Changing Lane

Part I
Letter Dated August 8, 2024.
Written by Sister Q, who was on holiday in London and decided to reach out to me
Sister Q:
I became a side chick by mistake.
The guy who pursued me throughout my final year in the university was married but he did not disclose that fact until I was six months gone in the relationship with him, I cannot explain how he did it till today, his phone never rang at odd times, he spent most of his free time with me and he never hid or behaved in any way to indicate that he was married with children.
After I graduated, we moved in together and I began to talk about settling down and having children
He matched my enthusiasm and even insisted that he wanted two girls and a boy out of our union, When I decided to take him home to meet my parents, he didn’t hesitate.
The only time I could say I met his wife and three children was one day when he told me that his father asked him to come to the village to settle a family dispute between his late older brother’s widow and a neighbor
His father was in his nineties then and for this reason, he travels to the village almost every weekend
He went to settle the issue, drove down to Ibadan with the woman and her three children
I was waiting for him in our flat when he called me to ask that I meet him at Iwo Road as he had to run an urgent errand to Lagos, I met him at an eatery in Iwo Road, he explained to me that his father had given his older brother’s widow and her children an apartment in one of his houses in Lagos and he had been asked to take her there. I saw the women and the children from afar, I hugged him and told him I would be expecting to see him the following day as he said he would have to stay the night in Lagos with them to help them settle into their new apartment.

He said his father had two sons, the first had died just two years before then and he was the only son remaining on the land of the living. He was an engineer, just like his father and he was the one managing his father’s business outfit in Lagos. At the time they were manufacturing electrical appliances like cables, sockets, switches, junction boxes, clips and so on, It was later I realized he was the only child of his father
Immediately after he graduated from secondary school, his father placed him as an apprentice under a draughtsman to learn the rudiments of architectural drawings, It was while he was there that he impregnated a lady who was an apprentice of a hairdresser, his father married the lady for him in Oyo town.

He wrote JAMB every year for five years before gaining admission to the University, by the time he left to study at the University of Ibadan, he already had three children. He was twenty-four years old and he was happy to leave that wife in the care of his father while he pursued a brand new life as an undergraduate
I was not the first lady he dated on campus, I was the third. The first two didn’t work out for one reason or the other. I clicked with him right from the get-go, I can say with all my heart that he loved me
It was the very day his father died that he told me the truth, even then he didn’t tell me the truth directly
He only said he has a responsibility to marry his deceased brother’s wife and adopt all her children according to their custom in the family and also according to his father’s will.

He said if I would like to marry him, I would be his true love and in all things be treated as the first wife but I must accept that he has a second wife which he inherited and he must treat her fairly.
I couldn’t believe it, why can’t the woman find another husband or be provided for by the vast estate of his father? What sort of custom turns a man into a polygamist against his desire?
I went to see one of his aunties in Ago Iwoye and i told her everything he told me,the aunty laughed and told me he was afraid of me and didn’t know how to tell me the truth.
She said he was an only child and his father wanted him to have children early so that the children could know him before he died, So he got married early and had children. His father practically raised his children like his own which gave him the freedom to live like a bachelor on campus. His aunt told me there was no doubt that he loved me but his father made sure the first wife and her children were protected by the will and therefore he couldn’t divorce the woman or walk away from the marriage
The only way he could be with me was to marry me as a second wife, I cried, all the way to Ibadan that day.

When I got home, I met him reading a newspaper with his food untouched,I could see that he was very worried, He had been caught in a lie and he knew I would have to issue a verdict on the matter
I chose not to marry him but I didn’t love myself enough to leave him. This was how I translated from main chick to side chick in the blink of an eye, Yes I have always been the side chick but I only got to know and willingly began to play that role from that day. My plan, was to be with him for a while longer until I met someone else, I changed my wardrobe, moved out of our shared apartment into my own apartment, and began husband-hunting. He respected my space and my meeting with him became very discreet, I told my family we had broken up without giving any details. I got a job and my career took off
However, I couldn’t find a man who was interested in me in an “I want to marry you” kind of way
The guys I met were mostly hit-and-run guys or those who wanted to be friends for a while before moving on to other ladies.
I met him when I was twenty-six, I found out he was married when I was twenty-nine and we did the side chick thing till I was thirty-two, I eventually called it off because I felt it was his aura around me or all over me that was chasing men away, I relocated from Ibadan to Abuja due to a transfer from my place of work
I was hopeful that a change of environment would bring me into the marital settlement my heart desired
All the offers I got from almost all the men I met were to either be a side chick or a second wife.

My mother said it must be because of how I look or how I dress, Certain kinds of dressings attract certain kinds of offers, I changed my wardrobe over and over again. I also hit the gym and trimmed down, believing that plump ladies often attract second wives or side chick offers, I changed churches several times,the offers I got both from churches and social spaces were all the same.
Out of frustration, I got into an enticing relationship as a side chick three times with three different men
This was after waiting for months without any marital prospect, Trips abroad, luxurious experiences, gifts, and jewelry swayed me. Each of the relationships lasted a year respectively before I walked away on my terms, I never had one serious marital prospect all my life, I would have taken anybody regardless of his age, religion, class, level of education, height, nationality, and whatever buts such a person might come with,I rededicated my life to God, I got filled with the Holy Spirit, I went through several deliverance sessions, I sowed “giant catching seeds”, i went to mountains, grooves, and valleys, As I was praying and fasting, my mother was doing the same. She, above all, desired that I should not live my life alone
It was her prayer that God would give me my own companion, my life partner, someone to do the journey of life with.

At one point, I received a word of prophecy that I should stay on the lane the Lord gave me and not try to cross into the lane of wives or marriage, the prophet later indicated an interest in keeping me as his mistress; this made me doubt the veracity of that prophecy. However, It seems to me as i get closer to the age of forty that maybe the prophecy was not so wrong, Was it my destiny to be the outside woman to one man? Was marriage not meant for me? If I know the answer, it would really help me to stop chasing an elusive dream, I think it would be unfair in a way because I would have stayed with my first love and happily been his other woman if indeed I was not destined to be anybody’s one and only wife
He would have loved me and his wife was quite accommodating while I dated him.
After I eventually left him, he married a second wife, and he has since settled down to taking care of his family and building his business empire, He was as dedicated to his two wives as he would have been dedicated to me and the other wife if I had married him.

As things stand, I am not happy with my love life or the account of the type of relationships I have found myself in, If there was something I did or that my ancestors did, I believe the power it has over me should have disappeared by now. My mother was told by one of those who prayed with her that I would never get married, she said they told her I could be a single mother or a second wife but marriage was not in my destiny, It is a bitter pill to swallow but I will swallow it if it turns out to be true. I will adjust my expectations and make better decisions so that the rest of the time I have left will not be wasted chasing pipe dreams
Please help me, sir.

Part II

Letter received March 30, 2025
Written by Sister Q from her location in Abuja

Sister Q:
Brother Gbenga, the Lord has done it
He is a Pastor with a very popular Pentecostal church
A youth Pastor in his early forties
After you called to pray with me, you told me that my partner is in Christ
I remember that you said I have crossed the first hurdle by accepting to love anyone God chooses for me
You said the second hurdle is to invest more in assets than fashion and jewelry
You said if I do this, I will be married within a year, It was an unusual instruction but I decided to follow your instructions. I began to invest
I used to make myself happy by going shopping and buying a lot of things as often as possible
I looked forward to wearing them and taking myself out looking good and delectable
After your counsel, I trimmed down my wardrobe and started a saving culture like never before
I even got rid of my second and third cars and saved the money
This pastor was an old friend of my boss at the office and he just floated a fintech company with some friends and they were looking for investors
My boss in the office told him about me and my quest to drive up my investment to a certain amount by the end of last year
This was how we got talking and somehow we became close to the point that we couldn’t stop talking to each other all day and all night sometimes, He eventually asked me out and I told him right from the outset to tell me the truth about himself. He is single and has never been married
He had lived in Australia, the USA, England and Canada since he was twenty years old
He said he was too unstable to start a family due to the nature of his job
He retired from his job in Canada at the beginning of 2024, returned to Nigeria to start a fintech company with a friend
I met him while walking in obedience to your instructions, We will be getting married in June and I am asking that you do us the honour of joining us in Holy Matrimony.
God bless you, sir.

PS: In Christ, It is all a choice, not a predestination
If you choose to be married, it is your choice
Once this is taken away from anyone, the person has become a robot and no longer a human being with free will
Even believers, full of the Holy Spirit and walking by divine leading make the choice to obey the leading of the Spirit consciously
You don’t need any deliverance to get married as a believer
Choose to be married, identify the excesses in your life and reduce them to the barest minimum, be of good cheer, and conduct yourself with dignity
Be true to yourself, and be of pure heart and goodwill towards all everyone, in a matter of days, husbands or wives will be lining up at your doorstep
If you have been having any abnormal experiences, reach out so we can pray and take such away
Your fulfillment as a believer is Yes and Amen in Christ.

-GSW-