BOB MANUEL UDOKWU, FINDING A SPOUSE?

Icheoku recently read an article in a Nigerian Newspaper, wherein Bob Manuel Udokwu told of how he met his wife. According to his story, he was taking a walk one evening on campus, when he sighted his future wife and was particularly moved by her gait and strut. He stopped her, complimented her and after the initial pleasantries, they agreed to meet again and again; and before you could say jack, they were dating. 

Thereafter their story of boy meets girl took an air of its own and today they have celebrated fifteen years of a marital bliss. Icheoku says what a very romantic and  indeed beautiful story of how a couple met each other; needless to add that it did not take the pulling of a teeth before she said yes to his proposal. Marital  chemistry is usually such that it does not necessarily require too much of a convincing because when you see it the one, you always know and feel it too. Icheoku says congratulations to the Udokwus on their marriage anniversary and many more happy returns. What a lovely couple, telling a lovely story of how they first met and they appear to be happy too and are equally lovely to look at.

This little background is necessary as this article is about finding a spouse and why some people have been unlucky in that department thus far. These people seem to be looking at the wrong places and with over bloated expectations of who their ideal spouse is or should be? Icheoku admonishes that the first rule of the thumb in finding a spouse is to curb your (enthusiasm) expectations. Moderate your exaggerated wants and desires of what you want in a spouse or what you would otherwise consider an ideal spouse because the good Lord left those perfect tens in heaven when he made Adam and Eve to be earth's dwelling. There is no one single individual that will fit all the tabs and who would check all good in all the departments, meeting all and every set down criteria. 

So like an examination, where one does not have to necessarily ace it all or score 100% in order to pass, you should be prepared to accept certain percentile as a passing score and then treat same as a whole and complete passmark for a spouse. Just make a list of what are most important to you and if they are ten and your potential spouse has six of them, that should ordinarily suffice. But just in case you still wants one such all-rounder spouse anyway, then be prepared to wait till you rendezvous with God to ask him why he kept them in heaven. However before arriving at the departure hall, first be prepared to live and die a lonely agonizing life as a bachelor or spinster in the event marriage was important to you. But if you want someone to accompany you in this journey called life, then be prepared to cross-out some expectations in order to successfully find a matching companion. 

The best test for deciding on a spouse is to imagine him or her figuratively without any clothes or anything to his or her name, absolutely, totally and completely EMPTY and NAKED. If you can accept him or her as is, then dive in; but if it is the shirt on his back or the skirt covering her behind that enticed you, then back off as you are backing the wrong horse. He or she must be organically attracted to you and not because of collateral accessories surrounding the masquerade. There was a story about this princess who was so picky about a suitor that his father was practically giving up hope of ever betrothing her daughter to a husband. One day the tortoise got wind of her "am too much for any man" stance and prepared to trick her into matrimony. The tortoise went and borrowed heavily and with pomp and pageantry, came heralded to the king's palace seeking his daughter's hand in marriage. However, as soon as the tortoise brought home his princess-bride, all those lenders came and retrieved all their stuff and there started their martial problems. 

But if you are that female waiting for Dangote or President Buhari to come calling, remember that when Dame Patience met President Jonathan in the creeks of Niger Delta, little did she know that the shoeless kid from Otuoke would one day rise to become a president. Ditto did Michelle Obama not know what the future held for her when she met a fledgling Barack Obama who could not even afford to take her out to dinner. Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton met similarly situated and stories abound of other successful couples who met as struggling stragglers. So, what Icheoku is saying is that in as much as having some stuff is good, but ladies, it is always a bummer when a man feels that it is his surroundings and not his personality that is your main allure. Likewise when ladies feel that it is their other stuff that primarily captured your interest. If they feel like they purchased you, they will treat you like their property because they reason that if you could take the bait, others might as well. Therefore, looking for happiness in marriage, look for that person who deeply cares for you, particularly for your happiness. Like with God's commandment to seek first the kingdom and all other things will be added to you, first find yourself a compatible loving spouse and miraculously other things that makes life livable will follow. 

A word of advise for all those ladies out there looking for a man and who waste their valuable time and resources in pentecostal churches seeking to find their miracle of a husband or paying nocturnal visits to babalawo shrines in search of that magical potion to snare a husband; Icheoku says, waste your time no more. It does not work and will never work as love is never forced nor compelled. Like with everything without a free will, the struggle for freedom will definitely someday ensue and it might be disastrous. The solution is simple - at anytime, just be yourself, remain who you, conduct and comport yourself 24/7 as you never know where your own Bob Manuel Udokwu might be watching from. 

Always be true to yourself and stop living a lie of being pretentious in a church while later throwing up your wide-side especially amongst your supposed friends. Unfortunately some of these your "friends" who know you better might have brothers, brother-inlaws and/or even their own husband's friends who might be looking for a wife but they would rather not recommend you to them. A rule of the thumb, if you are that good and your girlfriends, especially those who are married, know you are that good, why have they not recommended you to some of these single men within their circle? This is one huge mistake many women make, thinking that their wild-eyed drinking, snorting and whoring buddies are their best friends? Nope, they are not; otherwise they would have since hooked you but they don't want you too near to their circle.

Also many guys are smart enough to spot out such desperately seeking-husbands women in churches and quickly bolt away before they could be seized. It is ideally, a case of "a cunning woman die and a cunning man bury her" type of conundrum, where both the hunter and the hunted are both skillful at playing the game of hide and seek or catch me if you can?  It reminds Icheoku of a story of one such lady who went into a fake trance in a church one Sunday and prophesied that this particular guy, who she has been eyeing for a very long time, is her revealed husband. Unfortunately, this guy was also eyeing a different lady all together and told the 'possessed by spirit' lady that he will have to pray about it and get back to her during next Sunday's worship. 

On that Sunday, the guy told the girl that the Lord told him that he will reveal the final truth to him about her previous revelation during the worships' miracle hour. As soon as the hour of deliverance arrived, on a cue, the guy went into his own Version 2.0 trance and upon power of anointing overcoming him, started prophesying that the good Lord warned him to stay away from the lady in question; not to ever marry her because she is married to the water-spirit and any attempt to do otherwise would bring so much catastrophe, pain, anguish and tragedy to them both.  That they must break every bond between them including the thought of becoming a couple to avert an immediate death in the hands of kidnappers or even a hasty accident enroute their houses and the threat is real.  They later went to the pastor to share their "revelations", to which the pastor ruled that they should stay away from each other and for their good. 

Icheoku says instead of running from pillar to post in search of that elusive knight in shinning armor, ask yourself are you leading a double life? Is your behavior behind closed door the same as that which you exhibit outside? Would your church pastor vouch for your behavior as a classmate would and both find you a worthy companion? Does you church members know you as a none smoker but you smoke everything including joints and roaches with your evening friends?  Do you live a double life that compels people to say 'are we talking about the same person' or another person all together? A penny for your thought, because you don't know who is watching or might be interested, before everybody, day or night, in public or in private, in your character remain as constant as the northern star of which true fix there is no fellow in the firmament. Networking is still the surest way to scoring a spouse as no one will want to admit someone within their circle if their coming in will unravel the existing bond. If your friends love you enough, they will land you a spouse and they have a magical way at it too. 

So always keep it real as you never know where that your man might be springing out from, anytime. Just like this beautiful lady whom Bob Manuel Udokwu snag up, your man might be staring at you from across the building or like Isaac's wife, Rebecca, might ask you for some flimsy favor.  Icheoku says congratulations to the Udokwus and to all those happily married couples celebrating their various anniversaries. To those still not so lucky in love yet, people who are still pounding the pavement of love in search of the one, Icheoku says don't give up, help is on the way as Cupid  is headed your way. Just be smart to discern when he arrives with your spouse and accept and work out whatever kinks that might still be left in him. Men somehow are still somehow lucky as they are not as challenged because they do the hunting and they decide on what game to shoot. Further, men are not as time-constrained and can always do their thing whenever they decide. Salute.