Why Divorces are Rampant (III)
“It was when I moved to live with my husband in New Jersey about four years ago, that I realized that my husband had carefully constructed a life and professional accomplishments that had no bearing to who he was. He was, to my utter astonishment neither an engineer nor did he attend any college for that matter. When I confronted him, all he could feebly tell me was to rationalize his lies by the ludicrous notion that ‘I didn’t want to lose you if I had told you the truth.’”
“You should have,” I remember telling him, voice raised in anger. “You certainly would lose me now because of the lies you told me,” I recall saying as I ran upstairs, too shocked to internalize the shock.
The shock of realizing I had been lied to, was too much for me to bear and as I began to somewhat internalize the whole episode, I found myself getting even more angry and disdainful of the man whom I had until now, regarded as a soul-mate and one to whom I had entrusted everything-including my life to. He didn’t have to lie to me; there was absolutely no reason for him to have tacked that path. I was, and still remain an enabler. By nature, I don’t judge people neither do I present myself as an intellectual snob, even though I could, if I wanted to. I take people for who and what they are; how they present and define themselves and nothing turns me off, than people who wear a false garb of importance or present an identity that is fake at best and fraudulent at most. I consider people like that, as lacking character and a sense of identity and I would never be caught dead with such people. To imagine that I would not only be caught dead with an individual like that, but have the unfortunate situation of calling one of such, my husband, the realization was just too much for me to come to terms with, and I let my emotions show how I felt about it all.
“Please open the door, Jane, I want to talk with you,” My husband had said in his booming voice, while banging hard at the door. I didn’t want to see him, neither was I ready to listen to his jeremiad about having to lie his way into my heart because I would not have deigned him a listening ear if he had told me his actual circumstance in America. I wonder what made him think I would not have still fallen in love with him, if he had truly told me his actual situation here. His lies simply sucked off the oxygen of affection that I had for him, and there was nothing left in me for him, and I wasn’t going to pretend.
I knew people would judge me as a ‘user’ – someone who willingly tolerated his not so elegant erudition and lack of intellectual finesse. But I know in my heart that when I married my husband, I did so, with deep love, devotion and unbridled affection for him. Part of the key element of marriage is that couples should be truthful and frank with their partners. There should be no dark secrets or items left at the closest for the wife to later discover. Such acts do not in my matrimonial play book; help engender spousal affinity and love. It could only widen the gulf of affection and create a wall of disenchantment between the parties. For me, the trust was gone, the love was diminished and the tie that binds was severed and the center thus could no longer hold.
I had met my husband about four years ago at a friend’s place in Lagos. My girlfriend’s boyfriend had invited me to meet his friend who had come in from the States for a drink. He had told me the guy was good looking and was looking to settle down, and that his main trip to Nigeria, was to look around and survey the singles’ terrain. With a curious mind, I had agreed to meet up with them and make it a foursome.
True enough, Jim (my later-to- be husband), was a good looking man. He stood at an imposing 6’3 and looked like one who took his physical appearance very seriously. I liked what I saw instantly and soon began to talk and laugh as if we had known each other for years. It was helpful that we both enjoyed a little bit of alcohol. The ‘Rose’ Champagne soon relaxed us thoroughly and by the time we left my friend’s place, we were in such a comfort zone that if I were not a very morally grounded person, I would have let myself go for anything that night. Jim was a gentleman, and when he saw me off to my home, he only kissed me on the forehead and flatly refused my offer for him to come inside my home. “You are a little tipsy and sleepy-go get some sleep and I will see you tomorrow,” he had told me, to my astonishment and pleasant surprise. What manner of a man was this that had refused to take advantage of my vulnerability which most men would have in a heart-beat? I found myself asking. Throughout that night, the thought of Jim was all that was on my mind, and I became sufficiently curious about him ‘I think I am going to date this man’ I remember telling myself as I finally lumbered to bed that night- a smile of happiness playing sweetly on my lips.
To be continued next week. Keep a date
The Republican gift that keeps giving to Obama
About three months ago, I wrote a two-part piece entitled ‘Why Mitt Romney will lose to Obama in November’. In that piece, I had looked at the voting blocs-the key constituencies that help ensure victories for presidential candidates-Republicans and Democrats. Among the key constituency I had looked at, and concluded the Republicans had frightened and scared off their victory radar by their extreme views was the female voters. I had stated that the given the exploitation of the abortion issue by the extreme and lunatic fringe of the Republican Party- an issue that the denizen and the main echo chamber of the party-Rush Limbaugh had coarsed when he called Sandra Fluke – a Georgetown law student ‘a prostitute,’ after Ms. Fluke had made a testimony before a Congressional Committee on the need to cover contraceptives. Rush Limbaugh had asked the young women that if the tax payers must cover her over-sexed lifestyle, she should film her sexual dalliances and post it on line for his likes-his own group of tax payers to view s as a reward for subsidizing her high sex-lifestyle. That statement was wholly condemned by a cross-section of the American public and the Democrats cleverly dubbed it ‘Republicans wart against women’. It had a telling effect as the gap of support by women to Obama widened while shrinking that of Mitt Romney. It didn’t help matters that the establishment wing of the Republican Party and its Tea party apparatchiks did not lift a voice to condemn Rush Limbaugh, including all the then presidential candidates, such as the eventual soon-to-be nominee, Mitt Romney.
Just when the Republican ‘war against women’ slogan was losing its elasticity, Congressman Todd Akins of Missouri earlier this week, caused another gender grief to the GOP when he, in his attempt to prove his pro-life credentials made the bewildering classification of what in his twisted logic amounts to ‘a legitimate rape’ and the capacity of the ‘woman’s body’ to miraculously shut down the sperm from travelling to impregnate the victim and the other level of rape where the baby would have to be protected and for the culprit to ‘somehow be punished’. It was shocking to say the least and it goes to show how the Republican Party- a party that was once known for big ideas and had, historically done a lot of profound things has been seized by a group of anti-intellectual buffoons who questions every scientific inquiry and only looked at issues from a very narrow ideological prism.
Congressman Akins’ statement has provided the Democrats the opening to link the Romney/Ryan ticket with the extreme views of Todd Akins-Congressman Akins and Paul Ryan, having once co-sponsored legislation on how to deny federal funding on abortion-whether it involved rape or incest. The inelegant statement of the embattled Congressman who has also stubbornly refused to withdraw from the race despite the prodding of the establishment wing of the Republicans had brought to the fore the wedge issue of abortion and its inclusion on the Republican Platform that is expected to be voted on, on Monday-August, 27 at the start of its Convention in Tampa, Florida. The Republican Platform as it relates to abortion mirrors that of Todd Akins, which makes no exception to rape or incest, thus compounding problems for Mitt Romney who has publicly stated that he support abortion where incest and rape were concerned.
The Republicans have already lost the Hispanic constituency-arguably the largest minority voting bloc in the U.S. because of its hard-line stance on immigration-an issue that is profoundly important to that community, the African-American bloc and now women bloc. It cannot win with just the aging white men and women. The Independents-eternally averse to extreme ideological professions are not comfortable with the Republicans heavily reliance on social and cultural issues to win elections, and are again, going to vote for the Democrats. The Republicans can’t win with the religious rights and the so-called ‘values voters’ – it needs a big tent which the likes of Congressman Akins have effectively shut the door against those with moderate-to conservative opinion.
The net result of all this is that Obama, like I said months back, will coast to victory in November, because the Republican Party has in a bewildering and strategically obtuse manner, decided to sing its beautiful songs to the choir that already was familiar with its lyrics, instead of recruiting others who may have been curious about those lyrics. Even the selection of Paul Ryan was a strategic error by Mitt Romney. The motivating impulse was to energize the base, forgetting that the base of the party, hates Obama to death and would still have voted for Romney no matter whom he had selected as his running mate. Paul Ryan, in my opinion does not add any electoral value to the ticket. His inclusion is not going to turn his state of Wisconsin to a Red state. The Progressive Era in American politics has its roots in Wisconsin, and the state has never lost that proud heritage or traded it for some extreme ideological battle of wits and warts. Paul Ryan will not change that trend.
Happy birthday wishes to Obong Umana O. Umana-Secretary of State Government, Akwa Ibom State
He has been a major plank in the transformational agenda of Governor Godswill Akpabio of Akwa Ibom State, providing unvarnished policy counsel and showing a loyalty to the governor and his vision of development of the state that is worthy of emulation.
As a technocrat of unrivaled capacity and a tested policy wonk of boundless energy and breath, Obong Umana Okon Umana, a close ally of Governor Godswill Akpabio exemplifies the twin ingredients of hard work and an abiding capacity to project excellence and the injection of best practices on how the large and sometimes unwieldy bureaucratic layers of governance can be harnessed to provide the desired result.
A former Commissioner of Finance in the state and for five and half years now, the Secretary to the State Government, Obong Umana has won plaudits and accolades from a cross- section of the people of the state for his unalloyed loyalty to Governor Akpabio, and majority believe, with the kind of impactful and consequential leadership the Governor Godswill Akpabio administration has given the people of Akwa Ibom State, where government is seen to have worked for the people, that Obong Umana remains a formidable force to continue the transformational agenda that has been celebrated all over the country and in the Diaspora.
As he turned 53 last Monday-August 20th, here is wishing my former lecturer- a man who simplified Economics and made it less intimidating-given my struggles with math and statistics while a student at the Cross Rivers State School of Basic Studies-Akamkpa, (now Cross River State Polytechnic, Akamkpa)over 20 years ago, a man with the listening ear, kind and blessed with the ideals of the common good, a man who is good at absorbing the profound and impactful and dismissing the inane and the obtuse a ‘Happy Birthday’ and more years of consequential service to the good people of Akwa Ibom State.