Some Married Men and the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell Policy

A while ago, I attended a friend’s wedding and ended up sitting beside a fine young man in church. We got to chatting and I found him to be a nice fella. At the reception, we went our separate ways but reconnected again at the bar where we got to talk some more and made plans to meet up the next day.

The next day, we met up and in summary probably spent a good 5-6 hours together doing nothing but innocent chilling and gisting. I was simply enjoying the company of a fine young man without thinking too far ahead into the situation.
So errr, when a well-intentioned friend who had seen us hanging together at the wedding, hit me up that next day and asked me “How do you know Mr. XYZ?” I responded that I didn’t know him from anywhere, and was just meeting him that weekend. She then hit me with the “well, be careful sha because he’s married” advice and I was like WORD? Married ke? I never hesperrerit.

And so since he was in “my very before” (aka presence), I digested the information and turned to ask him… “Mr. XYZ, word on the street is that you’re married. Is this true?” and he said “Yes I am…I figured that Jane would tell you eventually”.
I can’t even explain the type of side eye that I gave him that day. Like hold up dude! We’ve been in each other’s’ presence for how many hours, and you needed me to hear about your marital status from a 3^rd party? BRUHH.

To be honest, ol’ boy never said anything to me that was out of line or that screamed “trifling”. Our interaction was truly just great conversation with some refreshments and small chops in the mix but I just found it really questionable that we had literally spent hours together and not one peep, pim, or mention of a wife entered the equation. The thing really get as e be o. 

Ultimately, he gave some explanations… “I just wanted to get to know you independent of the marriage tag” and asked me… “Would you have been as open with me if I said told you that I was married from the jump?”. An explanation that I thought was just tales as I pointed out to him that when I met my closest male friend, in 5 minutes he had already told me that at the time, he had just gotten married to a gal in Nigeria. And that didn’t stop us from flowing and geling as friends.
Me, I sha said that I would have appreciated some transparency and honesty cos that deliberate omission was shady. But in the end, we cleared up the situation and spent the remainder of the hangout session in good company albeit an increased awareness of the situation. Shady non-disclosure aside, I still think that Mr. XYZ was a very cool individual, definitely the perfect gentleman at all times, and I don’t regret the interaction at all.

But that definitely got me thinking about some of these Naija men and their coded policies. It’s literally a “don’t ask me, and I won’t tell you” situation these days. That situation that I described above was not the first time I had met, interacted and flowed well with a guy and then belatedly found out that he was married. What is up with that?
When I get married, first of all I need my husband to wear his damn ring 24/7 (Like seriously, why don’t these men wear their rings?), and even with the ring, he gotta namedrop “my wife” like 2 seconds into any interactions with females. LOL.
But on the real…Dear Husband can’t be out there kiki-ing it up and spending significant time with a woman with zero mention of me. Nope, that wont fly bruv. SAY MY NAME and make sure the girl knows it very well. 

That’s how some of these females get entangled with married men and they don’t even know it at the beginning. By the time they find out, some of them are too sprung to walk away. I’m in no way justifying those relations but I can see how some situations can get real complex. I had this ex-coworker that dealt with a married man for about 4 years, and she said she only found out that he was married about 8 months into their relationship by which time she was way too sprung to leave the situation. Now why she carried her leg and stayed there for 4 years, na only she know ooo. But sometimes these men stay on that non-disclosure and deliberate omission behavior and then women get all caught up and can’t flee from the devil. Again, I make no excuses for the side-chick behavior but I’m just saying.

Sha sha, based on that deal with Mr. XYZ, I have decided that going forward, I’m going to straight up start asking dudes “Are you married?” before continuing any conversations. These days it’s not only by bare ring finger that you will know o, as a lot of bruvs don’t wear their rings out there on these streets. Sha, I can't even guarantee that all married men will be truthful about thier status but I know that the Lord on the Throne will definitely give me the spirit of discernment in these matters. Aminnnn.

Knowledge is power, and it’s good to remain aware. That’s how you will be innocently minding your business and some random girl is mean-mugging you and you’re wondering why. It just might be some man’s disgruntled wife who thinks you are after her husband, meanwhile the man didn’t even tell you that he was married.  That is how wahala starts.

And that is all she said.