If you haven’t read the first part of this story, here’s the link. Kindly read it before starting this one.

The day I posted my story, all my fears came through. Before posting it, I contemplated on it for so long before sharing. I didn’t want to create the impression that I didn’t love my wife, so I chose my words carefully. I didn’t want to create the impression that I was making excuses to leave my wife. If that was the case, I wouldn’t have shared the story in the first place. I also didn’t want people to believe that the love I had for my wife was conditional—I loved her when she was thinner and now that she was thicker, I was loving her less. I tried my best not to create those impressions but many readers still got those impressions.

Attraction is a funny thing. You don’t have control over it. You don’t wake up one day and say I’m attracted to this and that. Attraction is a result of character. I love slim women but I’m also not lost to the fact that a slim woman can grow thicker after birth. I knew it but the only thing I was asking from my wife was an effort. I wanted her to put in the effort to look good for herself and not for me. I talked about weight gain and I talked about health. What would make a woman not brush her teeth before sleeping? Something she used to do religiously. What would make a woman who believed beauty was in her blood all of a sudden forget about beauty?

Those were the answers I was looking for. Some of the comments were very insightful though hard to do but I decided to try it. I went to the gym every Saturday and Sunday. The gym was just a walking distance from our house. I tried all I could to coerce her to follow me but she said, “You know the gym is not for me.” I never stopped trying. I went to the gym on Saturday and went jogging on Sundays. I invited her to jog with me. She said, “The time you go jogging is too early. I can’t get up.” The jogging time was 5am. I changed it to 6am and she still didn’t go.

One day, I put all the photos we took while dating on a pen drive and put it into our tv and watched them with her. I never mentioned her size while watching with her. She looked at the photos and said, “I miss this size. I want it back.” I said, “You can get it back if only you will try. It’s easy. If you won’t go to the gym you can follow a diet routine.” She said, “The one I did the other time, nothing happened.” I said, “That’s because you didn’t follow the rules. Let’s do it again.”

The photos rekindled her spirit and she was motivated to do it. The motivation lasted for only a few weeks then she stopped talking about it. I started kissing her though she wouldn’t brush her teeth before sleeping. I started doing all the things we used to do while dating—we went out on weekends while the kids were with my parents. Everywhere I went, she was with me. My friends who haven’t seen her for so long saw her and said, “Eiii, you’ve grown big papa. W’ay3 Maame.” We’ll come home and she’ll ask me, “Is it too bad the way I’ve grown big?” I will say, “It’s not too bad, it’s because they haven’t seen you for so long.”

The last thing that broke the camel’s back for her was when a friend of mine asked me in her presence if she was my senior sister. I laughed and said, “Can she be my senior sister? I’m five years older than her.” My friend said, “As for women if you don’t know them, you’ll refer to them as a mom when you’re even way older than them.” 

Something about that interaction didn’t go well with her. She wasn’t happy all night. When we came home she was silent than usual. I asked what the issue was and she said, “Oh nothing I’m not feeling very fine.” It could be true that she wasn’t feeling fine but the time between her ‘not feeling fine’ and what the guy said couldn’t be interpreted as mere coincidence. One day, I had traveled when she sent me a video of herself skipping. She said, “Enemies go see me shy.” You can imagine my happiness. I gave her ‘fans.’ I told her how beautiful she looked in her training gears. When I was returning home, I bought her new sneakers and bought a skipping rope for myself. 

We were together in this, doing it every evening when we had the time and every Saturday and Sunday. Those times were the happy times for us. I didn’t want to push her beyond her limit so we always trained according to her limitations. God being so good, she found a friend in the neighborhood who was also on the same weight loss journey. She joined her and left me alone. They went out jogging every evening and on Sundays joined a keep fit. From March to May, she was very consistent. She herself talked about how she was felt fit and how she was felt lighter in her own skin. 

READ ALSO: No Woman Has Ever Said Yes To Me Because Of The Way I Look

I knew the results weren’t going to be immediate so all I could do was to urge her on. Then in April, I don’t know what happened, she started giving up again. She complained about body aches and joint aches. She complained about fatigue every day so I even suggested she should have a break. She went on a break in April and to date, she hasn’t returned. There’s always a reason not to train. A reason not to follow her own dieting routine. Her training buddy came over to call her on several occasions and she didn’t turn up.

A few days ago she told me, “Have you seen Sandra lately?” Sandra is the name of her training buddy. I said, ”Since you haven’t been training with her I don’t see her.” She said, “You should see her to believe the transformation she has gone through. I’m beginning to suspect she had done a body sculpture or something. Was it not some few days ago that both of us were struggling?” I said, “Ask her the one thing she did to gain that body shape. Maybe you’ll get some tip out of it. She said, “This is too good to believe. She has passed somewhere.”

That’s the story. She had given up because it’s too hard. I had also stopped trying. It looks like I have to live with her the way she is now because no amount of motivation and push can make her do what she won’t do for herself.

–Nii

Do you have any relationship experience to share? Email it to [email protected]

NOTE: NO PART OF THIS CONTENT CAN BE REPUBLISHED OR REPRODUCED IN ANY FORM WITHOUT THE EXPLICIT CONSENT OF THE EDITORS OF THIS BLOG