Shattered Vows

In 2009, a man died at the age of 50.

It was sudden and heartbreaking.

The family rallied around his wife and children.

Everybody dropped whatever they were doing and showed up for the funeral.

His first son was born in 1981

He came with his fiancée for the event.

His second son was already married with children.

I attended the event as a campus fellowship leader.

That night, I was seriously stirred to pray that God would restore this man to us from the dead.

Apart from his children, myself, and his son's fiancée

Other friends who were our age mates also attended the event.

We were all believers, and we prayed with all our hearts.

Eventually, the first son of the man told us to please let the dead man rest.

He said his father would prefer that his children live a good life that is befitting of Christ than for him to come back from the dead.

I said okay

I asked him how he intended to live that good life.

He said he desired to get married and raise godly children.

His fiancée smiled and said, "Marriage is for companionship and nothing else. Men shouldn't place a burden on their wives for children. What if God decides not to give the family children? Will the man and the woman not be happy together as intended by God?"

We all laughed and agreed that marriage is for companionship and nothing else.

I asked the young man how he met his fiancée.

He said it was actually the fiancée's roommate that he wanted to go out with

He had shared his intentions with the lady, and the lady had told him she needed some time to pray on his proposal.

Days turned into months.

He didn't want to move on to another lady without getting a reply from the sister, and the sister refused to give him a definite answer.

Eventually, he approached the sister's roommate and asked her to please talk to the sister on his behalf.

He said this was how he and the roommate began to meet every two to three days, so that he could get updates on the marriage proposal.

Before he knew it, he began to develop feelings for his roommate, but he kept them to himself.

He said the sister he asked out eventually turned him down.

He kept meeting with the roommate until he asked her out, and she readily agreed.

That was how they became engaged.

It was a fascinating story.

We had the funeral

A year later, the two of them got married.

I couldn't attend, but from every account, it was a glorious occasion.

They settled down in Port Harcourt.

He got a job as an offshore engineer with an oil company.

She opened a supermarket.

Five years flew by

She didn't get pregnant despite all their efforts.

The doctor's report stated that she was fine, but some antibiotics were recommended for her husband.

The doctors mentioned motility and morbidity issues related to the husband's semen.

A year later, they had their first child, a boy.

Two years after this, they had their second child, also a boy.

Her husband insisted they must have one more.

She said she was done with childbearing.

Her husband pleaded and even threw in a brand new Toyota RAV 4 as a gift for her 35th birthday to press home his plea.

She got pregnant again and delivered a baby girl in 2021

It was an ideal Christian home.

They have a family altar every morning and night.

Attend church on Tuesdays and Sundays.

Do a family vacation once a year.

Money was not an issue, and they were a very good pair.

In 2024, the wife began to talk to her husband about relocating with the children to Canada, the USA, or the UK.

She said she wanted to further her studies abroad, and she couldn't possibly leave her children in Nigeria.

The husband resisted the idea at first, but we all know that a happy wife is a happy life.

They moved to the United Kingdom with the children in August, 2025

The husband travelled with them so that he could help her supervise the children on the journey.

Once they settled down, the husband returned to Nigeria.

In November 2025, the husband got a message via DHL.

It was from the wife.

It was the DNA test of the children and the letter.

In the letter, she informed him that she had to do what she had to do as a woman because she realised he would have just wasted her life if he didn't wise up!

She said she stepped out of the marriage in order to become a mother.

The three children have the same father, and she could no longer, in good conscience, continue to raise them as his children.

She said that by leaving him when he was 44 years old, she believed he could still find someone else to get married to and raise his own children through IVF or any other means.

She said she was sorry, but it was the only way she could think of not to leave the marriage empty-handed.

She also informed him that she had left the UK with the children to be with the true father of the children at another location and would prefer that she be left in peace to raise her children.

She wished him good luck and said she was sorry again.

PS: He took it badly and was in the hospital for about a month.

She had virtually disappeared with the children.

Her father told the husband's family that nobody knows her whereabouts.

The husband reached out to me to inform me of the development.

It was a shocker!

There are too many questions and no answers whatsoever were forth coming.

Is marriage no longer meant for companionship and nothing else?

-GSW-