and ate his egg-sandwich or plain boiled eggs in the car while honking at traffic with his horn to get past to work. Returning from work late saw him in the Range rover equally honking in the opposite direction while biting large chunks from a piece of sharwama he bought from a fast food outlet.

He was beginning to feel a bit guilty that he actually hadn’t been spending enough time with his wife. He then considered bringing back some work home which he could work on for say four hours daily, after all that was what the study room in their exclusive home was for, besides Gloria did the same sometimes. He spoke to his wife about it and she said it was okay, his boss also who would have objected for most people somehow didn’t even mind.

Closing earlier from work before the traffic build up was bliss, there were bottle necks though but you could glide through. Tonye got home earlier and was able to spend time with Gloria as planned; he would then go to the study room and get on with his work. Gloria would peep in occasionally to check on him and sometimes actually check on his work behind him when he went for a short break or to the toilet. One day, she went through his analysis, calculations and results on a specific area where she saw what she believed were errors. She made some notes on his work sheet for his attention in red ink and put down instructions on how she would prefer he restructured the whole work. He wasn’t quite happy about this when he came back; there was nothing wrong with the structure and he was very sure his analysis and calculations were right, besides he was answerable to his direct boss who was the one to check it before he proceeded, not her.
The next day was a Saturday, she asked him if he had made the changes, Tonye looked at her straight in the eye and told her he was very sure of what he had done and that he wasn’t happy with the way she left notes for him, explaining that she need not act like his boss at home, she tried to defend her actions but this slowly developed into an argument with Gloria storming out saying “anyway we would see who has the last say eventually”.

Later that evening, Gloria had been invited amongst other senior and lead engineers to an evening dinner with some other related professionals and potential clients at an exclusive hotel in Lagos, this was not meant for lower cadre staff, yet everyone was expected to be there with their spouse. Gloria ensured they both went and mingled with the “who is who” and “who you need to know” in the industry; but as you can imagine, the situation was really awkward for Tonye: A lower cadre staff not expected to be there, but there just as a spouse. He felt like some women have often done; wanted by selfish men for their bodies and not their brains! Almost every introduction was followed by inquiries into his profession and level of experience and after his honest replies the smiling faces at him changed to surprise and some even had a look or made a comment or sigh that somehow insinuated "what the hell are you doing here then", while from some he got the feeling he was perceived as some kind of a gold digger or opportunity seeker. The professional and high level discussions with his wife excluded him as he was not experienced enough, so most times he just stood there beside his wife, kept mum and smiled while she answered some technical questions from fellow invitees. Their early morning argument made this more difficult for Tonye to stand through. Whenever she was excused to isolated spots for some one on one serious technical discussion with some highly placed men in the industry he was left alone, drink in hand; like the wives of many of the other senior engineers around, he felt like a wife, slowly he felt the man in him dying,

its always like that! cant imagine myself in that role

for once a matured story,not those fantasy that I always ready here
Keep it up

Marhoski:

its always like that! cant imagine myself in that role

Hmmm i surely understand what u mean

double08:

for once a matured story,not those fantasy that I always ready here
Keep it up

Thanx a lot for your comment it made my time worth it

odiaero:

poster where are u? continue

Bros i will soon enough, but i need to build the suspense and also need to get on with some other work oh, my client is anxious for some results,  am not only a writer u know, am actually an architect and many other things too. my job is to help you visualise

@OP: Your story is the first I've actually enjoyed reading on Nairaland.

Good structure, continuity and parallelism.

Keep it up!!! I can't wait for the remaining part

@ poster
mahn nice stuff , but complete the stuff before i loose my temper further compliment u

Educated women do not giv their patnars BJ.

They never obey

swiftycool:

am actually an architect and many other things too. my job is to help you visualise

interesting! good to hear from a visionary. keep it pumping

Very lovely piece
poster,pls complete the story
That guy is very patient n one to keep hold of
The woman doesn't know what she's got until she loses him
Very rare for a guy to be so committed and nice
From the story,she'ill lose the guy.
Such a shame.

good lines from u,cant wait for the concluding part,

good story dawg and i now like the life u started breathing into Tony
making us identify with his pains and letting us see how handbags are treated by men in the golf clubs

carry on

The evening ended with a lot of of business card exchanges, collection of phone numbers and promises to keep in touch amongst the various professionals. Gloria gave out and got loads of professional business contacts, actually about 22 cards, Tonye on the other hand actually got two business cards and a phone number, he had met two former friends he served with during NYSC and one of his ex classmates at the university, they were now amongst senior and chartered professionals at the gathering. Unfortunately lower cadre staff of his company like him didn’t have business cards, so he just gave them his phone number. It was a humbling experience for him, though he was grateful that he had this great job with good future prospects, he thought to himself; he would work hard and be get to the top some day.

They both walked towards the car when someone stopped his wife for a quick chat, he politely withdrew from her to go and get the car turned around to come and pick her up. Tonye got into  the range rover, started the engine and as he backed up towards the right to make a turn, Gloria who was watching the car while chatting merrily noticed an ugly scratch on the left side of the silver coloured back bumper and her bubbly countenance changed. The car stopped at her front to pick her up. She smiled and bade goodbye to the colleague, got in and kept a straight face while Tonye drove off, he wondered what the problem was and decided he’d ask her when they got home.

The range rover had been involved in a minor accident two days before someone had brushed and grinded against him from the rear left side in the traffic and left a very ugly gnash and scratch to Gloria's priceless car's bumper; Tonye had planned to secretly get it repaired by giving it a quick surface dressing without telling his wife as he knew her potential earth shattering reactions to such issues. He meant to get it repaired on that Saturday before he was told about the dinner date. He knew it wouldn't be easy finding someone that would do a good job on it and a full replacement was much too expensive he couldn't afford it right then; not with the other monthly expenses he catered for. Had he been the real owner, he would have managed it. When they got home Gloria’s countenance changed back and the day went on as normal. Tonye didn't bother asking any more. 

The following week began well, Tonye got a mechanic to putty fill and spray paint the gnash though it obviously didn't look too good. He made his submittals for a review by his boss on a Tuesday who was quite impressed but by Thursday, he was called to make a few changes, some notes were written in red for him to rearrange the structure and double check the calculations. Instructions were written and underlined on how he was expected to restructure It; that would have been okay, but what bewildered him was the fact that it was his wife’s handwriting and exact same instructions written for him the other day. It was then he understood what she meant the other day by "who would have the last say".

He got home later that day walked up to the bedroom still brooding about the day’s event. He decided to talk to Gloria about it. As he was about to speak, she halted him and spoke first asking: “what happened to the car and why didn’t you tell me?” He blinked four times stammering trying to process a scenario and give an explanation, the truth, a lie anything but nothing took shape in his head. He just stood there looking like a dummy. She smiled noticing his agitation and then spoke softly saying you should have told me, you know I cherish that car very much, now let’s get it sorted and do it the right way. All seemed to be okay with what she said but the problem was that getting it sorted from Gloria’s point of view meant having a complete overhaul, buying a brand new bumper and not just a surface touch up achievable by any mechanic. A new range rover bumper was so expensive and could not be affordable at the moment by Tonye, Scratching his head, he had to swallow his pride and beg his wife to allow him give just a better touch up, she frowned, so he asked her to please loan him the money, almost 70k. The corners of her lips gradually curved up into a smile,  a wicked smile.

Wow, it's all gone awry. The devil wears prada

This is why I can't marry a lady richer than me, ever.

Boi,tell me this ain't no real life experience as you claim it to be and I'll breath some relief.But please don't keep me waiting in suspense cos I've bookmarked this your thread on my BB and I'm waiting for this our cyber soap drama to change gear,cos right now this Tonye guy seems to be playing the foo!
But nice one all the same.

Why must Tonye live in bondage
Nothing has been said about them having kids and i believe it's only going to get worse so it's about the right/best time to get out
Money is always the root of all evils plus if the roles where switched Tonye could have also become the monster.
People change when they come into wealth that they've never experienced before as arrogance often becomes the order of the day.

jay bee:

Why must Tonye live in bondage
Nothing has been said about them having kids and i believe it's only going to get worse so it's about the right/best time to get out
Money is always the root of all evils plus if the roles where switched Tonye could have also become the monster.
People change when they come into wealth that they've never experienced before as arrogance often becomes the order of the day.

that is life, whoever holds the gun dictates the direction of movement

What about their sex life? I know that is going to be a no go area for Tonye. I wonder why Gloria has chosen to treat Tonye this way. Afterall, he is still her husband.

So far, you have the best story on nairaland romance section. This thread is supposed to make the homepage. I'm bookmarking this thread right away so as to know the outcome of this cat and dog marriage.

This is a good eye opener. If love is blind, marriage will open the eyes of love. Marriage is not all about love but common sense.

Nice one Swifty. To imagine this is happening to someone- -- -- - - - I pray NEVER to be in Tonye's shoes cos its the Ego that makes us feel like men. I really pity Gloria, she'll later discover that money aint everything.

Nice thread once you've got here.

I think i know dis couple, were they in ABJ

Interesting read and good writing style, however, OP seems 2 know 2 much 2 be just an observer(junior brother of friend bla, bla, bla).



We ain' kids ya know!

@OP
Why don't u conclude this story
It's so interesting it's unbelieveable
It's a suspense as well