'How Stella, my childhood friend ruined my marriage'

Amanda and Stella were babyhood friends who grew up in the same neighbourhood and attended the same secondary school. While Amanda proceeded to the university, Stella Maris could not make the grade to secure admission.

“I gained admission into University of Nigeria Nsukka to study Pharmacy, but Stella-Maris couldn’t have a good result after secondary school. Her West African Examinations Council result was poor. She had just two credits and failed the rest five papers. When her parents knew that I performed well, they scolded her severely that she stopped talking to me. Even when I was in school, I tried to keep in touch.  I wrote her letters but she didn’t reply. I actually wanted her with me in school, so that she would enroll in preliminary studies and be sure that she would make her papers in the General Certificate Examination. But she wasn’t keen and thus never replied to my letters even when I told her what I was planning for her. That was the last I heard of her,” Amanda recalled.

When she graduated, she was posted to Jos for her National Youth Service.

“It was in the orientation camp that I met Gilbert. He graduated from University of Port Harcourt and was always bragging that the varsity he finished from was a walking distance from his father’s compound in his village. In the orientation camp, he was the platoon 12 leader, a very lively unit that I belonged. Somehow because of the way he handled things, he became the cynosure of all eyes in the camp. Every female member in the platoon including yours sincerely wanted him closer. He too admired me so much that he would like to sit beside me, especially in our ever busy Mami market where we used to chat away time.

“He was indeed fun to be with and could crack jokes with every little thing around him. We were always seen together although he never wooed me. Though people thought we were dating, he never spelt it out to me until one evening.

“We were at the Mami market together and I told him that one of the big shots in town was throwing a party and he said he would send someone to pick me up for the get-together…that he had already told our camp commandant to allow me. You needed to have seen how Gilbert frowned at what I said. His countenance changed, I pulled his legs the more by telling him that I would like to bring a suitor home from the party just as I promised my mother before leaving my house. ‘Mum said I was ripe for marriage, who knows, I might meet him there, at the party’, was my exact words. That was when he decided to unveil his mind. He asked me if he was not more of a suitor than the one at the party. When I looked at him to be sure he was serious, I saw that in his eyes.

“Looking into my eyes, he asked, ‘Am I not ripe enough to be brought to your mother? It was at that point that he told me what he had in mind concerning me…“how we would be redeployed to Port Harcourt, serve together and get married eventually. I was happy to hear that. I had been desirous to hear that from him but because he felt it was too early to propose marriage to me, he kept it to himself. After all, we just met at the orientation camp. But I felt that Gilbert was mature enough to get married. And being the only son of his parents, he said he imagined how happy his mother would be if he took me home,” she revealed.

When Amanda and Gilbert were redeployed to Port Harcourt for their primary assignment, “we both worked in the same establishment. Gilbert’s dad owned an oil servicing company. Within the outfit, I was asked to work in the pharmacy department. Gilbert, a petroleum and gas engineer, fitted in without much assistance. All was going on well between us. Before he brought me home to visit his parents, he had already spoken to his father about me. He watched me with eagle eyes; He presumably believed that God had given his only son the woman that would make him happy all the days of his life. When Gilbert told me what his father said of me, I was thrilled. The first person I called to tell was my mum, my number one confidant. I told her that I was yet to meet his mother but that we had been communicating on the phone.

“Gilbert’s mum used to pray for me on the phone and would always tell me that I should make prayer a habit because a prayerful wife was a winning wife. I asked my mum if I should give her Gilbert’s mum’s number. She declined as she didn’t want to appear pushy,” she said.

Interestingly, Gilbert and Amanda became married immediately after their service.

“My marriage was as sweet as honey until I met Stella my childhood friend who the devil used to leave an indelible dent in my marriage,” Amanda grieved.

Story by ADAEZE AMOS

• To be continued.