Dear Brother Gbenga, I had the opportunity to right my wrong with her, I had the opportunity to make right. What I knew I had done wrong I reached out to her and I told her my intention, I did everything out of both love and the desire to correct a wrong in which I was an active participant. I owned my mistakes, and I was willing to make amends. The first thing I noticed was that she had blocked me on every platform. I sent emails, I sent messages on iMessage, Snapchat, and even through her sister. I was engaged when we met, she was twenty-eight at the time, and she offered to help me proofread my MSc dissertation.

I was working at the time and also studying for my master’s degree. We met in that class at UNILAG I didn’t lie to her about my relationship she was not my kind of girl in looks, and I can say this forever. She was beautiful in her own way, and I saw that beauty too but I have never been comfortable around anyone whose primary language I do not speak or understand.

I have never been able to cope with being with someone and not knowing what the person and her family members are saying when you are among them. I once dated outside my tribe, and it was a big struggle when I went with that lady for a family function, I just tuned out and occupied my mind with other things. When she came to our own family function too, she felt ill at ease because she couldn’t flow with the conversations. The relationship didn’t last for more than six months I learned my lesson from that… Marry someone whose language you also speak I do not speak for everyone, but to myself, I try to always be true.

How we began to have sex was funny She sent me a message out of the blue that she would be coming to Abuja to visit her older sister, who just had a baby I was working in Abuja, even though I was based in Lagos during my M.Sc I told her to let me know when she got to town, she did and I went to pick her up for a drink. We went to the park, my intention was to have a friendly chat with her and bid her farewell. When we got to the park, she said, “This is not what I had in mind on my first visit to Abuja.” I said, What do you have in mind? She said, “Somewhere peaceful where I can steal a nap before going back to my sister’s chaotic house.” We got into my car, and she told me all about coping with her sister’s three toddlers and the new baby. We got to a hotel and I booked a room, she said I should come up and watch her sleep. We got into the room, within ten minutes, her period came, and she was not prepared for it I had to run here and there to get her what she needed to tidy up. The bedsheet of the hotel room was splattered with blood. We were afraid that if she left it, someone might use it for ritual purposes, she washed everything. All through it, she kept apologizing because I grew up as the only boy among six sisters, I was not embarrassed at all if anything, I was relieved because I didn’t know what would have happened in that room while we were there if not for the period I am not naive, I know all the talk about the chaos in her sister’s house and asking me to come up and watch her sleep were a gimmick, she wanted something. The issue was that I didn’t know if I wanted to give it to her or not.

My wedding was a few months away, even though my wife-to-be at the time was studying for her masters in the UK I have never been randy or unstable as a young man. When I dated, I did, but always with my eyes on the one. I have always seen hopping skirts as a weakness in people, and I was built for strength. I got her back home that day, and we didn’t have the chance to see again for three months. By the end of that third month, she was returning to Lagos to interview for a job offer. She called me and told me she would be travelling by night bus I told her I have an unused plane ticket that I could trade in for her so she could fly back to Lagos. We went to do the trade-in and she paid the difference. She got her ticket, but we ended up having a whole day in which she was away from her sister’s house and had nothing to do until the next morning when she would fly to Lagos on the first flight. We ended up in a hotel again, and this time we had sex I was not tricked into it, and neither was she I cannot say who brought up the conversation, but we both wanted to have sex without any form of entanglement, it was clearly spelled out, and she meant it as much as I did so the sex was good, so good that neither of us slept all night. The next morning, she got to the airport and flew I forgot about it and moved on.

The lady I was dating got pregnant for her Project supervisor in the UK. He was married, and she would sometimes visit him at home to make use of his architectural studio for her work. Somehow, she got pregnant, and her family got to know about it, that was the end of my knowledge on the matter because as soon as she got pregnant, I was just cut off No information from her or anyone I know in her family, No formal farewell or breakup I was just deleted. We both dodged a bullet in a way. She didn’t have to deal with me, the most dependable guy she knew, who had somehow slipped in her absence I also didn’t have to deal with her, the “ I will keep my virginity till I marry” babe who got pregnant for another woman’s husband. It was not a lie that she was a virgin; I was just not man enough to take it from her, and when she found the man who was man enough, she gave it to him. These were my thoughts those days. When I was posted to Lagos by my office to lead a team of engineers executing a contract with an aviation company. When I got to Lagos, I gave her a call she told me she was in a relationship with a guy from her tribe. Infact, she was with him when she picked up my call. Why did I call? Well, to say Hi and maybe sleep with her again I know I always go from known to the unknown when I am searching for a lady to have a relationship with. She was the unknown who has now become known. Eventually, I will meet an unknown through a known, or a known who is free and willingly I knew it was a matter of time, but it still didn’t make the wait any easier, then she reached out a month later, asking me if I was still in Lagos I said I was, and she asked me where I was I told her, and she came that evening with an overnight bag. We talked a bit, had sex, and I stopped halfway into the whatever I was not feeling her the way I did in Abuja, it felt too restrained, like a vengeance sex or a remorse sex I asked her what was wrong she said she had broken up and promised herself not to be with anybody casually again. I laughed and told her I am fine with not having it, but if I have it she must enjoy it I didn’t like that it was feeling forced or unwilling, or like taking advantage of someone I turned around to sleep, and she switched her mood and got to work, the tigress was back! Awwwwwwn!!! It was like that almost every weekend for the next two years I was not looking to marry anybody because I wanted someone from my tribe She was not willing to marry outside of her tribe, either She said, “How will I introduce you to my Father? Say I no see any Igbo man to marry, na Yoruba I come bring? My father would be disappointed in me.” Then I met a lady at work, an engineer from a good family who just returned to Nigeria from the USA after graduating from Maryland University and working for two years with Tesla by this time, the weekend arrangements had begun to peter out because she had found religion and had become born again. I think after she went to church over and over and started complaining about our being together as being a sin, and then joining another church where she met some sisters with whom she started fellowshipping, and so on, it stopped. The night it ended formally was when she came to see me at the hotel, and I had slept off in my room. I slept off while waiting for her. She called several times, got angry, and left. I called her while she was in the Uber, asked her to please turn the Uber around and come back but she said she was coming to break up with me, and now that I had slept off and embarrassed her by sleeping off instead of waiting for her, I should consider us broken up. I went to her office the next day to apologize, it was not my intention to disrespect her. She was resolute that it was a sign from God for her to stop sleeping with me I said okay.

The American returnee lady I met turned out to be a total waste of time, a wanderer at heart who does not stay in one place for a month before she starts feeling icky and uncomfortable. I tried to accommodate her excesses and keep up with her madness, but I had to tell myself after six months that I was chasing the wind. I realized I needed to take a break from relationships and do a proper audit of my life. I was thirty-six, single, gainfully employed, and all that then something happened which I did not plan or envisage. I met the Lord, and I got born again. It happened one evening while I was taking a walk in Akowonjo Area of Lagos I was lodged in a hotel for work, and I suddenly felt like taking a stroll after spending hours working on my laptop. As I walked down the street from my hotel, I met a group of Christians doing evangelism, one of them walked with me and spoke to me about the Lord Jesus it was not as if I had not had many approach me with the message of eternal life before. This day happened to be the greatest day of my life, which God had set aside as the day I would become a Son, I gave my life to Jesus that day, and my life became brand new. After I came to know the Lord, the desire to be single while hopping from bed to bed left me I knew I needed to get married and start a family.

I searched my heart, and all I saw was her this was why I resumed my pursuit of her this time with the intention of marrying her. I sent her a message that I was relocating from Nigeria to the USA, and I would like to say goodbye. She saw it and unblocked me after several tries. She asked how I was doing and why I was relocating I told her I just wanted her to unblock me so that we could talk. She got angry and started screaming at me on the phone. She said I was a user, I brainwashed her, I led her into perdition, the pastor and sisters in her fellowship had convinced her I was the devil with horns. It was pathetic. Religion ruins objectivity and sound reasoning I had always known that, and for that reason, I keep away from it. How can anyone tell you what is not true, and you believe it? They told you to cut me off, and you did because you now belong to Jesus, but they have offered you no alternative that makes your life any better. The Jesus they sold her had her resign her job and become a volunteer in church without pay. The Jesus they sold her had her calling her pastor Daddy and becoming the admin of the church’s fellowship activities for free. They pay her to organize programmes, she does this and does not get paid, and I am the devil! I listened to her accusations upon accusations, and I wondered if she was talking to me or about me. She cut the call at a point and told me never to call her again. I swallowed it and told myself I didn’t deserve the bile, but it is well. She then called me back to apologize for the way she spoke, saying she was raised better than that. We got talking and she mentioned that she dated someone after me for three months, the person was married, but it was my fault because I got her used to sleeping with me that when she began to feel like having sex, she slept with the man that was available It was not gaslighting, it was an afterburner effect, but I swallowed it. Then she told me how broke she was, and it was true, she had moved out of her apartment because she had resigned from her job. She had sold her car and sown the money in the fellowship as a token. I told her I wanted to marry her, she said I will have to come to her fellowship to see her pastor and tell him directly because she has covenant people over her destiny, and she can’t make a decision without them. She sent me the man’s number and name I said I would rather speak with her parents and family members. She said I was not ready, I let her be after that It was clear that she had been brainwashed by low-IQ thinkers, who she was much smarter than.

I travelled to the USA for a course. Two weeks later, two days after I arrived in the US, she called me she needed help with her rent I sent her all the required funds for the rent I sent it, not the fellowship, not her church papa, or the covenant sisters, she replied to me by saying she told her pastor about me, and he told her to ask me to pay her rent to test if I was serious. When I got back from the USA, she said she would like us to meet, but she would not come to my hotel I asked if I could come to her house, and she said no. We met at a restaurant she said she needed a new phone, some money to sort out some personal and family affairs, and some money for her ticket to fly to Kenya for a fellowship programme I gave her everything she wanted she sorted herself out, travelled to Kenya, and returned with pictures, etc Then she said she would like us to meet again, and I obliged her. This time, she said I must talk to her pastor and introduce her to the man of God who is a covering over me before we can talk about marriage I said no I will not meet your fellowship people, I will have nothing to do with them, and if you marry me, you will have nothing to do with them too She stood up and left. I didn’t bother following her or trying to reason with her. She was not the person I did M.Sc with, that girl was either dead or broken beyond repair, she was a zombie, programmed to think and talk in a certain way that would only end in tears for her and whoever she ends up with, unless the person is from that fellowship and they share that same mind-numbing belief system. I was still there, seated and lost in thought, when I heard my name I looked up and it was Kennedy, a lady I met briefly when I went on a sightseeing tour of MIT. It took me a minute to recognize her and then place her face at a restaurant in Nigeria “What are you doing in Nigeria? I asked her “Husband shopping,” she replied I laughed, and she did not. I said I was also doing “wife shopping” and told her what transpired just a few minutes before. We had lunch and just talked and laughed. She said she was considering relocating to Nigeria from the USA, but only if she finds her own husband in Nigeria. I have never felt like living anywhere outside Nigeria, and I don’t want to be with a woman who could manipulate me to live outside Nigeria anytime in the future so even though the energy was right, the thinking was right, and the conversation was superb, I didn’t take Kennedy seriously. We saw again the next day, and she asked me what I was looking for in a woman I told her, “You, but without the attachment to America.” She laughed and said What do I mean by that? I said, “You live in the USA, came to Nigeria to shop for a husband, and will then move back to the USA, that is not how I will live my life. I plan to build an engineering firm of global standing in Nigeria and travel abroad only for my vacations.” She smiled and said You have yourself a wife.” I got married to Kennedy six months later. She is a born-again Christian, but her brain is functioning well. We have stimulating conversations, and we laugh over everything as if we share a cloud of joy that is exclusive to us. She got pregnant in March, we are three months gone now Hippeeeeee! I got a message from the one who walked away yesterday, this was why I decided to write this story. Her rent, the one I paid last year is due and she does not have the money to pay, she took in a roommate from the fellowship hoping that one would pay half of the money while she paid the other but that one too works for the fellowship on a volunteer basis and has no income. She reached out to her covering, the pastor, and he told her to reach out to me again and see if God would use me for her again. “I told her God did not use me the first time, I wanted to make peace with my conscience, especially after her outburst, but now I owe her nothing. I wished her luck and encouraged her to please block me because I have found the wife I was looking for, and there is no point to our conversations anymore.” She replied to me, asking if I was indeed married or joking, but I didn’t bother to dignify her call with a response.

PS: A lot of church and fellowship leaders like dumbing down their members. By so doing, they make them pliable, malleable, and gullible this makes them easy to lead and constrain to the authority of individuals who claim they have a right from God to rule over their minds and intellect and make decisions for them regarding their lives and destinies. This is not biblical, and it is an affront to the person of the Holy Spirit Christians should be wary of such individuals who label themselves as covering for the members of their church and those who claim to be the only ones who can see visions and hear from God on their behalf.

Why did Jesus leave and give us the Holy Spirit? That we may have the Alos Parakletos, the One like him in Spirit, who will dwell in us and lead us into all truth. Spirituality is not the absence of intelligence or wisdom, it enhances our ability to make the right decisions. Believers must do better, and so must all the leaders of his church if they hope to leave a truly enduring legacy.