ISOKENE (I DON’T WANT MY WIFE SMILING)
Episode 5
“ I said, I don’t want you smiling when we go out! “ Ibidolo was barking at Isoken. Isoken told me they had just returned from a wonderful Day out. Isoken said she had tried keeping a straight face throu-gh out the event, She only smiled at Ibidolo, Which was unlike her. Her normal self would have had her smile plastered on her face smiling at everyone including the security, cleaners, sales attendants but all these she tried to avoid, but she had an exception…She couldn’t help but smile at him…..Who was him?
“ Ibidolo, I smiled at a beggar, a beggar,an old beggar on the street, that smile was to give him hope,I couldn’t give him money, but I could give him a smile “
“ Isokene, I would have preferred you gave him money, I wouldn’t care if you gave him my entire money ,but not your smile…” he said very frustrated
“ This is not going to work, I am getting out of this thing we are calling a marriage….I am done”
“ You said what?”…. Ibidolo asked Isoken
************
Isoken was at my place narrating what Happened at her place earlier that day.
Although the day before was the day she narrated the whole story about the pastor who had match made her with Ibidolo. After narrating her “ HOW WE MET TALE”, I had pas-sionately told her the foundation of her marriage was wrong and based on falsehood. Out of insane pas-sion and irritation for her husband called Ibidolo who was against his wife smiling, I had told her if she wanted out of the marriage,God was not going to be angry with her. Here she was less than 24 hours telling me about her outing with her husband…. Seriously I was mad and the marriage counselor in me went on vacation, but the woman in me and feminist Spirit I never knew existed in me shouted….
“ This marriage was never God’s idea and I have a feeling the perfect will of God for you in marriage is still out there, You are below 30 for Christ sake,” I said with pas-sion but you would not believe that Isoken literally shut me up by ma-king excuses for her husband…
“Aunty, You know what? … His countenance changed when I told him I wanted out of the marriage, I was afraid he was going to hit me, I started moving backwards but what he did next is still baffling me Aunty and that’s why I c@m£ to see you, he started talking like a baby, with tears flowing from his eyes, He moved so close to me like he wanted to swallow me up. He said…”
“ Isokene, You can’t leave me, You are the first real thing I have had to myself, and I never want to lose you to anyone, You are my first real possession”
“ Possession?…I am not a piece of as-set…I am a human being that has a life of her own…”
“ No no…. Isokene baby, I don’t mean it that way…What I mean is you know, I never had anyone growing up, I am not a beast asking you to st©p smiling for no good reason , the thing is I don’t want to lose you to someone else.. You know I told you that I was raised in an orphanage from birth, I never knew my mother or father, I was picked from the street in an abandoned vehicle….”
“ I know that and I have promised you I will be your family” Isoken said
“ Isokene plea-se just hear me out….I never had anything that was mine, I always had to share things with my orphanage brothers and sisters, all the clothes I ever wore was either pas-sed on to me or brou-ght by well wishers… I never had anything I could tag mine….I grew up using what others had used, Used school bags, borrowed text books, even till I got into tertiary institution…, Everything I ever used was borrowed , I lived off my friends, I sle-pt on the floor of my friend’s room, all the textbooks I used were always borrowed…. Aside from my house and car, You are the first thing I can call MINE or better still …First possession I have…I am sorry I am using the word possession, but that’s how I feel…Isokene plea-se…What I am asking from you is little….You know you asked me to st©p getting drun!kafter marriage, and because of you, I st©pped….Tell me something else you want from me and I promise to give you ….plea-se just keep your smile for me, just me alone….
“ Trust me, Trust that I will never leave you” Isoken said
“ I trust you so much, but I don’t trust other people with you, they may take you from me”
*************
“ Aunty, Ibidolo hvgged me like a baby that didn’t want to loose his precious possession and at that moment , I was t©uçhed, I saw a boy who has never had anyone and now he has one special to his heart he was not re-ady to lose… Aunty, What do you suggest I do?…
plea-se if you are the marriage Counsellor and you are in my shoes,What would be your best advice to Isoken, LIKE SERIOUSLY????
Episode 6
“Isoken, Are you mad or something has gone wrong with your s-en-ses?”
Speechless, agitated, mad, going bunkers, terribly infuriated are some of the words to describe what I felt when I saw Isoken after 2 weeks of complete silence and disappearance. I had tried her number several times, but her line was unavailable, and Neither did she call for two weeks.
My security man had told me I had a Strange Visitor and he wanted me to come see her first before He could allow her come in. Mathew , our security man was a very security conscious person, he was so security conscious that at times when my husband and I were driving in, he would make sure he checked if we were bringing in strangers and If we had strangers, He would ask the strangers to get down to be checked and screened. Although, I found it strange , but my husband was fine with it.
Therefore, For Matthew to have tagged this person a strange visitor, something must definitely be wrong
When I got out of the house, I saw a lady figure dressed in a beautiful pink go-wn , but what was strange about her was that she had a black and grey covering Like the Muslim Purdah on her head that covered everywhere; the only thing visible was her eyes…. The eyes looked familiar…
“ Good Afternoon ma, plea-se can I help you?” I asked moving close in caution
The lady in Question bur-st into outrageous laughter and unveiled herself to be Isoken. I literally we-t my p@n-ts….
********
“ Isoken, What do you mean you are doing this to keep your marriage, this is wrong? And besides are you denying your Christian faith to become a Muslim by dressing like one of them to keep your marriage….This is wrong..I mean dressing like a Muslim is wrong when you are not one, as-suming Ibidolo is a Muslim it would have been un-derstandable…” I said
“ Aunty Betty, I know Wrong can never give birth to right, but I am trying to be the right person in my marriage, Two wrongs can never make a right. Now I realize Ibidolo is selfish, uncompromising, and not a Christian I thought he was, but do you expect me Ma to also do what is wrong by running out of the marriage, No! I am going to be right and I know Right gives birth to right…And may I add, my dressing this way has nothing to do with my religion, I don’t think there is anywhere in the Bible where you are told you can’t dress this way, It is a choice I have made, Let’s think about this, What if I had a mas-sive scar on my face, and I decided to do this , Would you have frowned at it?” Isoken said with all seriousness. It was obvious whereever she must have gone for those two weeks had done a lot of mindset restructuring….
“I guess this is Ibidolo’s idea?” Asking just for confirmation sake…
“ No….100 percent me, Ibidolo is yet to see me, he went on a work trip to set up a Studio in Abakaliki …Aunty I had two weeks of reflection to myself and this is what I c@m£ up with….Self denial that will give birth to love “
I was speechlessly speechless but I asked a simple question after a long break
“ So you are re-ady to sacrifice your smile for your marriage”
“ Love is sacrifice , For God so loved the world that He gave his only begotten Son….Aunty, God let go of his only son to gain the whole world….Aunty I have a plan”
“ Isoken What plan? your smile is a message to people, your smile heals a lot people”
“ I don’t want to heal a lot of people, I want to heal my husband, Of what value is my ministry of smile to the world, If my smile doesn’t win My husband, For instance Aunty take a look at you and your husband, You know it will be a great failure if after repairing other people’s marriages with your powerful marriage ministry and we suddenly hear your marriage failed, Of what value was your message….
At that point, Isoken had hit me on a so-re sp©t….My husband and I were having it rou-gh in marriage , We were not fighting in the s-en-se of physical abuse or emotional, we were just drawn ap@rt. We had not had int£rç0rs£for over 9 months and none of us bothered…And yet I go around preaching about how compulsory it was to have int£rç0rs£in marriage….The truth is I ha-rd ly have time for it myself because of how busy I had been, jumping from one state to the other preaching to women on them keeping their homes at all cost, but was I keeping my home….???
“ And besides Aunty, Who says I am sacrificing my smile, behind this veil , I smile a lot without people seeing…Aunty let me use my smile alone for my husband to pu-ll him out of the valley of the feeling of being unloved, abandoned and not cherished . Aunty, Noah saved his family, even though he couldn’t save the world….I will keep my smile for my husband alone if that will help me secure a good place in his heart, which will further help me to achieve what I want to achieve with him”
“ So you mean you are planning to wear this veil all your life to make your husband happy “
“ Yes, If I have to, but I as-sure you, Something good is coming out of this” Isoken said as she smiled un-der the veil, but how did I know she smiled? since she was wearing the thick veil. I saw it in her eyes, her eyes were shining , I saw the joy in her eyes even though I couldn’t see her mouth….
“ As a marriage counselor of over 15 years, I had never seen a wife who saw her marriage as more important than her purpose even though it was built on a wrong foundation but Isoken did, because she realized something I didn’t realize on time that was tearing my own marriage ap@rt…
What was that? find out in the next p@rt, because seriously speaking, Was this step by Isoken a wise one? Let me hear your opinion
Episode 7
After Isoken left my home, I was not the same again, heavy guilt poured on me, I sat down to evaluate my life and marriage, If my husband backslided and was no more as spiritual as he was, “ Can I be like ISOKEN? Can I drop all my ministerial engagements and responsibilities to make sure he gets back on his feet….
Isoken was treating her husband like a lost child whose mother was willing to do anything for in order to have him back. She was pla-ying the fool, I was not sure I could do that even though I was a marriage Counsellor. Just as I was ruminating over all these, my husband walked in and I ran towards him in guilt like a prodigal wife.
“ Honey, Welcome….” I took his bag from him, an action I had done in a very long time , probably years back.
My husband was a good man who never stressed me, he didn’t mind cooking for himself when I am far away on “ministerial Journey” …At that point I knew I had not been fair to him…
After he settled down on the be-d as he kept looking at me strangely suspecting something was up with me…
“ Betty, What’s wrong? , What about the children? Are they fine? “ He asked looking very disturbe-d. Due to my busy schedule, We had agreed to have the girls in the boarding school.
“ They are fine , I just nee-d to ask you some questions”
Surprisingly my husband moved away from me and placed his hand on his head like someone who had been caught doing something… I wasn’t sure why but I asked my question that was born out of guilt…
“ Henry, I want you to be honest, have I been a good wife to you, I hope I have not made anything more important than you, I hope you are not hurting?”
I did not know what c@m£ over me as I kept blabbing, my husband was giving me a look I wasn’t comfortable with, he moved farther away from me…
“ Who told you?” He asked
“ Nob©dy, I just figured out I had been too involved with my life matters and I was not fulfilling my wifely duties”
“ Kemi told you, I knew she was going to…Betty, I am sorry, I let this happen. I didn’t want to disturb you or be an opposition to What God was doing with you. Honestly we just started as casual friends, but since she is a widow, She started misinterpreting my compas-sion towards her, and one thing led to another…. Betty, I don’t know how I fell in love with her, but the Truth is I love you more than I love her…, I knew kemi was going to tell you after she saw Margaret and I at the hospital ….”
“ Margaret! Who was Margaret .. No one close to us bore that name!” I thought very quic-kly
Dont Miss These Inspirational tou-ching Story THE EXCHANGE (COMPLETED)
It looked like my life was crumbling…I was saying one thing and My husband Henry was saying another thing confessing about a woman I didn’t even know existed….I almost pas-sed out, but I nee-ded to be sure I was hearing him correctly….
“ So what are you really saying?” I asked
“ I don’t want a divorce, I still love you, but I don’t know how it happened, I feel something for her also and we have gone too far for me to hurt her…” he said on his knees
“Could someone wake up from this terrible nightmare, If I was hearing my husband correctly, he had a mistress who is a widow. He was in love with her and couldn’t leave her….”
Whose case was worse, Isoken’s husband who had turned her into a veiled woman to hide her smiles, or my very wonderful husband who had suddenly taken away my smile…. which I didn’t know if I was ever going to get it back….Then he said it again…
“ I can’t lose you Betty, You are my first love but I love her too, she has become a lover and most importantly a friend I can’t lose or hurt, She has helped me throu-gh a lot, We have been together for close to a year, there are things you could not help me with, which I totally un-derstand is because of your busy ministerial schedule, but Margaret has been there. For instance, she is the one helping me with my poultry business, She Is a good person I can’t hurt”
I died and woke up, a million times over….How? My husband was in an affair for close to a year and I never suspected….It was official, This was the end of my smile….
Now, whose case was worse? Mine or Isoken?
Episode 8
For days, I couldn’t sleep, I cried till my eyes were tearing up on their own because It never would have crossed my mind that my husband was cheating on me….How? I thought I was the perfect wife. I knew and had taught several women the 100 LAWS of keeping a good marriage, but what happened to mine…? I thought I had kept Henry where I wanted him to be.
Henry however was prostrating at any given opportunity telling me he was sorry, he was just lonely and he didn’t know how it happened with the widow..
All he could say was that, they had met on a flight to Abuja. She was re-ading one of my motivational books and out of pride, he told her that was his Wife…
That was where they exchanged contacts and from there the rest is history….
All my teachings about getting your man back c@m£ back at me but at that moment they seem useless….
The painful p@rt of the issue was the p@rt where he said, he couldn’t st©p seeing her and yet he wasn’t re-ady to let go of me either…. How could a man be telling his wife of 15 years, he was in love with another woman ; a widow with two kids for that matter!
All that was coming out of my mouth was “ Ha!, Ha!” and if someone was able to check my Blood pressure at some point, I am sure they would have called me a living dead….
I saw Isoken’s calls for days but I couldn’t pick up…I couldn’t take my bath for three days. On the third day while still trying to recover from the shock with Henry cudd-ling me still asking for my forgiveness, his phone rang….
“ Hello Margaret, Good morning…..” there was a long pause and then he said” I am on my way”….
I turned with a questioning look
“ I am sorry Betty, one of her sons just fell ill and you know she is a widow , I have to help her” Henry literally flew out of the house
It felt like someone hit me on the head with a big sledge hammer of reality…. My husband was gone, gone from me and gone from God…
My options were clear, It was either I give up on the marriage and continue my marriage ministry but this time around my message was going to change so as to hide my shame. Now, I could valid@t£ divorce
Or
Better still I could get over it and accept the fact that my husband had a mistress that could become his wife anytime soon..because the night before that day Henry had said something that shook me to my marrow. His statement made me know, this mistress was going no where, she had found a comfortable space in my husband’s heart.
The night before, out of feminine rage , I started cursing the mistress when I was talking to Henry…
Dont WAIT!…re-ad a Completed Mind b!owing Story > SHES A GHOST
“ Henry, I can’t believe you did this, I know that lady bewitched you, she must be a witch, can’t you see, Who knows ?, maybe she was the one who killed her husband and you are the next targ….”
“ St©p it, Betty, Don’t let me turn this table against you, I don’t want you to ever insult her, curse her or say anything negative about her and don’t even try praying against her, because if anything happens to her, I will know you caused it and I am telling you for a fact, I will so hurt you….”
My mouth was so wi-de a full egg could have entered at once….Now, not only did my husband have a mistress but a mistress he was re-ady to hurt his wife for if anything happened to the mistress….
So with this situation, Which of the options is best for me…
Divorce him, move on with my life and know that my ministry would not preach the message I believed God gave me that “ God hates Divorce”
Or
Just stay in the marriage, pretend all was well even though my husband had a mistress somewhere and keep preaching Godly marriages….
What do you think?