blue tooth, should we follow you for a day and decide what you need to be arrested for? I am sure its plenty.

dont need to let everyone know where i live online do i now?

in Nigeria. everyone is a law breaker. as for exploiting her. then everyone is an exploiter. if you live in Nigeria, you cant throw stones at me.

wow. wow. and wow.
okafors law. thats strange
what r u talking about.?
there r many celibate women u know

whatelsedo:

madam don't take offence just yet. Sometimes people see through the supposed gifts they are given.
A child that leaves a normal life but perceives genuine love from another person will fare well better than one that gets the best without that perceived love or affection.
The key word as someone pointed out is ATTITUDE.
Maybe you should change her school cos if she goes to a private school and does not know that shoes are not kept in the fridge, then there is a missing link somewhere,somehow.
Nine months is still a short period,show her more love, teach her more gently she will then realise there is a better way of doing things than the one she is used to.
looking more closely, to have given her all you listed within nine months leaves me scratching my head.

I appreciate your kind words. I do show her love. I cant change her school, because anything other than that will be the american internatioal school which i cant afford just yet.

In all honesty, she did a lot of the shoes in fridge things in her first 3-4 months. but she still chooses to forget to do simple things like chores. I actually noticed that she is passive aggressive and might be doing the wrong things on purpose anytime she is corrected for urinating outside or some village behavior etc.

Last week she forgot to do her chores again and I sent her to her room for the Nth time. I used to never beat her other than giving her a smart rap on her back for doing really silly things. My husband got home and saw her in her room and said no wonder the girl conveneintly forgets to do chores, when all I do is send her to her room and do the chores that she didnt do myself

I can afford the things I do for her because I am reasonably blessed even though i wish had more, because with a bigger family comes need for more money.

I see her as my child BUT who is doing me a service in return for me making sure her life turns out best.

Anytime I buy things for myself ( and when I am sad I treat myself), I make sure I buy something age appropriate for her too that looks like mine. so hence most of the jewelry

I cant stand for people to come to my home or for us to go out and there is this wretched looking girl walking with me. I want her to look like she is mine.

I enjoy it when family members come over and say wow this girl is enjoying ohh. when they see her room ( I dont take them on tours, but if they stay over, they see it) and wonder if its hers, I like that.

I enjoy being thought of as doing the right thing.

I can not take over the role of her mother because I am sure in her heart she loves the woman, even though I never speak to her about it, because it must be shameful for her

But I know the deal. I will do my best to make sure that her education and material needs are not lacking. I will take her with me to the silverbird cinema and buy her popcorn and no body dares maltreat her. but she in turn must help me around the house.

I still clean my house. I sweep. I wash. but I need help. I dont want a full grown housekeeper, cos my home rarely gets so dirty and we dont need someone constatly cleaning. she and my other kid can eat fries and my husband, so I dont need to do big cooking all the time. PLus I didnt get her to do those things for me. I was apalled when I first saw her running around at 14 in ragged clothes. I felt I could do someting for her and she will help me in return.

Being an instant mother of a 14 year old girl is not easy and I dont want the role just yet. so I am her aunty.

If not for the fact that she went behind my back to ask her uncle to cut her hair when I was trying to grow the thing out so that I could play with her hair at diferent salons, the girl would look like a real pampered thing

Yes I force her to eat salad. I force her to eat beans and I force her to eat spinach. If I didnt, all she wants to eat is fufu and soup. heck no. not in my own home. you will eat what we eat and talk like we talk.

Ohh I forgot to mention I bought her her own cellphone.

please. I am not an ignoramus like a lot of people who think housemaid equals slavery.

IF NOT FOR me this little girl did not even know her birthday until I bothered a lot of her family to search it out for me and hand me evidence.

This november shes going to have the first and best birthday she has ever had. I have even commisioned 3 outfits to be sewn for her at my tailor.

Before anyone begins to judge me, tell me what you are doing for anybody,

Dont let it buggle your mind that I do the things I do for her. I am a well educated woman and modern day slavery is not somethng I condone.

ELVIA,

Your bag seems similar to mine. I used to carry the pocket dictionary and wipes, but not anymore. I occasionaly carry pain pills, but now only vitamin pills. and I dont carry sunscreen. the makers of my compact poudre say it contains sunscreen. but I carry extra passport photos, a flashdrive, a small LED flashlight, a hairbrush, a usb cord, floss sticks,hanky,extra pair of earrings,diary,a book incase i get stuck in a boring place, cofee candy, perfume, small eyeshowder palette, stain remover,small sewing kit with scissors, a small stapler and a spoon.

None of this mean I am ready to sleep over at anyones home cos My nighttime routine requires more load than all that.

jENNY YOU HAVE A LOT OF WORK TO DO ON YOURSELF. JEALOUSY NO GO KILL YOU

I was a little taken aback by many of the Comments on here. but maybe I should make it clear.

Her mother has 7 kids and occasionally works in the sex trade

She abandoned her at the home of the friend of a relative

I put her in private school

She has her own room which I am 100% sure is bigger and better than most people on heres master bedroom

She has more clothes and jewelry than most other 14 year old Her age

She goes on vacation with me abroad

She doesnt cook

she sweeps with a vacuum cleaner

I still wash the bathrooms

She doesnt even wash her own clothes cos I wash them with the familys in our washing machine

She has more pocket money than most of you make in salary.

I help her with her Home work everyday and attend all her PTA Meetings

For her end of term party in school she had a big ass cake that she shared with all the pupils in her class and from what I hear the teachers and staff too

She has a better life with me than anyone of you here had in your childhoods and I know it.

If you think Your child is better cared for than mY OMO ODO, , then PROVE IT

if u said husband and father the answer is father. cos you can only have one father, but can find another husband, kidding. I dont know.

I will let them both drown, chei never,

I will jump into the river and wait for another relative to come by and be burdened with whom to save

No.his teeth are too big and I have this illogical feeling that whatever is making his teeth so huge will infect me and give me giant chompers too

She tried to put the rice-cooker inside the microwave.

She arranged my shoes inside the fridge

If you dont tell her to do her morning chores, she will never, ever do them, saying and i mean it,  she forgot. (she's lived with me for 9 months already)

She always forgets to urinate in the toilet and does it in the bath. then she lies that she didn't, even though shes the only one using that particular bathroom and the thing is reeking of urine.

Once she went out of the house to answer a knock on the gate in just her panties. She's 14.

Also it pays for your in-laws to think your wife has a few issues. if you are a woman, you might need to be a little of a mean woman, otherwise, they will visit you at 6a.m on a Sunday morning and request you cook for them even when you are ready to go out to church.

this happened to me. but a few incidents have made people aware that i may not be 100% stable.

you guys are lucky ohh, when the couple is okay with it ke

my husbands uncle tried to stay with us on our wedding night. thank god we had a hotel room reserved. he stayed but we left the house.

when we came back from honeymoon which lasted 2 days anyway, a series of his family were now in and out. aunty for 2 months, cousins etc. because now he has a wife to cook, unlike before when he was a bachelor and we were in the states then.

and now that we live in africa, they visit me around 5am in the morning. until i stared working then they just showed up anytime after 10pm sometimes after midnight, telling me, mama, we are hungry ohh. and they stay for ever.

its moments like this that i wish i married a different man.

actually the real answer is due to lack of birth control.

they cant afford the birth control if the know about it.

but mostly its because they dont even know of proper birth control. and they are human just like rich folks and want skin on skin action and not rubber on skin. so dont start saying condom.

also, many of them cant afford to play with other madams. you know the way rich folks do. so they have to play with only the madam they married.

the poor need education and access to affordable birth control. from the forecasts nigeria's population will be about 750,000,000 by the year 2050. and thats not such a long time. yet we cant even feed the 150 million we have.

as nice as giving flowers is, giving of Flowers is not our culture.

a person building a house or church in particular will appreciate a bag of cement before appreciating flowers.

I love flowers, but if I am angry and my husband gives me flowers, I will be angrier (unless there are like 12 red roses in which case I will pretend to hate them).

Best to give a lady wax prints. I will always appreciate that. its our culture. giving of gifts that are utilitarian in nature. and I dont mean aesthetically utilitarian. I mean tangibly utilitarian.i.e useful. for very tangible reasons. like i am hoping someone will buy me a gift of a mortar and pestle.

You wont give a gift of vodka to a teetotaler, or a gift of a leather whip to a toddler.(although you can give that to your bondage loving spouse)

orikinla you r funny and i love your first comment. wish my hubby could say my oriki

you have to know the appropriateness of the gift

I can assure you that no white person will appreciate being given a gele (ok scratch that they would use it as wall art)

ARareGem:

Humans, as in scientists, perfect life? Are you for real?

You seem very much interested in immortality, but you're looking at it from a wrong perspective.

But I actually found your post funny.

I am not interested in immortality at all. even gaan, I sometimes wish to die at 50, but only after having accomplished a great deal of great and beneficial things to this world. i dont want to become too fragile before i leave this world. and i dont want to become dependent on anyone. i just found the article funny thats why i posted it. but its good to finally meet another efico like myself who still reads articles more than a sentence long

Jenny,

I am a woman. so maybe outstrip doesnt need me to knack her. ammmmm wow. ok. i am leaving now. outstrip you are a woman right. i read your profile it said female. and even though I have nothing against gays. I myself Am not one.

to those men who say they go for the non- weave babes who are not high maintenance, you dey lie and are well deceived.

NOW, high maintenanace has levels.

there is the girl who likes her gap, old navy, express and forever 21.

theres the girl who loves her anne klein, juicy couture, and celebrity designer wear.

then theres the girl who loves her gucci , prada, valentino and versace.

it depends on whose pocket the bill is being footed.

most of the natural babes i see dont have boyfriends and they are into poetry and black is beautiful, black peoples rights activist activities.

most of the ladies in weave, with a love for sephora, mary kay (actually not mary kay),  Mac and sleek always have boyfriends.

so you guys are deceived. Who no like better thing.?

its like a woman saying she has a fondness for poor guys with bad breath. Shege, Kai, olorun ma jen kin gbo. naa lie.

Beauty is to men as money is to women.

no beauty no lambourghini

and fake hair and makeup is not a multi trillion dollar industry all over the world for nothing.

how many ladies do you know get married with their own real hair attached to their heads at the alter.

stop all this deception.

money is good

beauty is good

and you men borrow your friends cars

so why cant we women borrow( actually buy) a brazilian or indian womans hair

please lets all wake up.

if a weaved woman broke your heart, after she realized your jaguar wasnt yours, then your fault.

so high maintenance or not, there are plenty of guys out there who are horrible in character, they often have a GF to match

i actually want plastic surgery right now. beauty is good, no one sees another person and says WOW, LOOK AT THE VIRTUE ON HER/HIM. they see ur face and clothes first.

but if you want to maintain the relationship i admit you need character and perhaps juju and  threat. but its all good. the world is as it is

jenny, that matter is isolated to itself.
@ outstrip, something you said just struck a strong chord with me. you said, you dont know too many good decisions that were made when hurting or angry and I wholeheartedly agree with you. thank you for saying that because, its a good light. and honestly when i re-think it,if i did cheat i'd feel really bad about it because it would be when i was hurting that i made the choice and i guess its better to be a fool in the right, than a smart alec in the wrong. the future will justify both and patience is the key to everything. how i wish i was a more patient person. its just so hard when you grew up in a culture where, do him before he does you or "gbajue" is what you grow up learning. i wish to become patient because, it will make me wiser, and i do so desire wisdom. you have said some really intelligent and wise things. who r you and i would like to be your friend.

resurrect the joke? well it never died. if you just read it, maybe you'd appreciate it, but not if you dont have a science background. so you can leave it. and i am telling you you better read it, cos a day will come when they'd perfect life and people would live to infinity and when that day comes and you are still alive, you better have some knowledge so that you can deal with the situation.

if any of you here complaining had actually read it, you would have a completely different opinion. its funny. and i did warn you that youd have to recall your science. apparently there are too many crystalized non flexible, non fluid intelligences and memories here. coupled with short attention span. i should have taken this joke to the science section. i know there are eficos like me there who would have understood it.

to those who asked if my husband and him were raised seperately, the ans is yes. also there is a 16 year difference in their ages. also if my husband destroyed things, he had stopped before he married me.

@outstrip,
yes cheating is wrong and i never would have imagined doing it to anyone talk less of my own husband if not for the emotional turmoil i am in. cheating will give me a sense of relief. i would feel less stupid in the marriage. dont think people cheat lightly esp women. women are the least likely ones to cheat, if you see a woman cheating, its for a really seriously unmet emotional need. and the kind of need that most men will kill a woman for not meetiing or for toying with as they the men have toyed with. do you think i will wake up one day and decide to do it. cheating takes a lot of thought and effort, and even many times when you get the opportunity, you will run, but there would be that one day when you will take the chance because your eyes are swollen and you were about to drink that rat poison and then that guy who had been bothering you just happened to call at that moment. sweet deliverance. hello hotel room

JANE ,

I thought to a degree women had achieved equality status in the world until i came back to live in africa. the answer is no. IF A MAN CHEATS WITH A HOOKER EVERYDAY IN YOUR MARITAL room and you call a family meeting and show them explicit pictures, You the woman will be chastised as a pervert for taking the pictures and no one will talk about the adultery not even perhaps your own family.

If i tell you what happened to me. Before i got married my mom told me that the only thing that should dissolve a marriage is a man hitting his wife and not even adultery. well guess what happened to me? yeah you guessed it. when my mother heard it, she asked me what i did to provoke him and did not even once mention that he was in the wrong to hit me. when i asked her about it she said i was talking back to her and that she concludes that it must have been my talking back to him that causes me to get hit on the regular. well i never spoke to her for 6 months untill a death in the family made us begin to speak again. and she appologized.

if i die in this marriage, it would be with the consent and complete knowledge of my family. but who cares. after all they say, I am only a woman in Africa.

Yet I am the breadwinner for my family, but who cares. I am only a woman in africa
I am the one who buys the food but who cares I am a woman
I am the one who paid the entire bill for the birth of my child but who cares, I am a woman
if not for me our son would have no clothes whatsoever nor toys nor shoes, but who cares I am just a woman


they all keep bothering me to have another child

god forbid.
and if and when i get the opportunity , I TOO WILL CHEAT ON HIS ARSE.

@ chaircover, the comforting thing i got out of what you just said is that one day he'd realize i am doing it for his own good. but at the same time i highly doubt he'd ever appreciate it now or in the future. you mentioned that he is 19 and would soon have his own home, this is africa and i doubt that highly. he will be with us for another 6 years or more. considering that the alternative is to go to his mom in the village. he has 2 more years of secondary school to finish. so thats no comfort. if "YOU" were heavy handed, heh, at what point will you begin to stop touching things? I mean wont you be ashamed and even appologize. this guy has never appologized to me before for anything, and has even tried to lie to me one day when I caught him breaking my picture frames in the living room that only he was in. telling me it was my toddler son who broke it, when the reason i jumped out of bed, with my baby sleeping beside me, in the first place, was because i heard the shattering of glass. it infuriates. me.
I see your point that his mom may take it as an insult on her child rearing ways, but she doesnt have to be too offended because he did live with some other relatives before my husband and i got together to establish our home for quite a while.
nways the boy is gone for now. so a little peace is reigning. i no longer have this constant anxiety that something is going to break. even though i have a nagging fear that somethings are broken but neatly put in place so that the next time i need to use them, crash, not working.

Dear Emmatok,
thank you so much for your perfect analysis ( if not complete) of the situation. You are right, he does come from the village or at least had a not so priviledged upbringing. and its true he eats a lot and when he first came to my house did not know how to do a thing. I mean he broke the brooms he was trying to use to sweep or kill a fly (I know he broke one broom while trying to use it to swat a fly).

I think he will mature to be responsible, but right now its painful to live with him and also very expensive. this holiday time around he broke no tv, but ate all the food and damaged the iron and a few minor appliances, which thankfuly i have spares of and decided to hide.

You cant imagine how scared I was when he told his brother to teach him how to drive? I immediately informed my husband not to think of using my car. and because of that myhusband never taught him. but to be honest, his brother takes less interest in him than I do. and never even thought of getting the boy a bank account or even ID card. I was the one pressing for it. I would have even got him all that if it wasnt that his family didnt coperate in releasing his birth certificate.

marriage is not easy. so for all the young women out there wishing to get married, I can tell you that its like wishing to learn how to charm a snake. it can be dangerous, tricky and it requires constant vigilance. half of the time I am so resentful of my husband and inlaws. and even my parents for suggesting I learn to tolerate it. I cant tell you the number of times I want to get out of it. Even now as I type I want to get out of it. but for "hope" that deceiver and yet good thing is making me believe that there is something good to be gotten out of this.

at outstrip thanks for the empathy. now that i think about it, maybe i should have physically removed the milk from his hands too. i wonder what he'd have said. but i think he got the message when he would see me buy milk and not put it where i used to put it, but in my wardrobe. i know he looks through my wardrobe and stuff, for what i dont know, but when he saw the milk he probably got the message. i would have fought him if he  removed the milk cos then i could accuse him of going thru my stuff. i have not really spoken to my husband about his behavior except that i have corrected his brother in front of him, like the time i mentioned earlier that i corrected my BIL for spreading his clothes in front of the front door.
one time i suggested he not use the brooms because of the so many he keeps breaking.

but i am afraid of saying anything more than that because one time i mentioned  to my husband how his bro broke the tv and he said no it must have been an accident. but i knew he knew it wasnt a simple accident because later he left the broken dvd payers and electronics in the living room and  put the ones that still work, with the exception of one tv ( which he left in the living room) in our bedroom. and cautioned his bro against using it.

@ chaircover, the pot of stew had twelve pieces of meat and he ate it all. i know it had twelve pieces because i became reduced to counting meat in the pot when i would make a pot full of meat fish etc and come back home and see it all gone. i began to think that perhaps i was delusional and didnt actually put meat in the pot so i started counting.

thank goodness though he has left a few days ago. now i have food and property peace. i was relieved to see him go.

 i wish my life was different and that perhaps i married a white man and maybe family wont come over to disturb my peace. but all i can hope for is to become so wealthy that i wont care when family comes over and eats or destroys property. i also hope that i would be to busy to even bother with anyone. and perhaps live in an area to flashy that they wont want to come and disturb me.

but there are those great inlaws who come over and you dont want them to leave, like my hubbys cousin who cooks, cleans and is so well brought up, i wanted to invite her to live with us except that she is kinda expensive and has expensive tastes and i cant afford right now,( situations will change), some of the gucci she wants to be owning.

but as it is i am a sucker for the dark skin and so my life is as it is.

Thanks to all who replied. I appreciate the criticisms of my behavior and the very wise and knowledgeable advise and insight and even empathy.

To the people who ask if He really did destroy all those electronics; the answer is a big yes. I have not exageratted. it seems like a lot, but we (used to) have a lot of electronics. some men indulge in electronic gadgets like women indulge in shoes. we have flat screen tvs and projectors and so many different types of sound systems you name it we have it. so please dont think I am making up the quantity. We actually own a lot of these things, well not anymore as most of them are spoilt now. its not low current that damaged them, I know one of our tvs actually fell down because he decided to try to balance it on his knees. another dvd player got damaged because he tried to jam more than 5 dvd players into a 5 dvd player. we found broken bits of dvds inside the player.

As for the food issue. I know a lot of young men eat a lot. but what about pouring a whole tin of cowbell milk ( not kidding and it was full 4 of the times I caught him pouring, not scooping with a spoon, all the milk) into a bowl of garri? or eating rice and using up more than 12 pieces of meat so that your rice looks like a beef kebab dish with no sight of rice in sight?
How many of you eat half a crate of eggs in one day simply because you are hungry and not because you are tryin to buff up.

I never mentioned that he uses the largest size of close up toothpaste every 2 weeks. When I travelled he finshed the brand new tube I gave him and descended on my toddlers baby toothpaste after his finished. also he had used up all my sensodyne which i left half full . he didnt touch his brother's colgate herbal toothpaste ( we seperate our toothpastes cos we have different needs). I could not even talk. I was upset. I just went to sleep.

To those who say I am intolerant. Maybe I am. I am intolerant towards that 100 years ago mentality that the husband owns the whole house. in fact I own over 3/4 of the things in our house and I paid for it with my money. My husband owns the electronics, but I bought everything else. I am a working woman and have always had a job that paid me decently. If we didnt have these things people would not want to come to our house.

I am intolerant towards people who "visit" us at 5am in the morning and stay all day, eating breakfast at 7 and then lunch at noon and then another lunch at 3 pm and then dinner and who raid my fridge for snacks in between. I dont say anything to them, but now I dont buy those things unless I know somenone is coming to visit. I hide food now, my mother used to do that and I used to wonder why she locked the store and food etc. now I see plainly. I am not yet at that point of wealth where the cost of food is unnoticeable to me. I am the one who goes to the market,

I dont like when relatives "shop" in my closets for clothes when i am not around. thank goodness that i am fatter than most of the ones who are my age range and too young and trendy for the ones who are as fat as I am.

I dont like it when in-laws who live within my home welcome other relatives to shop for their bedspreads (in my absence) in my linen closet because "she" has so many

I am a modern woman. and if my relatives like my house because of the comforts it has, then please care for it with me not try to strip me of it by destroying my property.

thanks for the replies. I appreciate you all

i wouldnt care. unless i was treated really bad

Thank God I am Nigerian.  I mean God forbid I wear armani when I can wear my big arse gele and iro and buba.

Also, burgers are considered trash food even in the countries that own their origin so why would I choose that over the food of kings, Pounded Yam and Efo.

Third, I look better in native. custom native wear. so thank god I am nigerian.  
why must I whisper like I was born a rat, or mouse. shout it out, dont intimidate me, Thank god I am nigerian.

I dont think that is so. SKinny men are not in vogue. Trim men are in vogue. but so are muscular men who look good. you know right proportions.

you wouldnt think it was funny if it was your money replacing the broken items, or you not having water in the kitchen or you living with him