He Said:

She was a friend I met at the language school when I was learning how to speak German

She was also trying to pick up a second language in order to push her career in a multinational direction

We both started talking one afternoon while having lunch in the cafeteria, and from that day, we would hang out and chit-chat together once in a while

I had a girlfriend at the time

We were both deeply in love and planning to get married

I never told her or anybody in the language school about my relationship

It simply was not their business

My girlfriend, an air hostess, fell in love with an Egyptian pilot

They had been seeing each other for some time while I was preparing for our wedding

She broke up with me out of the blue

I was devastated.

I fell ill

I couldn’t even get out of bed on some days

Everything in my house reminded me of my girlfriend

Heartbreak is a thick fog that clouds the mind and troubles the soul

My classmates didn’t see me in school

One day, two of them came to check up on me in my apartment

They called ahead; I didn’t even remember when I picked and gave them my address

They saw that my house was a mess

They tried their best to console me and left later that same day

The next morning, she came by with breakfast

She opened the curtains, brought in the cleaning ladies, and flooded the apartment with light and love

By the evening of that same day, we had gone to the market to buy bedsheets, curtains, and duvets

She threw out everything my ex-girlfriend bought and took away her memories in one day

I got better

I started attending classes again

She told me about her boyfriend, or let me call it bedmate

She said she had accommodation issues, and a friend offered to accommodate her

The friend was a male, and she shared his one-bedroom apartment with him

She said she was not dating him; she just found herself in a situation from which she could not extricate herself at the moment

I asked her if she was sleeping with the guy in exchange for accommodation

She said she manages to resist the guy most of the time, but once in a while, she lets him have his way, especially when he threatens to evict her or whenever he meets a lady and starts telling her to find somewhere to sleep for a few days so that he can bring the lady to his apartment.

I felt sorry for her

I asked her how much it would take her to get her own apartment

She said 2.4 million Naira per annum (Of course, there are cheaper apartments for a spinster to live in, but she was insisting on a certain high-value area of Lagos)

I asked her how much she had saved

She said 4 million naira.

I got puzzled

You have more than you need to rent an apartment, so why are you still with this guy?

She began to make excuses like “If I paid 2.4 and agreement and damages fees, etc., I will barely have any savings left” and “I am trusting God to give me a husband whose house I will move to and not have to rent an apartment again.”

I asked her if she would get a fellow lady to rent the apartment with and split the bill

She said from her experience, it is better to share a flat with a man than with a fellow woman.

I left the matter be

At the end of that month, I gave her two million Naira

I encouraged her to get an apartment and move out of the situation she had put herself in

I believed that one good turn deserved another

I had wrapped up my studies with the school by then, and I travelled to Germany for a six-month course with the meteorological institute

The trip was sponsored by the federal government, and my language school studies were in preparation for it.

As far as I was concerned, my dealings with her had come to a close

We didn’t keep in touch.

I returned to Nigeria on a Saturday

The flight landed at about 1 AM

I had to lodge in a hotel close to the airport

When I got to the hotel, she gave me a call

She said she saw on my status that I was returning to Nigeria and would like to see me

She came around the next day

She said she needed a place to stay

I asked her why she had not rented an apartment even after I gave her the money for the rent

She said she had not seen a good apartment

She showed me the phone numbers of many agents and the videos of the kinds of apartments they had sent to her

I asked her about her bedmate

She said he had given her an ultimatum to move out that weekend

She asked if she could stay in the guest room in my apartment until she could sort out her accommodation problem

I knew it was a bad idea, and I told her so

She started crying

I told her I travel a lot, and the apartment is mostly unoccupied, but it is a bad idea to bring a woman into your house when you are not married to her

She said she would keep out of my way, and she would not stay in the house for more than a month

I was doubly sure it was a bad idea, but I told her it was okay.

She moved in that same day

She kept her promise to stay out of my way

I was barely home, and whenever I came home, I stayed in my room while she stayed in the guest room

A month later, I knocked on the guest room door early in the morning on my way to the office

I told her it’s been a month, and I would like her to move out

She said, “Okay”.

I came home later that evening, expecting to find the house locked and my keys in the pigeonhole by the gate

Instead, I saw light under the door of the guestroom

I went to my room

An hour later, she came to lie down on my bed beside me

I could see the pattern in my head

The same template she was using with that bedmate was about to be unleashed on me

I asked her what the issue was

She said she had borrowed four million naira from her older brother to support his relocation to Canada with his wife and three children

She said she needed more time to save up

She started crying again.

I reminded her that I had said bringing her under my roof was a bad idea

She was living off me while giving out her savings to her brother

Women do this a lot. I have seen it in various forms

They rob a man to support another man, their family members, or themselves

I told her she has to leave

She moved closer to me on the bed

I told her I don’t risk my life by sleeping with people carelessly

She said she had done a test, and she was clean

I realised she had planned the moment deliberately

She said she needed three months more

I said, ‘Okay.’

The following month, I was off to Saudi Arabia for a project on a deep well

I told her to make sure she left before I returned

She promised she would leave

A few weeks later, she sent me a message that she had moved to her parents’ house in another city

I said, ‘Okay.’

I spent six months in Saudi Arabia

She checked up on me a few days before I returned to Nigeria

She claimed she couldn’t drop my keys for security reasons and would prefer to come and drop it to me personally

I gave her my itinerary

When I landed in Nigeria, she was waiting for me at the hotel

We met and hugged

I asked her for my keys

She said she only went to spend a few days with her parents

She had not packed out because she had to spend too much on the visit to her parents, and her savings had depleted again.

I was 34 years old, I was single, and I was looking to get married

This woman was living in my house, and from every indication, she was not prepared to leave forever.

How would I meet my own wife and be taken seriously with another woman living in my house?

I do not want to be with this woman. I do not want her in my space anymore, and I have told her so

Yet, she stayed in my space and has become an irritation

I called my driver, gave him the key to my apartment, and told him to pick up two security guards at the gate of my estate and throw out everything belonging to her in the guest room.

She ran after the driver and jumped into the car

The driver took her home and supervised her as she removed everything from my house

He dropped her off at the nearest bus stop to my estate and brought the keys back to me

That was how a good friendship was ruined

She sent me a message later, accusing me of wickedness and heartlessness

She said an unbeliever accommodated her for about two years, and she was able to leave with dignity

A believer, a brother, a friend like me accommodated her for nine months only and threw her own mercilessly.

She said a lot and blocked me

I berated myself for compromising on what I knew was a very bad idea in the first place

I reminded myself to always stay true to my convictions and not compromise my stance for sentimental reasons

I remind you to do the same

If I had kept her on, she would probably be a big regret I would have now, as she wears a ring and addresses herself as my wife.

PS: A woman who moves into your house illegally would do everything to stay until she becomes the legal wife

It is always a case of finders keepers.

If you don’t want to be kept, don’t let her in

When you find a woman who truly is the one for you, make sure her space in your life has not been occupied illegally by a wanderer or a wayfarer.

Marry a woman you choose, not the one who sets an agenda for you and is determined to marry you even when you don’t have any feelings for her

-GSW-