Some men are unlucky.
All their wives brought to the ‘table’ are banging bodies and colourful sex styles. Husbands who are treated like beasts of burden.
These are men who carry marriages on their heads like our grandmothers carried heavy pots of water from the village stream, one hand holding the load, the other hand swatting flies, necks bent, sweat pouring down their backs.
When you see these guys outside, they are smiling, wearing clean kaftans, spraying money at parties. They are suffering, smiling and muttering “God is in control.”
God may indeed be in control, but Uncle Bode is burdened, tired from picking all the bills.
Look around you, too many tired brothers who are actually not married to wives. They are married to dependents with permanent subscription to enjoyment.
Now before angry women gather firewood to roast me alive, let me quickly balance this matter. Yes, there are many hardworking, supportive wives holding families together like iron pillars. Some women are feeding homes, paying school fees, nursing sick husbands, running businesses and still doing family shopping and cooking by themselves. I salute them.
But today is not their day.
Today is for those women who think marriage means becoming Managing Directors of Sleeping and Stretching after the wedding ceremony.
Women whose only contribution to family development is changing hairstyles every other week, keeping spa appointments and providing great sex. All of that is cool and keeps the man interested but will kill the man in steady instalments.
There are wives who spend their days in pleasure, soft wives who can finish entire season of a television series in one sitting but cannot or will not do anything to support the home. Such wives exist and the men married to them are quietly dying.
The soft wife leaves her husband to pay the children’s school fees in full and still refuses to buy sports wear. In fact, something as little as End-of-the-year-party fee must still be paid by the man.
Babe, you know I need to make my hair and buy a new dress for Junior’s school party.
Babe, don’t forget to send me data and ‘buy light’.
Darling, the two cars are due for service.
Babe, I need to change the pots, their handles are falling off.
The children’s snacks have finished.
My mum is ill, I need to send money to her.
My skin care products are finished.
I need to pay for gym.
I need a new bone-straight wig. All the ones I have are too long and wavy.
The beast of burden has to pay for everything. His wife is a billing machine.
When Tunde married Amaka, his friends envied him. Fine girl. Light skin. Sweet voice. Tiny waist. Everywhere she entered, heads turned like standing fans.
Tunde was proud.
“God has blessed me,” he would say. For where?
The gods were laughing.
Three months after marriage, Tunde discovered that his wife and hard work were enemies from their grandfather’s village.
The first sign appeared one morning.
“Sweetheart, there’s no bread,” Tunde said while dressing for work.
Amaka yawned.
“So?”
“So maybe you can quickly get some downstairs.”
“My love, must I be the one doing everything?”
Tunde blinked.
Everything?
He looked around the house. The dirty plates were his. The electricity bill was his. Rent was his. Internet subscription was his. Even the rice they ate was bought by him.
What exactly was “everything”?
But love is blind and newly married men are often deaf too.He ignored the early warning signs.
Then came unemployment.
Tunde lost his banking job during downsizing. Suddenly life became harder than mathematics without calculator.
He sat with his wife one evening.
“Baby, things are rough. Maybe you can revive your catering skills for now.”
Amaka looked offended.
“You want me to stress myself because of temporary problems?”
Temporary?
The “temporary problems” lasted two years.
During that period, Tunde became driver, delivery man, tutor, POS operator and agent of one betting company. The man hustled like ten people combined.
Madam?
She became motivational speaker.
“God will do it.” “Men should provide.” “I can’t kill myself.”
But she could kill data bundles watching TikTok from morning till night or playing ludo with the neighbour’s wife, another soft life wife.
Amaka, a.k.a Mummy Blessing bought cooked rice and beans from the hawker on credit.
She made her hair on credit.
She bought biscuits for the kids on credit.
Tunde, a.k.a Daddy Blessing had to settle everything upon his return from multiple hussles. Poor ass.
One afternoon, Tunde returned home exhausted. Rain had beaten him like a wandering stubborn goat. He had made only N5,000 all day.
He entered the kitchen.
Nothing.
No food.
He checked the room.
Madam was snoring peacefully under AC.
“Tunde, welcome,” she said lazily after waking.
“Did you buy something on your way, like bread and ankara. If not, please bring money so I can go and buy small garri and make small okro soup. The children will also need noodles and spaghetti for tomorrow.”
The man sat down quietly as something broke inside him.
Not anger. Not love.
It was that dangerous moment when a man realises he is married to himself and hypertension at 41. When Tunde left home the following morning, he did not return. He started a new life, alone, unmarried, afraid of women. He sent money for the upkeep of his children every pay day. Don’t ask me about what happened to soft-life Mummy Blessing, not today. All I can volunteer is she stopped playing Ludo all day.
Many men are silently suffering.
Society does not like discussing struggling husbands. A man is expected to endure. To provide. To absorb pressure like a shock absorber.
Once he complains, people mock him.
“She has given you three beautiful children.”
“A real man should provide.”
“Are you competing with your wife?”
So many men keep quiet while drowning financially and emotionally.
A supportive wife does not necessarily have to earn millions. That is not the point. Support is not only money.
Support is effort.
Support is partnership.
Support is seeing your husband struggling and saying: “Let me reduce the pressure.
“Let me contribute ideas. Let me manage our resources wisely. Let me stand with him.”
A lazy wife is like a jailer. She turns marriage into punishment.
She waits for the man to provide everything while contributing nothing except appetite and complaints. She breaks her man. She pushes him to his limits and still keeps pushing. What if he dies? What if she meets a supportive woman? It happens, you know.
Otunba Laoye was a successful contractor in Lagos. Money flowed like bottled water at owambe parties. His wife, Bose, became famous among her friends for one thing: money-na-water enjoyment.
Dubai today. London tomorrow. Aso-ebi every weekend.
Madam changed cars more often than some people change curtains. She did not think of investing against rainy day. She was so sure the tap would never run dry, until it did.
People admired her life.
What they did not know was that Otunba’s kind of business sometimes experience long dry spells. Contracts became scarce. Debts piled up. Change of government led to payments delays.
One night he sat his wife down.
“Bose, we need to cut costs.”
She laughed.
“Cut what costs?”
“No more unnecessary travel for now.”
Her face changed immediately.
“Ah-ah! So because business is slow, I should suffer?”
Suffer?
The woman had three housemaids and two drivers. This is a woman whose busy schedule were mostly about spa, party or vacation.
Otunba tried to explain better.
“Maybe you can support with your boutique.”
Madam’s boutique was another comedy show. Opened by 10am, closed by 1pm because “I’m tired.”
Sometimes no sales for weeks because the owner was in Abuja attending birthday party of friend’s cousin’s ex-boyfriend’s sister.
She lived large on Instagram even as the tap dropped only trickles. Let it not be heard that that a whole Otunba’s wife was broke.
Then the final blow came.
EFCC froze one of Otunba’s accounts during investigation into contract payments. Overnight, cash disappeared. Many sleepless nights and anxious days later,
Otunba fainted in the sitting room.
Doctor diagnosed stress-induced raised blood pressure complications.
Did Bose change? No, she only cried loudly and called in prayer warriors. It was village people attack.
But practical support? Zero. Madam faded on social media. Her husband became a shadow of himself. A man married to a air-head who want to live in the lap of luxury is a man who may not live long.
Nothing finishes a man faster than hitting financial downtime without a supportive wife. What destroys many men is carrying poverty alone while their wives watch like spectators in football stadium.
Yes, women should be taken care of. Even I love spending money, especially someone else’s money. But there is a dangerous lie spreading around, about some women thinking being “soft” means refusing responsibility entirely, thinking cooking occasionally is oppression and that helping their men financially is slavery. Not true. A wise woman is the one who helps to keep the castle running. If your man is doing well, help him to do better.
Marriage is not a retirement package.
Our mothers understood partnership better. Even with their petty trade, they contributed immensely to their homes. They woke before dawn, traded under harsh sun and still raised children.
Today some wives cannot boil water without posting: “Self-care first.”
Self-care is good but family care matters too. A marriage where one person carries all burdens will eventually crack like an overloaded bridge.
Ayo was an honest secondary school teacher on a modest salary. Decent life.
His wife, Linda, however loved appearances.
Everything had to look expensive.
She pressured Ayo constantly.
“Your mates are buying houses.”
“Your mates are travelling abroad.”
“Look at what Sandra’s husband bought.”
The woman herself worked nowhere.
Every business idea failed because Madam lacked consistency.
She sold perfumes for two weeks. Started baking for nine days. Opened YouTube channel for four uploads.
She abandoned everything eventually.
But her demands never reduced.
One December, school salaries delayed for two months. Ayo became stranded.
He begged his wife: “Please let us reduce expenses till salary comes.”
Linda exploded.
“What kind of useless life is this?”
That sentence pierced him deeper than spear.
Useless life.
From the woman eating from his “useless life.”
That evening, Ayo parked beside a filling station and cried inside his car like child.
Not because he was poor.
Because he felt unappreciated.
Men need respect the way lungs need oxygen.
A supportive wife can make a struggling man feel like a king even in his financial valley but an ungrateful lazy wife will make a hardworking man feel like a failure.
Many men no longer rush home after work. Not because of side chicks but because their homes have become headquarters of pressure and criticism.
The hidden cost of having a lazy wife goes beyond money. There is the mental exhaustion that comes with endless bills; school fees, rent, family expectations and emotional loneliness simultaneously.
There is also the two-way loss of respect.
When a wife contributes nothing yet complains constantly, respect dies slowly from both wife and husband. The children learn wrong values like nagging and laziness. Children observe everything. The sons may grow resentful toward marriage. The daughters may grow entitled.
A lazy wife makes her husband vulnerable.
A man constantly starved of peace and appreciation becomes vulnerable to outside comfort. And there are a dozen women who want to comfort him.
Lazy unsupportive wives are likely to be found guilty of premeditated murder in my court, if their husbands die prematurely.
Stress kills men silently. Hypertension, depression, anxiety and then one day he slumps. Many men laughing loudly at parties are actually tired souls wearing expensive perfume. They may be walking corpses for all you know.
Marriage is not a football viewing centre where the viewers enjoy while the waitresses and waiters rush up and down with beer, nkwobi and isi-ewu.
A home should be built by two people, not one person sweating while another person supervises with crossed legs.
Supportive wives are treasures.
The woman who says: “My husband is struggling, let me help.” The woman who manages money wisely. The woman who encourages instead of hurling insults. The woman who stands beside her husband during storms. Those are real women, blessings to their husbands.
Such women build empires. Even when their husbands stray, they always return home, to their firm foundation, their soft reliable cushions. But lazy, entitled wives?
Those ones reduce the most energetic and resourceful men to shadows of themselves.
And sadly, many men cannot even speak out because society will mock them.
So they endure silently, smiling outside, bleeding inside.
Marriage should not feel like carrying cement bags uphill alone.
It should be partnership and friendship where couples make mutual sacrifice.
Because when one person keeps pouring while the other only keeps taking, one day the container will become empty.
And when a man finally breaks emotionally, the world often acts shocked. The truth is nobody breaks suddenly. Long before the collapse, a man would have been sending silent distress signals nobody noticed.
Or nobody cared to notice.
The views expressed by contributors are strictly personal and not of Law & Society Magazine.
