Get A Fucking Divorce.

It's not that simple...

‘Hauwa I am tired’

This is my friend, Biodun.

He’s been married only two years but every now and then, he brings some food over to my house and complains about his wife, his life and everything in between.

My younger brother is currently occupying my office space so Biodun and I can’t sit in there, my room is out of the picture and there’s almost no furniture in my living room so we sit at the wooden table that passes as my dining table. I chew on the shrimp fried rice he bought me and watch him ignore his food. His head is bowed. He keeps shaking it like maybe if he shakes it enough, the denial will transport him into another life.

I like the shrimp fried rice. I want to ask where he got it from but I know this is not the time so I scan the plastic bag in which he brought the food but it’s not branded. What kind of business makes this kind of bussing fried rice and refuses to brand their bags? That’s such a stupid branding mistake.

‘I don’t even know what to do’

He pulls me out of my annoyance at the fried rice place. He has started pacing now. My parlour is large so there’s enough space for him to pace.

‘It’s like being married to someone who simply does not care’

My eyes follow him lazily. I have heard all this before and I’ll hear it again in two weeks when he turns up at my place with another plate of food. You see, his complaints about his wife are not anything grand. They are small little things that have built up over the years and at this point, they’re both disgusted with each other.

‘The problem is she doesn’t like you’

This is the first thing I have said since he arrived and it’s not a grand observation. It’s what I always say.

‘Yes!’

‘And you don’t like her either’

‘Well…’

‘Not, well, Biodun. You don’t like that woman. You look at her everyday and you’re annoyed. You both can’t communicate without being at each other’s throats. You have no patience for each other. That’s no way to live.’

This seems to stop his pacing and he comes to sit at the dining table again. This time, he is bent over and his hands are holding his head. I don’t feel too much pity for my friend because no matter how many solutions I proffer, he will not take it.

‘Hauwa, tell me what I need to do’

‘Get a divorce’

He shakes his head. I told you he won’t take it.

‘It’s not like I don’t want to. The courts will give her full custody of our daughter and I don’t want that. And I don’t want to fight dirty for her either. Also the quality of her life could possibly be affected by the people around her. I don’t know who will be around her.’

I nod and eat my chicken. He is right.

‘Marrying her was such a mistake’

‘You’re not a saint, Biodun. You cheat on her’

He laughs a dry laugh and follows it with, ‘She cheats too’

‘Does not make you a saint’

‘Doesn’t make her one either’

We sit in silence and agree on that. I chew on my chicken. It is dry. Maybe this is why they don’t brand their bags. Their chicken is terrible.

‘I wish I had your life. I wish I was single’

I laugh and almost choke on my chicken. ‘I am lonely most of the time’

‘I am lonely in my marriage too’

He stares at me. I stare back.

‘I am not sleeping with you, Biodun’

‘You won’t be cheating on anyone’

Biodun is a bastard. We’ve known each other before he got married and I can’t remember if he was hitting on me when we met but I was in a relationship so I didn’t think about it. After my relationship ended, Biodun has tried to get us in bed together but I am not attracted to that man in the slightest. I like chubby men and Biodun is skinny.

2. I am lonely but I am not lonely enough to be sleeping with a married man and more so, one with all the problems in the world.

3. I know women who have been cheated on and the effect it has on them. I am not about to do that to another woman.

4. Tbh, I don’t rate the women Biodun sleeps with and I am not about to join that line.

Biodun starts pacing again and I roll my eyes.

It is not that I think Biodun’s problems are not important. I just think there is an obvious solution in front of him that he is choosing not to take and that’s not my own problem.

It is already 8pm.

I need Biodun to leave because I need to start working. I have not shot or posted a video in a week and if I continue like this, I am not going to make it out of the trenches. Biodun asks if I want ice cream and before I can think, I say yes. He takes me to the ice cream place a few minutes from my place and brings me back.

In the car, he asks me if I want to take a walk. I know he is stalling. I ask him to go home. I get out of his car and he drives off. I don’t know if he went home. I doubt he did.

I step into my house and fall into bed. It’s quiet. It’s really lonely. I’m nursing a heartbreak I don’t think will ever heal. But I am grateful. I am grateful that this is my safe space and I can come to it whenever I want. I am grateful that I do not live with someone who can’t stand to look at my face. I am grateful I do not have a child I have to do bath-time with while wondering why my partner cannot just do it for once. I could fall asleep now and not have to bother about anything.

I will be the first to admit that being in a relationship is great. I have been in a really good one but I have also been in horrible relationships and I’ll take being single and living an uncomplicated life than being in one of those.

And so, I count my blessings.

If you’re currently single and wishing to be married soon, I hope that happens for you but I also hope you’re patient enough to wait for the good one and while waiting you do not hate the life you currently live now because they are so many things worse than being single.

I love Biodun very much and I feel sorry for him. I feel sorry for his wife too. They should be doing life with partners they love (the actual loves of their lives) but for some reason, they’re stuck with each other.

Maybe one day, they’ll get a divorce but Yoruba men don’t leave their wives.

So if a certain Biodun is sleeping with you outside and telling you he will leave his wife, my sister, he won’t o.

Rahn Awayyyyy.

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Today’s song of the week is Chasing Cars by Snow Patrol