The Negotiation

It was his wife who reached out to me.
She sent me a WhatsApp message stating clearly her frustrations with her husband on many issues over the course of their fifteen years of marriage.
She said her husband was a cheat who slept with every available beautiful lady, which made her doubt herself and lose her self-confidence

She said in order to cope with her husband's cheating ways, she devised a means of compensating herself annually by travelling abroad and shopping with as much of his money as she could spend twice a year.
She said something significant happened that year, which was why she decided to reach out to me.
She said she travelled with all five of their children to the USA for the summer holidays while her husband remained in Nigeria.

They had become somewhat estranged, living in the same house but not engaging in any form of sexual activity or even communicating because he kept cheating and doing whatever he liked, and she had started living her life to please herself because she refused to die because of any man.

While she was in the USA with the children, she sent a message to her husband back in Nigeria that she wanted a divorce as soon as possible, and she would like it to be without any drama.
They were both practically living their separate lives, and she wouldn't contest the divorce as long as he was fair to her.

She said her husband arrived at their townhouse in New York a week later, barely acknowledged her, and two days later, he prepared the children himself in the morning and left New York with them back to Nigeria.
The puzzling thing was that out of their five children, her husband took only the first four children and left the last child with her.

As if that was not enough, barely two weeks after her husband and the four children had returned to Nigeria, she got a text message from him that she should please vacate the townhouse within a week because he had sold the house and the new occupants would be moving in

She said she realised he was systematically planning to render her homeless, and she would not stand for it.
She would have gone to the appropriate authorities to report, but she didn't want to ruin his life without giving him a chance to retrace his steps and do the right thing.

She sent me all his phone numbers and asked me to reach out to him and state her terms clearly for the sake of peace.

I did.
I sent him a message on WhatsApp, introducing myself, and I shared with him the purpose of reaching out to him.
He asked me where I was, and the next day, he came down to see me.
He said his wife had taken a lover in the USA, and she was sleeping with that lover in his townhouse in the USA.
He said he had evidence of this on CCTV, and he was aware that the relationship had been going on for several years.

He said he was sure the child he left with his wife in the USA was not his child but the child of his wife's lover. whom she brought home to him from the USA five years before, and since then, he has not asked her any questions about the pregnancy, and he has also stopped having any form of sexual relationship with her
He said he had settled it in his heart that they were in a joint parenting relationship

She had taken on a young lover in the USA whom she spent her summers with and he also took lovers in Nigeria at will, while their children remained under their care in Nigeria with the help of domestic staff
He said he had conducted DNA tests on his children and confirmed that the first four were his children, and therefore, he decided to get them from her when she asked for a divorce, and he left her the child that was not his.

He said I should advise her to move on with her lover and child as soon as possible because he had sold his house in the USA, where she usually meets with her lover, and she would be evicted if she does not leave honourably.

I asked him how they allowed issues to degenerate to that level since they were both Christians.
He said she was a very jealous and stubborn woman who would go violent at any slight provocation because he married her.
He said he didn't think she was the marrying kind because she lacked the temperament to be a good wife.
She was always monitoring him and getting into his business from day one of the marriage.
(I understood this to mean he was always cheating, and she refused to settle for this as a wife. This led to constant bickering and fighting and, ultimately, their irreconcilable differences.)

I reached out to her and explained everything the husband had said.
She laughed and said, "Tell him I know all his secrets, I know all his properties, and it will be unwise of him to play with fire. She sent a list of all the properties. They were located in Abuja, Lagos, Port Harcourt, London, New York, Dubai, and held shares in some major international companies.

She said she wanted the townhouse in New York, five shops in Abuja, another house in Dubai, the inheritance of his son that he left with her and some cash in local and foreign currency as settlement, or he would be forced to turn into a whistleblower and reach out to the appropriate authorities with evidence of his unclean source of wealth which was from government coffers.
She said most of the properties were held under aliases, and some were even in her name, but she noticed he had sold most of those in her name off in the last two weeks after she asked for a divorce

She said she wanted properties for the child with her because her husband, being mean and inconsiderate, had separated the child from the other children, and she still hadn't been able to come up with a proper explanation that she could give to the child that would not traumatize him.
This also means her husband would most likely not make provisions for that child in his will, and she wouldn't stand for that
She raised all the children together, and she wouldn't even imagine that any right-thinking parent would treat a child the way he has treated their last child

I reached out to him and relayed the message.

He said nobody can instruct him to give out inheritances to his children while he yet lives, so she should forget about properties for the child.
The child was not his, and she could give the child an inheritance from her own properties.

He said he had bought a modest apartment for her in her name in New Jersey, where she and her child could move to, and he would credit her account with some money once she agreed to his terms and signed the divorce settlement.
He said he would have given her more, but he got his notice of retirement that very morning and had nothing to lose if the issue became public, as she had been threatening.

He also said everything he had bought for her while they were married, including houses, cars, shops, jewellery, shares, investments, and other personal effects, was hers to keep

She checked out the terms and signed the divorce settlement.

She got married to her lover and the father of her last child in the USA a few months later.

He never remarried.
He said he would raise his children by himself and live out the rest of his life without the encumbrances of marriage and its attending drama.

PS: Marriage is simple when the love between a couple waxes hot, and the individuals in it find satisfaction in each other
When the fires of love begin to burn wildly to the point where either or both parties decide to seek solace or comfort outside the union, it becomes very easy for love to turn to contempt and mistrust to become the order of the day.
We must strive to love each other wholly and healthily as unto the Lord, as believers in a union.
We also should not forget that ill-gotten wealth comes with its own peculiar sorrows and griefs.
There is nothing as sweet as enjoying the fruits of one's labour

-GSW-