I am a furniture maker. I’ve been in the business for years, and I am doing well for myself in the industry. I have earned a good reputation among my clients. This makes them trust me with big projects. The kind I make good money from. It’s also the kind that would cost me lots of money if something goes wrong. Sometime last month, one of my projects went wrong. I spent almost everything I had trying to fix it. By the time I was done, I was empty—both financially and mentally.

That same month, my landlord refunded my remaining rent. He said he had sold the house so I should move out. Because I still had five months left on my tenancy, I wasn’t financially ready to rent a new place. I was now looking for money to top up what the landlord refunded.

In my moment of desperation, I went to the woman I was planning to marry. I asked her for ₦100,000 with the promise to repay her. I even offered her my generator and my HND certificate as collateral. She looked me in the face and said no. It isn’t that she didn’t have the money. She just didn’t want to give it to me. Not even ₦20,000.

It hurt that she turned me away in my moment of need. I know the extent I have gone through to spend money on her. I know if the tables were turned, I would help her out in a heartbeat.

She was supposed to move in with me next year after our introduction. We have a plan ee are following. How am I supposed to keep up with the plan after what I have seen?

It was my mother and my sister who came to my rescue. They didn’t think twice. They didn’t ask for collateral. They just helped me. Later, when my mother heard I had gone to my fiancée first, she was angry. She asked, “Why would you go and ask a woman you haven’t married for support when I’m still alive? When your sisters are here?”

Even though my mother didn’t like that I asked my fiancée for help, she was also not happy that my woman didn’t show up for me. She said even if I made a mistake, she could have covered me. Whatever she felt was exactly how I also felt about the situation.

I have managed to pay back what my mother and sister gave me. Nonetheless, my relationship with my fiancée has not been the same. She keeps calling and apologising for what she did. “I didn’t want to be one of those women who spend money on men but the men don’t marry them. I was scared you might not marry me,” she explains.

This is the same person who insists I should foot all her bills because she is practically my wife already. If I gave her reason to doubt my intentions, would she be feeling like my wife? I don’t pay all her bills, but I try my best for her.

When I do all those things, I don’t stop to ask, “What if she doesn’t marry me?” Yet when it came to me, she couldn’t risk even ₦20,000 because she was scared.

My brother says he won’t attend my wedding if I go ahead and marry her. I don’t know what to think anymore.

—Jeff

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