When Dami* got married, the last thing he expected to threaten his marriage was a crush on another woman. But it happened.
The 44-year-old shares how he almost lost his 10-year marriage and the steps he’s now taking to ensure he’s never in that situation again.
As told to Boluwatife
Image created by Canva AI
When my wife, Nike*, and I married in 2006, I thought I knew everything necessary for a long, healthy and loving marriage.
I don’t say that out of pride; I actually put in the work to ensure we lived happily ever after. Years before I met Nike in 2004, I’d started reading marriage books and praying for my lifetime partner. I attended seminars and relationship workshops and listened to sermons about marriage.
I did all that because I knew my marriage would be a big part of my life and ministry. Born to parents who are both pastors, I caught my ministerial calling early, and all my life, I’ve seen just how big a role spouses play in the ministry. I saw it with my mum, senior friends and the pastors I admired.
For the Christian in ministry, there’s a limit to how much you can do if you don’t have a happy home. You can’t be preaching everywhere if you’re keeping malice with your spouse or they aren’t happy with you. Or worse, getting married to someone who doesn’t understand why you have to be preaching up and down. So, it was important for me to get it right in marriage.
I met Nike in church. A mutual friend introduced us, and we hit it off. She was funny, beautiful, and loved God. We also had the same values. It took only two weeks of us talking consistently for me to know in my heart that she was the one for me. Of course, I still had to pray and wait for her to be convinced. But getting her answer didn’t take long, and our two-year courtship went smoothly.
It’s not like I thought we’d never have issues after marriage. I knew — and even expected minor disagreements about where to press the toothpaste from and forgetting to buy bread when returning home. But there was no room for things like infidelity, lies or anything that could betray trust. And most importantly, no divorce.
It worked out well in the beginning. However, I quickly realised that even minor disagreements could turn into huge fights. There was one argument about soup that turned into a two-day malice competition. See ehn, in marriage, your theoretical knowledge has to bow down for reality. But we still worked through the frictions and were mostly happy and healthy.
However, we hit a slump as we approached our tenth year of marriage. Nike resumed work after taking a five-year career break to have our children. I was hardly home because I’d been transferred to a different state to head a new church.
Nike couldn’t join me immediately because she just started work, and we thought she needed to get some work experience before entering the job market again. So, we only saw each other once or twice a month.
That’s where the problem started. I always considered myself immune to being interested in other women. Aside from the fact that I absolutely love my wife and don’t want anything to threaten my home, I also fear God and the institution of marriage.
Maybe it’d have been better if I’d admitted to myself that I wasn’t Superman. It might’ve saved all the wahala I brought on myself.
Soon after moving to the new state, I found myself keeping late hours more than I did back home. My work at the church was mainly during the day, and I had more free time at night. I’ve always been a night owl, so I passed the time by watching movies, listening to messages or chatting with my wife. The chatting part didn’t always work because my wife was usually exhausted from working and dealing with our kids all day.
That’s how my situation with Gloria* started. Gloria was a former secondary school classmate who found me on Facebook during this period, and we started talking regularly. At first, I was just excited to catch up with someone from secondary school. We swapped stories about our wicked teachers and what our other classmates were up to. It was harmless fun. I even told my wife about her.
I honestly don’t know how it changed from random catching up to daily conversations, but Gloria and I soon started chatting all night. We had a lot in common, and she was really funny. I began to look forward to talking to her.
We even moved to video calls. I liked having someone to share my day with and discuss different things. I realised it was developing into a crush when I no longer wanted to tell my wife when I talked to Gloria. I really, really liked talking to her. But I thought I could still handle it. After all, we weren’t seeing each other physically. Nothing would happen.
Things got a little heated three months into my crush/friendship with Gloria. She’d joked that night about the heat but being unable to dress lighter because she had a phobia of thieves breaking into her house while she was underdressed. I jokingly asked her to send a picture so I could advise her, and she sent a picture of herself wearing an almost transparent nightgown.
I stupidly responded, “Wow. You look amazing.” Alarms went off in my head, and I abruptly ended the conversation. But to be honest, I had illicit thoughts about Gloria that night.
I decided there and then to stop the constant chatting to avoid things going in the wrong direction. But unfortunately for me, my wife came to visit two days later. I planned to come clean and discuss my crush with her, but she found the chats on my phone before I mentioned anything. Gloria had sent another picture — fully clothed this time — and my wife saw the message come in. I’ve never had a password on my phone, so she also saw the nightgown picture and the multiple messages.
Of course, it turned into a big issue. Nike was convinced I’d probably deleted some messages and that I was cheating. She even threatened to leave. It took the intervention of my parents and some of our mentors in church before she could forgive me.
Even after that, we had to do two months of counselling before our relationship returned to fairly normal. It took even longer for me to build the trust again and assure her I’d be completely honest from the start if such ever happened again. I can’t believe I even let a stupid crush almost destroy everything I’d built with my wife.
That was almost 8 years ago. Since then, I’ve had no other crush, but I now understand the importance of talking about it and not even giving the crush a chance to grow in the first place.
Once I notice my communication with one lady is becoming too long or she keeps insisting she wants to meet me for “personal counselling,” I send her straight to my wife. If she can’t share her problem with my wife, I don’t want to hear it.
*Names have been changed for the sake of anonymity.
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