My Advice To Spinsters And Bachelors: It Is Very Dangerous To Have “Plan B” When Going Into Marriage.
What do you understand by ‘Plan B’ in this context?
‘Plan B’, as used in this story, means “the act of going into marriage with the plan and hope of marrying another person in the event of that marriage failing or hitting the rock.”
It is one of the reasons many marriages fail, especially these days.
Beware of it!
Avoid It!
Don’t ever go near it, even with a long stick!
‘Plan B’ is good in business, but not when a person is going into marriage with the plan and hope of marrying another person if the marriage fails.
I’m here to show you how dangerous ‘Plan B’ can be to marriage. I’ll do so by sharing, with you, the story of one of my former childhood and intimate friends called Rosemary.
Rosemary, whose last name I will not disclose anywhere in this story, for obvious reasons, was my childhood and intimate friend.
I first knew her in Ajegunle, one of the most popular ghettos in Lagos and in Nigeria, where we grew up together.
Both of us attended the same primary and the same secondary school in Ajegunle, from Olayinka Street, near the popular Boundary, where we lived with our different parents.
While we were still in secondary school, Rosemary relocated out of Ajegunle with her parents to a place called Lawanson. Lawanson is the largest commercial part of Surulere in Lagos, where used household property imported from overseas are sold.
Not too long after Rosemary and her parents left Ajegunle for a better life in Lawanson, my own eldest banker-brother rented a bigger and cozier apartment also for a better life for our family at a place called Onike, in the Yaba area of Lagos.
Because of the fairly long distance between Lawanson and Onike, it was n longer possible for Rosemary and I to see each other as frequently as we used to meet and discuss when we were together at Ajegunle.
The only opportunity we had to communicate with each other, as a result of that, was with the help of our GSM phones.
A year after that physical separation between Rosemary and I, we met again at Yaba College of Technology, Yabatech, one of the foremost polytechnics in Nigeria, where we secured admissions to study the same course; accountancy.
It was a very happy re-union for both of us. We were excited to come together again after a long time, and on a good note.
The reason both of us coincidentally decided to study accountancy was because we had a very good book-keeping and accounting teacher while in secondary school and also because both of us loved book-keeping and accounting.
Like most teenagers, Rosemary and I had boyfriends in the school. She knew mine and I knew hers, too, and because of the intimacy between the two of us, our boyfriends later became friends, too, causing the four of us to do most things in common.
While we were in the last year of our higher national diploma, HND, course at Yabatech, Rosemary visited my room one early morning, looking troubled.
As I was about to ask her if anything was wrong with her, she sensed my plan and said: “A toad does not run in the day time without some trouble. I’ve come to seek your advice over a challenge that has been tormenting me for some time now.
“I’m planning and hoping to get married as soon as we’re through with our studies here, even before we go for our compulsory one-year National Youth Service progamme, but I have a challenge.
“I have another boyfriend in addition to Dyke. I’m sorry I never mentioned him to you. He hails from my village, but works and lives in Port-Harcourt.
“I don’t know, between Dyke and the guy, who to choose as my marriage-partner, because I love both of them almost equally.
“What do I do? I need your advice.”
I didn’t know what advice to offer her at the end of her story, for two reason. One, I wasn’t married as at that time; and two, I hadn’t got had enough experience on marriage matters.
But just as I was thinking about the best advice that would calm her frayed nerves, as well as solve her problem, an advice, which later proved to be the best advice for her challenge emerged in my head.
The idea emboldened me and gave me the courage to speak to her as it is. With that boldness and courage, I looked into her eyeballs and told her my mind.
“The best option for you over this matter,” I said, as I opened my offer package to her, “is for you to ask God to take control and to decide, who among them, is better for you.
“Don’t make the mistake of making a choice before inviting God into your predicament, otherwise it would amount to you trying to twist His hand over the matter.
“Rather than relying on your head-knowledge and making a choice that might ruin you, it is advisable for you to allow God take the burden of making the choice for you, especially for the fact that He’s a burden-bearer.
“Any choice made by God for you will be in your own best interest, even if God’s choice does not tally with your own choice.
“The reason I’m saying all this is because God does not mistakes. We human beings see and assess other people from their outward looks, without the power of seeing their inside, while God does the opposite.
“It is only God who sees our outside and our inside. So, give Him the opportunity to look at the outside and the inside of your two lovers and make a better choice for you.”
After that advice of that day, Rosemary returned to her room in her hostel, looking satisfied, at least from her countenance.
Coincidentally, I had a similar problem as Rosemary, but I never discussed it with her, even on the day she came to me for an advice.
I had another boyfriend who had just graduated from the University of Lagos, Unilag, one of Nigeria’s most popular universities, but she didn’t know about it. I never mentioned him to her because I knew she had another boyfriend whom she never mentioned to me.
Like Rosemary, I had always been thinking who, between the two of them, should I pick as my final choice for marriage.
The only difference between my case and that of Rosemary was that I had been praying over my own predicament, while she was relying on her head-knowledge to overcome her challenge
Rosemary had planned to marry before me, but as life would have it, I married a year before her. The lucky man that got my hands in marriage was my ex-Unilag guy whom God had recommended to me.
Though my marriage to him has not been a ‘bed of roses,’ yet God has been faithful to us concerning it, because it was He who thought us fit for a marriage relationship.
Some months before Rosemary got married, she called me on phone one late evening to complain that she was still going through the challenge of who to choose between her two boyfriends.
“Why should you be having that challenge up till now?” I asked with a little bit of anger. “Does it mean you didn’t pray to God about it, as I advised you?
“If you didn’t pray, please, do so now, God is is there waiting to hear your prayer, with a view to helping you.
“It’s not too late for you to ask Him for help. Go on your knees now and seek His face and He’ll definitely grant you your request.”
The response I expected from Rosemary was either: “No, I didn’t pray, but I’ll do so now” or “Yes, I prayed and I’ll still pray until he answers me,” but that wasn’t the case. Instead, she said something that showed she was neither serious nor had faith in God.
Can you guess what she said?
She said: “Don’t worry, Linda, I know what to do. I’ll marry Dyke first and watch to see if he’s different from other men that most women can never trust. Any day he misbehaves and falls out with me, I’ll drop him instantly, without bathing and eyelid, and go for the other guy from my village.”
I warned her sternly against having Plan B, but she would not listen to me. All my entreaties to her on that issue fell on deaf ears.
Barely three years after marrying Dyke, she called me on phone and said: “The idiot called Dyke has behaved as expected and I have since dumped him for the other guy from my village.”
Before Rosemary opted for her dirty decision of implementing her Plan B, her second husband had already married another woman, who already had three sons and a daughter for him, yet she forced herself on him.
As one would have expected, trouble started for Rosemary when the first wife of her husband declared war against her intrusion. Her angry co-wife fought her both physically and otherwise until she fled for fear of losing her life in that fierce battle.
As at the time of writing this letter, Rosemary is husbandless. Not only is she without a husband, I was told she lives miserably with her two under-aged sons; one from her first husband and the other one from her second husband, in her parents’ small apartment in Enugu, South-east, Nigeria.
‘What a shame!’ you would say.
Can you see what stubbornness and lack of faith in God caused her?
In addition to whatever lesson or lessons that you may have scoped from this story, permit me to add more take-always for you.
Of a truth, it is dangerous for anybody, man or woman, to go into marriage with ‘Plan B,’ that is, with the hope and plan of marrying someone else if his or her first marriage fails.
Anybody who goes into a marriage with ‘Plan B’, as my friend, Rosemary, did, is indirectly issuing devil with multiple visas to come into his or her marriage.
And because Satan does not like good things, including a happy marriage, such person may never enjoy his or her marriage.
Do you remember what the evil one did to our first father and mother, Adam and Eve? How he caused them to fail and fall in the presence of God?
Please, don’t give him room to repeat, in you, what he did to Adam and Even.
Please, don’t. I repeat!
I pray that such would never be your portion in Jesus name. Amen!
Finally, I know it is common, especially these days, for boys and girls to have multiple girlfriends and boyfriends.
Whether you have just one lover or chains of lover, please, make sure you don’t, for reasons given above, go into marriage with ‘Plan B,’ that is, with the plan and hope of marrying someone else in case your first marriage fails.
Such attitude and plan is a recipe for disaster. Avoid it.
Most of our parents and their parents, in the years gone by, went into marriage without ‘Plan B.’ Rather, they swore to remain in it for the rest of their lives. That was why we met them in our fathers’ homes.
Why, then, should we do otherwise?
Anybody who does otherwise may never enjoy a happy and peaceful marriage. He or she may also live to have plenty of explanations to make to his or her children concerning his or her spouse.
I pray that would never be your portion in Jesus name. Amen.
There’s a prayer-point I would like you to add to your own original prayer-points, with a view to making it impossible for you to think of Plan B.
Here’e the prayer:
“Dear God, I’ll always depend on you to decide, among other things, on who I should marry because you never make mistakes. Do not allow me to think or have ‘Plan B’ when I’m ready to get married.”
If you say this prayer without ceasing and mean it as you say it, I can safely say that you’ll have a good marriage, all things being equal.
May it be so in Jesus name.
A-M-E-N!
By Linda Akaluzia, a commercial banker, based in Lagos.
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