Why I married my second wife

As a young man in my late twenties dreaming to have a good future for myself, I became highly industrious in all my endeavors in order to achieve that.

However, i realized that to achieve this means settling down to have the required peace and harmony in life.

For this, I knew I needed a strong pillar behind me that would be there for me even when the whole world was against me. I knew there was the need to find for myself a best friend. Yes! A best friend. Of course not the kind you think of. A friend who can do everything for me -those that nobody would be in the position to.

Getting a life partner was on my mind, for, behind every successful man, they say, is a woman. However, not just any woman, but one with distinct.

As a result, I activated my searchlight everywhere for my better half with a long list of the qualities of my wife-to-be. Qualities that I did not myself possess. Qualities that can only be those of an angel.

After many months of endless search from far and near, my lenses finally landed on a young flower in my locality.

She was decent, beautiful, respectful and well-cultured and above all, came from a respectful home. She was the type every young man would love to have as a wife.

After months of conversations, we tied the knot and lived a happily life thereafter. I cannot explain the sort of happiness that brought to my life. No words can describe that.

She gave me love, happiness and peace I had never before experienced in my life. I then saw what I had been missing all along as a bachelor. Indeed, certain things are for the married couple only. Everything in the marital home, which would have otherwise elicited the wrath of the Almighty, fetches one reward instead.

She became my best friend who I could confide in with all my problems without any fear of betrayal. Even though we lived in a family house with other relatives, my wife was able to relate very well with everyone, winning the hearts of almost everyone in the process.

A year later, we were blessed with a baby boy. That brought a renewed love atmosphere in our home. Two years later another one followed this time, a baby girl.

At this time, the responsibilities obviously soared but the support of my wife through her mall business brought stability to the spine of the home since I was only making modest earnings in my work.

She held the home together and never did anything to wash our dirty linen to outsiders, not even to her relatives. Even when we had a misunderstanding, she exhibited maturity to ensure we solved it within ourselves without a third party knowing of it. My wife was indeed unique by all standards that made our relationship an envy to our family members and neighbors.

Then, everything came crumbling down; the centre could no longer hold. Everything went haywire.
One night, immediately I got home from work I sensed there was something wrong upon seeing my wife. Her demeanor and the unusual welcome I received that evening said it all. “What is wrong with you, my dear?”, I asked. She responded: “There is no problem.” I asked again, “Are you sick?” “No, I’m not sick”, she answered.

That night, I could only manage a few morsels of my favorite staple of pounded yam and groundnut soup prepared. The atmosphere in the room reminisced that of a cemetery due to the ensuing cold silence in the room.

This continued for about a week until one cold evening when she decided to spill the beans to me. “I’m aware of all your secrete maneuverings you are undertaking to marry your friend’s sister, I mean Mansuur. I know of all what you’re hiding from me and I know how far you have gone with the plans. What is it that I don’t do for you as your wife to warrant this? , “she vented her frustration on me.

“This is strange; I don’t know what you are talking about. I’m absolutely innocent of this allegation. You might be listening to gossips these days. Who even told you that fabricated lie and you are also buying into that? People out there are jealous of our marital milestone and want to see our back, please don’t listen to them. It’s all lies,” I tried convincing her. But she would not budge.

My wife remained adamant despite all attempts I implored to let her know I had never even dreamt of taking a second wife for myself.

Her behaviour towards me suddenly changed for the worse making the home not worth living again. This gradually turned me into a night owl; I would go out at night after my supper and only returned when she was asleep.

I became so worried to the extent that I cut the figure of a sad sack at work with my productivity dwindling to the lowest ebb. I could easily have lost my job if I was working for someone.

Having endured this for a couple of weeks, I decided to probe the issue through my best friend, Mansuur, in order to ascertain the source of the fabricated story. My investigations brought to the fore the originator of the story. Mansuur told me: “A woman who is a friend to your wife and at the same time, a distant relative to my mum was the originator of this story.”

“She came to my mother and suggested to her to consider making my sister your second wife due to our budding friendship. She says this will further strengthen our relationship as well as that of our families.” “So what was your mother’s response? “ I enquired. “You know my mum, she said nothing to her, “he answered.

Armed with this information, I confronted my wife to know whether it was the same woman who told her of my purported impending marriage with my friend’s sister, to which she answered in the affirmative.

She was however, not enthused with the turn of events and only chose to believe what she thought was the truth. “So why don’t you accept what I’ve just told you that it was your friend who made the suggestion to Mansuur’s mum on her own accord which I know nothing of?”, I quizzed her. “I’ll never take this story of yours. How can she just decide to get up one day to go and make such a suggestion? Please keep your cock and bull story to yourself,” she argued, pouring he Lamentations in the process.

Apparently, the long and short of it is that what the woman did was to suggest to my friend’s mother about the possibility of sanctioning a union between her daughter and I, and then, surreptitiously went behind to eavesdrop my wife about what she was supposed to have heard on the grapevine been plotted against my wife as though she was doing her some favour, when in fact, she was the architect of the whole drama playing out. As to what she aimed to achieve, no one could tell.

Consequently, my marital life went from bad to worst. Everything was falling apart for me. My home which hitherto was my source of happiness and peace of mind became hell for me. My wife became a different character altogether. She would respond to a simple question soliciting a straight forward answer with sarcasm. Women and rivalry!

Her attitude changed completely much to my chagrin. She stopped cooking my favorite food at home. Even when she did, there would be too much pepper than necessary in the food when she knew I didn’t like much of it in my food. “If you can’t eat it that way, you have money, go and buy from outside and eat. Can’t you see me and my kids are enjoying it,” that was the usual response I got from her anytime I complained of the food I gave money for.

At this juncture, my patience was running out having devised all possible means to let her reason and dispel the notion she had about me without success. I even asked her friends and family alike to talk her out of it but all that fell on death ears.

So one day, I told my best friend, Mansuur of a short story – “there lived a time when the inhabitants of a particular community were going to war. Only men went to war those days as women were exempted from engaging in battles.

So, the warriors of this town were just on their way out the community for the journey when one of the warriors made a passing comment, to the hearing of a mad man sitting by the road side, “what if after we go, leaving only the women and children in this community with this mad man, and he decides to burn down the whole town?”

But that assertion was quickly shot down by a cacophony of voices from his colleague warriors, saying such negative thoughts were better left in the head.

After the departure of the warriors from the town, the thinking faculty of this mad man temporarily came to life upon hearing what one of the warriors said. He began to murmur to himself: “this thing that the man just said I can do, I never thought of it. Neither did I know I could carry out such an act. Then let me give it a try at what he said and burn down the whole town.” So the mad man executed the act and got the whole town razed down to ashes.” I narrated.

Then, I told my friend: “You know what? The rumour about marrying your sister is all over the place. Look, for the fact that the Almighty has given me enough to feed extra mouths and take care of them, in-shaa Allaah (God-willing) I’ll marry your sister. “Tell me you’re kidding. Are you serious? “asked a surprised Mansuur. “I’m damn serious! “I averred.

Two months later, I got married to my friend’s only sister in a low-key ceremony to make her my number two woman. We since lived happily together with my first wife albeit, in different suburbs. It wasn’t easy for her to cope up initially but she eventually learnt to move on after sometime.

So, that is how I married my second wife.