Sir, I saw a discussion on your timeline yesterday in which some ladies were arguing that if a man is not a good husband, he cannot be an excellent father.
I bet you those ladies are either terrible wives or products of single parents whose mothers have fed them a lot of lies.
Badly behaved women would insist that their man must overlook their flaws and take them as they are if he would like to have access to his child/children.
They could see that the man loved the child and would do anything for the child, and they could also see that they had fallen out of favour with the same man due to their bad behaviour or untenable conduct in the course of the relationship or marriage.
You then begin to hear them say, “You cannot love my children and not love their mother”
Manipulative behaviour 101.
Buy good, get evil free!
The man knows that having such a woman in his life would ruin his destiny, so he dodges it.
In a countermove, the woman then deprives him of access to his child out of spite.
“What good are you to the child without his mother? You will just be confusing the poor child, and I will be the one who has to explain to the child why his daddy can only come to visit instead of us living together as a family.
Manipulative Behaviour 102.
If you cannot have me for me, you must have me in order to have your child/children in your life.
“No woman can care for my children like me. No other woman can love my children the way I love them. (What if she is dead? Would the child/children not be loved and raised by another woman?)
My fifteen-year-old son started calling my wife “Mom” all by himself. I had encouraged the children to call their mother, who happened to be my ex-wife, “Mother and Mom” and to address my wife as “Aunty so and so”.
Whenever they are with me, they never feel like returning to their mother’s house. I would have to beg and plead and make promises and buy gifts and hug them and tell them their step mom, and I would be coming to their school frequently to check up on them.
When they are with their biological mother and they need anything, they call my wife (their stepmom) for things that they should tell their mother.
“My uniform got torn”, “I need school supplies”, “I am not feeling too good”, “The teacher wants my parents to come for open day and I don’t want my mummy to come. It is you guys that must come”. “We love you Mum and Dad” (addressed to me and my wife).
Somebody here may say, “Maybe you are poisoning the heart of their mother against them”; well, it is the other way round.
The more their mother tells them lies about me, the more they record whatever their mother says and send it to me.
“Daddy, Mummy has started again. She said you wanted to kill her and used to beat her. She lies so much, and we just watch her because we remember that you always tell us to be kind and loving to her, and you never say the kind of things she says about you to us.
We know, Daddy; we know the truth.
Their mother was a terrible wife and a terrible mother. One of the reasons I ran away from being her husband was the fact that despite her flaws being so obvious that she couldn’t deny it, she insisted she must be accepted the way she was and wouldn’t entertain the idea of changing or doing better.
She wanted to be the breadwinner and the leader while I followed her lead in the family. I did so, picking up after her, covering her flaws, surrendering my dreams and aspirations in life to support her career and ambition
Most women give up their dreams to follow their man, which we all agree is not fair.
When a man does it, he is seen as a lady and without drive.
I endured for the sake of the children. I saw that she knew how to open her legs to have sex and how to pop babies after nine months, but anything after that was not her business.
She wouldn’t even breastfeed her babies.
It was always work.
Her career.
The next international trip.
You would also think she was making so much money so that the family was never in lack. The answer is no.
We were living from loan to loan, from hand to mouth.
Her family ridiculed me for living off their daughter. The daughter ridiculed me daily for not being a provider.
So I decided one day to start providing after eight years of marriage, and she threw a fit. “So who will care for the children? Who will pick them up from school? Who will make their meals? I will not become a slave to any man; I will not sit at home while you make money and then carry women like other men do. Do you think I am foolish? I will be the breadwinner; I don’t mind because if I am winning the bread, I can predict where you are at all times.”
I dusted my CV and got a job with a multinational.
She left the house for a whole year after that, hoping the pressure of raising the children alone would force me to resign.
I didn’t resign. I got a governess, a lesson teacher and a nanny for the children. Because of Covid, i worked from home, but when needed, I travelled for a few days every other week.
She left home on October 2nd and returned in December of the following year, claiming she wanted us to start co-parenting. All the while, the children were told she travelled for work, and she would call them on the phone once or twice a week.
We started co-parenting and agreed that for the sake of the children, we would keep our issues far away from the home.
I didn’t want the children traumatised by our drama.
Three months after we agreed to co-parent, she came home one day and jumped on the bed demanding sex.
I asked why; she said she did not want to co-parent anymore. She had reconsidered and now wants to be my wife again.
She was the first wife I know who goes on an annual vacation from her husband’s house to her parents’ house without fail for eight years. On every occasion, she leaves the children with me.
No maternal instinct. No wifely instinct. Just her career and her insecurities. I thought long and hard about the children when it was obvious we would be getting a divorce.
She insisted she and the children are one package, indissoluble, unbreakable, enmeshed and abridged.
I knew it was all grandstanding. She does not know how to love or care for children.
When we were together, she would lock herself in her room to make calls and press her phone while the children played in the sitting room unsupervised unless I was at home or a maid was available to help out.
The children never loved her.
What was there to love?
But of course they were her weapon during the divorce. They meant nothing to her emotionally, so she could abuse them and leverage them as much as she wanted.
They meant a lot to me, and being that they were my weak point, she took a knife to it and stabbed at will.
Every opportunity to escape from her was exploited by the children. Sometimes the children would get to school and tell their teachers to call their daddy to come and pick them up.
Not all breasts can nurture. Some mothers are no better than ostriches. They lay eggs and wander away.
Some fathers are carriers of the mammary gland and possessors of the famous mother’s love.
We are checking out prospective Universities for my son as I write this. His mother was not even aware he would be writing those exams soon. His step mum and I have been working with him on his choices while also working on the others on their career choice, school bags for next term, Uniform, school fees, friendships and relationships, etc.
They spend the school term with their mother, but throughout that school term, i see them every other week in their schools, take them shopping, work with them on their academics and play the role of both the father and mother with all joy.
I am an excellent father!
My children attest to this every day.
They are on holiday now, and they have refused to share anything of note with their mother about their location and whatever they are doing.
Even the twelve-year-old girl, who one would think would be closer to the mother, does not tell her anything. Instead, she sleeps on her stepmother’s bed and shares all her intimate discussions with her or with me.
I just thought to share a bit of my life with you, sir, so that that erroneous belief can be buried once and for all.
Any woman saying, “If you don’t love me, you can’t love my children,” is a witch.
A man can hate you and love the children you have for him more than anything in this world.
– Arapaja Lanre