Chapter 27
How We Manage
Our Marriage
I Preach what I Practise
First, having written a book on Marriage and how to make it work, I think this chapter is important because my readers will want a proof that the theories I postulated in that book actually work or whether I am just another of those writers who are only good at telling others what to do but do not match their words with their actions in their own homes!
Secondly, my wife and I had to weigh carefully the information to give in this book about our home for public consumption.
Being more of an introvert, she was reluctant to give any form of publicity about her private life. I am therefore grateful to her that after a great deal of persuasion and understanding, she agreed to the release of the following detail for the interest of readers.
I had to resolve some questions that agitated my mind to enable readers appreciate the remarkable qualities that have characterized our marriage. It would do no good to just state those qualities without revealing how they came to be. Otherwise one would give the wrong impression that one never had any problems or that one was an angel. And the very objective of writing this autobiography would be defeated: namely, to impart the knowledge of how to overcome marital problems successfully through the prism of my (or our) own practical and exemplary experience. Otherwise it would rather be idiotic or facile to begin our story by saying our life together (that is our marriage) has been blissful, beautiful, fulfilling, rosy and marvelous.
For this reason, and to ensure that my readers derive maximum benefits both for their valuable time and buying this book, we have packaged and revealed so much intimate details of our private existence to be of universal value to all.
How I see My Wife
I see my wife as a rare breed of women who, fortunately, are able to keep their heads when others lose theirs. They had been obedient to their parents who guided them in spiritual matters. They also stuck to their books to realize their vision, which, in later years, set them apart from the ordinary in their societies.
In the above context, I see my wife as a universal representative of what a wife ought to be - a mother who needs utmost care and respect and whose views matter. In that respect, to the best of my ability, I try to care for her.
Sometimes I see her as a sister who needs affection, for whom I become a Counselor. Other times, I see her as a daughter who needs unconditional love, support, prayers and guidance and whom I accept in her essential strengths and challenges.
I respect her as an ardent critique, a non-conformist whose ideas must be valid. In this realization, when she holds forth on certain issues, I am guided by her attitude to arrive at a decision that becomes 'our decision'. Her interventions have become very invaluable to me in my literary endeavours. She scrutinizes all my manuscripts ever before they are proof-read by my editors. I see her as a true friend whose views are transparently worthy and to whom therefore I lay bare all the facts at my disposal for a wholesome consideration and decision. Therefore I regard her as a partner who shares my vision, hopes and aspirations. We spend hours doing this on the bed, often forgetting our conjugal rights and exercises. We are both very philosophical in nature. My wife is an epitome of humility that is soothing to me in times of stress. She's a help-mate who takes initiative in the running of our home in a way that has given me a breathing space to work on major issues single-mindedly without diversions.
I am strongly aware of her potent beauty, just as, the other day, a lady at my optician's could not help exclaiming, on sighting my wife, “E m'oju lo s'oja”, “You have an eye for beauty”. Honestly, my wife is truly beautiful and charming - physically and characteristically. .
All the time, I am unable to disregard her as my student who must be properly tutored on the issues of life so that she will not stumble. She has remained receptive to the teaching. When she pours out her concerns, I gladly give her my honest opinions. Wherever I am in doubt, I make research, even in the internet, to arrive at the right answers which I share with her. In the event, we have the habit whereby we are constantly reading and discussing a book of knowledge together. (I think my readers should imbibe this reading habit of ours)
Our Spiritual Angles
On our spiritual side, Mary is as gifted as I am, in seeing, even in the revelations of dreams and visions. Many of her dreams on several issues have come to pass. She's one-on-one with God. She talks to God and God responds to her audibly. I am equally gifted in these areas. However, discernment of the spirit and boldness to teach and speak the word in public appear to be the only edge I have over and above her in the work of God spiritually. We are working together to see that she also develops some of her many gifts in the spirit too. There is no doubt that she truly loves the Lord.
How I treat Mary on Domestic Issues
From the foregoing, my readers will observe the true nature of my relationship with my wife, which, by God's grace, will not change as long as I live and she remains my wife.
I do believe that a man's home is a reflection of his vision of it. I have always thought of my home as one where my wife, my children, my mothers, my fathers, my brothers and sisters and all segments of my extended family are not only fairly treated but see themselves being so fairly treated. This principle touches friends too. I have always reassured my wife that we could suffer some pains to achieve this. She has stood by me.
My wife knew early enough in our marriage that she was entitled to acquire real property in her own name, but she had to be open in doing so. In other words, she had to involve me whenever she went about and performed such self-actualisations. I would not welcome surprises. I too was obliged to so treat her whenever I went about my own acquisitions. Our transparency has, therefore, remained mutual.
Mary whole-heartedly accepted my all-inclusive treatment of family members as long as I was able to provide the means to do so. After all, she grew up in a community of people and would not enjoy living where people are not fairly treated.
I made some early pledges to her: I would be fair to her at all times and would not obstruct anything that would bring about positive development to her life. She was free to improve herself academically; by the way, she married me as a Secondary School Leaving Certificate holder but today she is a University of Lagos graduate in Accountancy. (Ironically, we entered into the Universities of Lagos and Lagos State Universities respectively the same year and graduated the same year!) Besides, she is already engaged in the Chartered Institute of Bankers examinations.
I also promised to provide for my home to the best of my ability. While doing so, she would always see my pay-slip and know how I spend all the monies I earn. But to allow for flexibility, we would not operate a joint account, although we would together do the Family Budgeting. All these are the reality of our life today.
I convinced her that she has actually been a member of Omogboyega's family from the beginning but only had sojourned awhile in her paternal (Pa Ayinde's) family just as I had done in Pa Ilugbusi's house. So, like the Ruth-Naomi relationship in the Bible, my home is her home, my people her people. Interestingly, our likelihood of conduct might have been the case of why people see us as look-alikes (albeit facially!). I have had to do a bit of research to establish whether there is indeed any historical or biological relationship between us from ancient times! I found some notional connection. She hails from Abeokuta. My maternal grandfather, Olayinka, the son of Olatomi, hailed from Aisegba Ekiti. I have read in one newspaper publication that Aisegba people are descendants of a particular segment of Abeokuta. They had left Abeokuta for Aisegba-Ekiti because of a chieftaincy dispute. In their new settlements, they disclaimed their origins thus, “A-a ki-i-se-Egba”, meaning “We are not Egbas” which pronouncement metamorphosed by malapropism into : “Aisegba”. This is how far I have gone meanwhile but even now I can claim with some measure of certainty that my wife and I are consanguineously or ancestrally related!.
I re-emphasized to my wife that in the day-to-day running of our nuclear family, she is next in command to me. I let all those who live with me realize that whatever affects my wife affects me too. Therefore, there was no room for rudeness or allowance for those oppressive traditions, which made a married woman subservient in her own home to relatives of the husband who could slap or disdain her without repercussion.
As for succession to my estate, I am a strong believer in making a written will. My wife has nothing to worry about as to how I want my estate to be managed whenever I die. I wrote my first Will at under 40 years of age and it has been revised over and over again since then as occasion and significant events compelled.
As I explained my concept of 'fair treatment' to my family, my wife realized that my family does not rate higher than herself. Reciprocally, she too has no licence to abuse my relatives in any manner whatsoever. They are family, not beggars. Thank God, we detest abusive language in my immediate family because such practice offends God and all that I stand for. We know the lethal nature of the tongue which, according to the word of God, “is the smallest part of the body but it is the most powerful”. Instead of abusing somebody in anger, we rather say the opposite, and we have trained all our children and those around us to do this from early on.
When there is a serious family issue to resolve with any of my people, she understands that she has to leave such matters exclusively for me to handle. Any such issues should not be the basis for denying any member of the family the necessities of life or for her to develop negative attitude towards such a member or members of the family.
To us, the word “family” incorporates the nuclear and the extended. As far as I am concerned, everybody (father, mother, step-mothers, brothers, sisters, uncles, cousins, neighbors etcetera) contributed one thing or the other to my upbringing. Truly I cannot pay them all back for their goodness but I would appreciate them in whatever little way in my power. Therefore I have appealed to my wife that whenever they are around, she should make them as comfortable as possible, while it would be my duty to meet their specific needs. It is in the execution of such expectation that many self-centred women ruin their marriages through insensitivity. But my humble wife has succeeded through her acquiescent disposition, and today she is a model in the family! Another important issue in our relationship is the importance of identifying with my origin, my culture, etcetera. I have, for instance, stressed that no matter how rosy Lagos may be for us, Iyin-Ekiti remains my fountain, as it is for my descendants. Neither want nor favour will ever make my children to claim Lagos or anywhere for that matter, as their State of origin. Likewise, they can have dual citizenship of countries in addition to that of Nigeria, but Nigeria remains their natural origin. Whatever Ekitland is, is what I and my children are and will be. We are grateful to God that Lagos, for instance, remains a land of opportunities but Iyin is the nurturing environment that, historically, will not reject me and my generations, past and present. My family and I must form part of her development. God willing, we shall have a place there that will be our own home. We should frequent the place at will. Knowing the powers that women wield to formulate the perceptions of children, I have appealed to Mary to please ensure that she does not in any way discourage or divert my children from patronizing their origins. It is their land and by the special grace of God, nothing shall hurt them there. Rather, she should herself commendably identify with Iyin people and their culture for the children's emulation.
Today, Mary speaks Ekiti dialect better and much more fluently than I do! She understands the geography of my father's farm, perhaps more than I do and mixes so freely with my entire family that everybody thinks she was originally from Iyin. The relationship between her and my mother was as between mother and daughter. Indeed she has been my mother's last child!
Mary, My Mother and Step Mothers
My mother was fully entrenched in the (Pastor Owaseye a.k.a Jesuloba -led) CAC Church. Just as I rigidly insisted upon registering Mary in the public Hospital whenever she was pregnant, so my mother overtook my move first by registering her in the Church's Clinic. My mother represented her on every mid-week service organized for pregnant women in the Church and ensured that the 'annointed water' from there was not only brought home for her use but that she applied it properly as instructed.
And when our babies were delivered, it was practically into my mother's palms, for she undertook the rest of the responsibilities to nurture them. That's what she dutifully did for all the children we have had.
My mother prepared food for us and she maintained the home. She prayed for us as we went to and from our work places every day. No doubt we saw the hands of God in our lives through her prayers.
I would incur Mum's wrath if my voice was ever raised harshly against either Mary or the Children. In appreciation, Mary provided the best in terms of clothing, feeding, groceries etcetera with which she surprised Mum and me. Mary would sit at Mum's feet to listen to endless stories about her origin, her family, her town and all that she had. She did a lot of 'sing-along' with Mum, of Ekiti songs sung in undiluted Ekiti dialect and she acquired the intonation, the enunciation, so marvelously that you would think she was born and bred in Iyin. To further boost her mastery of Ekiti dialect I had plied Mary and Mum with King Femi Ariyo's and Chief Ogunyemi Elemure's beautiful Ekiti songs which are a bundle of gospel to everyone who understands Ekiti dialect. From time to time we danced to the melodiuous music of these great artists even in our sitting room! Mary still listens to the weekly Ekiti programme broadcast on Radio Lagos during week days! Such recourse and a thorough determination by my mother to hand over a legacy of our oral history, honed Mary's excellent spoken Ekiti dialect. This is what compatibility brings to marriage - total acceptance of one another by those involved!
My mother eventually departed to the great beyond but my two other mothers who raised me in the early years of my upbringing are alive and well. As with my mother, the relationship between Mary and both Hannah and Iyaniwura, my step-mothers, has been an excellent one. There is an air of freedom between them. The “iru” (locus beans) and dry pepper, vegetables and yams are regularly parceled and sent to Mary with introductory letters. The letters are always full of prayers and praises for her innumerable kindnesses to them.
Mary and My Father
Simply put, it is a replication of the relationship between Mary and her own father, Pa Ayinde. My father is deeply fond of her. He is an historian and Mary is a good listener. By his teaching and instruction, Mary will soon be able to write the history of the Omogboyegas and the Iyin Community accurately without further research! I will not be surprised when that happens!
Mary and My Siblings, Nephews, Cousins
Mary has practicalised what I meant by fairness in the family. Today, all those who lived with us accept her as the Mummy and matriarch. They appreciate and see her as God-sent. They reciprocate her good gestures through ceaseless gifts, phone calls, visits, etc., by which they maintain contact with her. From the comments I overhear and am told, Mary is a jewel of inestimable value to the entire family. They shower praises on her for the noble roles she's playing in the entire family. To many, she is “Iya jeje” - the quiet woman. Everybody in my family blesses Mary and her children!.
Mary in the Church of God
She is humble, easy-going, a lover of children and an active worker in the Church whose views are respected. Properly trained, Mary is a good material for Pastoral activities and with the full assistance of the Holy Spirit of God, I have the onerous task of growing her spiritually until she attains that level. It will be my joy to see Mary, drawing upon her life experiences, ministering to millions of souls (men, women, children, etc) on this planet. This may be a tall order but God is able to take us there.
Mary and Our Children
The children have individually and severally extolled their Mummy as loving, caring but rather strict, not given to explanations, in contrast to their father whom they see as patient and communicative, caring and listening. They consider themselves as lucky to have the mixture of 'hot' and 'warm' parents. They are unanimous in their verdict that Mary and I are truly loving.
Chapter 28
How We Manage
Our Finances
The issue of managing finances by a family is one of the most fundamental issues that have built or destroyed several homes. The lack of understanding of how to manage homes financially is an unending trouble to current day couples. It will continue to be so for the foreseeable future!
However, to alleviate this problem and enable couples to live happily together, there are three main theories of managing financial resources to avoid jeopardy to matrimonial homes. None of the three recommended approaches is superior,one to the other.
First what is important is the underlying mutual understanding that exists between a couple. They have the essential need to co-operate with one another to ensure the success of the method of financial management they adopt to work for them. A sensible couple should interchangeably try out periodically any of the three methods as and when the subsisting practice is failing to deliver on expectations maximally.
The switch or change-over must be mutually and maturely managed to eschew any acrimony whatsoever. In the end, they might be able to stick to the most enduring method that aggregates the smooth running of their home.
The first theory is about the husband and (especially the working) wife maintaining a joint account whereby they put all their incomes in the same purse. And then decide together how and when to disburse the common wealth.
This method requires total transparency as to the incomes earned by the couple. They plan together and do everything in common. Since the management of money is a major source of problems between people, the ability of any family to operate a joint account successfully leads to a closer rapport between them and invariably eliminates the scourge of suspicion totally.
However, its practice has remained very difficult. This is because of the unfathomable changeability of the human being, resulting from pre-marital agreements and expectations being broken by character changes after marriage. Add the fact of the strong natural tendency to be in control of one's personal affairs! Divorces, breakages and breakdowns do occur, and the threat of them disrupts even ideal arrangements. Wills get disputed or litigated after the death of couples, and settlement for myriad beneficiaries or interests can be messy. So along the way, reality intervenes to stump or put asunder a bond of good living! Particularly in Africa, by the peculiar nature of family configuration and relationship, joint accounting is the exception rather than the rule.
The second practice enables husband or wife to have total control of their separate earnings but they contribute pro rata to the upkeep of the house. The main feature here is that there is flexibility and freedom. It is not to say that the freedom is absolute or that each partner is not financially accountable to one another. It may work this way for instance: if the couple is pursuing a capital project, the wife might take over the responsibility of providing for the house such as feeding, clothing, etcetera, while the husband's income is expended upon such capital project. At the end of the specific project, the husband resumes his full responsibilities again and the wife reverts to her previous role, whatever it might have been.
Another benefit is that this practice establishes the man as the main provider for his home including his wife. Though the woman contributes but her income should not be a factor in running the home. But what happens in the situation where the woman earns more than the husband? This still does not change the principle per se. The man only needs to be transparent in his financial dealings with his wife. Once a woman is so convinced, she willingly takes on responsibilities that will benefit her family without complaint or immodesty. However, it is important therefore that the man seeks and strives continually to improve his financial status so he does not degenerate eventually to relinquishing his responsibility to and headship of the family!
The weakeness of this method of financial relationship and management is that the inherent freedom could result also in gross abuse and lack of transparency whereby married partners go their separate lifestyles which probably results in broken homes. Only a very compatible and transparently honest couple can practice this method successfully. (This is the method we adopt, for now, in our own marriage and it is working perfectly for us).
The third financial management style is one whereby there's an agreement between husband and wife to jointly manage a certain percentage of their incomes. For this, a joint account is opened. The husband contributes a certain per centage (say between 60-70%) of his income while the working wife contributes, say between 30-40% to the same account. This arrangement is particularly good when a couple decides to jointly finance capital projects such as building houses, establishing businesses, paying school fees of childen and so on. This ensures a common understanding between couples that are in well paid employment, and they are thereby left with freedom to expend the rest of their separate incomes any way they each like to do. .
It is also, perhaps, the most appropriate method for a couple to start their marital life in that it allows for them to truly understand one another after which if successfully practised, they can progress to the second method and from there to the first method, if need be.
This method is attractive as it provides appreciable but limited freedom for either party to enjoy part of his or her income while it enables the family to pursue a joint vision, or such-like. However, where a couple is not compatible, it may fuel or engender controversies as to what extent any estate so jointly financed belongs to the woman exclusively since, often, all relevant documents bear only the husband's name. Also, a partner may wish to withdraw midway through the project, with the attendant reluctance or bitterness of the other partner, thus creating an impasse or legal debacle.
Like the totality of marriage itself, which is humankind's greatest life's navigation, all three aspects of accounting have merits and demerits!
We Chose To Manage Our Finances Independently
In our financial understanding, while Mary might be accountable for her own income, mine is subject to family budgeting because it is my responsibility alone in the first place to provide for the home or family.
This means that she sees the slip of my take-home pay and the complete documentation of its expenditure. Though her voluntary contribution to family expenditure is enormous and highly appreciated, I have not made it part of family budgeting. Rather I consider it to be a cushioning income and record them as “Mary's contribution” to the house in my budgeting books. I don't even know precisely how much she earns, talk less of budgeting it!
What have we gained from this approach? Apart from defining the nature of our interrelationship and statehood, this method has fostered a better understanding between us and helped me clearly to appreciate and quantify the maginitude of Mary's voluntary contribution to our home. Whenever I seem to totter under a capital project or the strain of (paying) our children's school fees, she comes readily to manage the domestic front.
Women And Financial Independence
Another gender issue that is of importance to me concerns my wife (and women generally) being able to own properties and being generally encouraged to do so by their husbands. I do not see why my wife or any woman for that matter cannot be economically independent. I encourage this desire a lot in Mary and I know that such attainment would neither inflate her ego unduly nor make her materialistic in life.
So I advise her at every opportunity, because I cherish a fulfilled woman who would not suffer indignity even in widowhood or single parenthood. I appreciate the position of a woman in the family as envisaged or defined in Proverbs 31:11-31 and I try to encourage Mary towards it. I see her also as the co-pilot of an aircraft that achieves a safe-landing. Mary is aware of my rather grandiloquent vision of woman, which she happily shares. This picture of good living is a necessary by-product of sound financial management by any sensible married couple.
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