‘I pretended to be poor just to find a wife’

‘I pretended to be poor just to find a wife’

 

I am the first son of three boys and the Chief Executive Officer of my father’s architectural firm. Unfortunately, I am the only ugly one and when I say ugly, I mean ugly. My two younger brothers are very handsome, so is my dad. My mother is a very pretty woman too, so most times I wonder where I got my ugliness from. However, I come from a very wealthy family so women flock all around me and my brothers.

For me, at first I never knew that all the women who come close to me were only interested in my money until I begin to talk about marriage. Once I talk about marriage to any of them, I don’t see them ever again. They run away and even when I call them on phone, they don’t pick up but when they do, they all say almost the same thing. “Benjamin, yes you are rich and you love to spend money but which reasonable woman in her right senses will marry an ugly looking man like you? Don’t you look at yourself in the mirror? You look like a chimpanzee.” These words are so hurting that sometimes I weep.

One Saturday morning, I visited my parent’s home so that I could ask them why I look very different from the rest of the family but I met only my mother at home. When she saw me, she knew something was wrong and she asked, “Son, what is the matter?” “Mum please tell me the truth, are you and dad my real parents? If yes, why am I so ugly? Why do I look different from the rest of the family? If no, was I adopted?” I questioned.

“Benjamin, what type of a question is this? Of course you are our first son. You were not adopted. Your father said you look like your great-grandfather because I have also asked myself the same question,” she revealed. She assured me that I will someday find a woman who will truly love me for who I am.
I promised myself that I was going to get married at the age of 28. So about seven months to my birthday, I had to think of a plan on how to meet the right woman for me. I wanted a woman who would love me the way I am and not because of my money. I told my family about my plans and they promised to give me their unflinching support. However, the two people who knew about my everyday plan were my driver and my best friend, Larry.

First, I live in VGC alone. But for my plan to be effective, I told my driver to get me a one room apartment in Ajegunle or Mushin where nobody knows me. And in a short time, he got me a one room apartment in a face-me-I-face you compound in Ajegunle and I moved in immediately. The idea was to live the life of a poor man even though I knew it was not going to be easy. However, I was determined to achieve my goal.
The only valuable things in the room were the standing fan and a mattress. Also I wore tattered clothes and buy food from ‘mama put’ especially beans and bread. In the morning, during the week, I leave home in my tattered clothes and go straight to Larry’s house at Apapa where my driver waits for me to change my clothes so that we could go to the office. In the evening, he drops me there as well. After eating dinner, I change back into my tattered clothes and go home.

At weekends, I sit in front of the house most times to see how people live their lives. While there I hear people gossip about how ugly I look and they wonder how my children would look like if I eventually get married. Whenever I hear these words, it makes me sad but I try not to allow it depress me. Whenever I feel hungry, I take a walk to any ‘mama put’ around the area to eat and people keep starring at me. “God, I must be really ugly for people to stare at me whenever they see me,” I murmured. But whenever I remember the words of my mother, I smile.

It was one of those days when I went to buy beans that I met this lady, Blessing. I was on my way home after buying my beans and bread when this young lady who was not looking my way suddenly opened her car door and the beans poured on the ground. “Oh, I am very sorry. I wasn’t looking. I hope I didn’t hurt you,” she stressed. I starred at her for some seconds and said, “I was not looking too, you didn’t hurt me. However my beans poured on the ground and I bought it with the last money I had,” I said. “I am so sorry. Please let me go and buy another beans for you,” she begged. “Don’t worry, I will manage somehow”, I emphasized. But when she insisted, I obliged. After buying the beans for me, she dropped me at the front of my compound. Before driving off, she introduced herself as Blessing. “By the way, my name is Blessing and I live around,” she said. “My name is Benjamin,” I replied.

About a week later, I was sitting outside the house when Blessing came. “Hello Benjamin, I was in your neighbourhood so I decided to check up on you,” she said. “Thanks so much. I really appreciate,” I said. We talked for about two hours before she left. Nevertheless, she promised to be back the next day and she kept to her promise. When she came she revealed that she was the marketing manager of a plastic making company and that she lives about two streets away from me; while I had to tell her fabricated stories about myself. I told her that I am a graduate of Business Administration and I have been searching for a job for almost two years without any hope in sight. She asked me if I have been applying for jobs and I said yes but no company has called me for an interview.

She asked for my resume so that she could give it to some of her friends and contacts. Luckily, I had a copy of the ‘fake’ one I had prepared. She looked at it and said, “I am impressed. You graduated with a 2.1 but you have no work experience yet. But don’t worry, I will make copies and give to my friends. I just pray one of them can help out,” she promised. “If you can do this for me, I will be eternally grateful,” I stressed.
Surprisingly, she started looking for job vacancies for me both in newspapers and online. Whenever she sees any job that is related to my field she made sure I apply. For online applications, she comes with her laptop and modem to my house at weekends so that we could do it together. Some weeks later, I noticed that every Saturday Blessing prepares delicious meals and bring to my house since I don’t have a stove. And I tell you, she is not only a good cook, she is also well domesticated.

About two weeks later, she bought a small stove, pots and other cooking utensils and started cooking at my place. Some weeks later, she bought a small television set, handset and other little things that will make me feel comfortable. She also bought me new set of clothes because according to her she wants me to look good and presentable and also get ready in case I am called upon for any job interview. I later got a job as an Administrative Assistant in a one-man business. Although the pay was not much, Blessing encouraged me to start from there instead of remaining idle and I heeded to her advice. This really touched my soul. At this point, I had falling in love with her but I didn’t want to rush things.

I knew Blessing liked me a lot but I was uncertain if she was in love with me. On my own part, I knew deep down within me that I had found a wife in Blessing. However, to be sure she was also in love with me, one Saturday evening I said to her, “Blessing, I know that you have been a good friend and I really appreciate that. But I want to know why you keep being nice and supportive,” I said. She affectionately held my hands, looked me straight in the eyes and said, “Benjamin, please don’t tell me that you have not noticed that I am in love with you. At first, all I wanted to be was just a friend but I discovered that along the way, I fell in love with you.

I know you have never asked me out but the truth is that everything I do; I do for the sake of love. You are my prince charming, you have captured my heart and I love you very much. I believe you will soon get a better paying job soon and we will be very happy together,” she assured. Then she asked me, “Benjamin do you love me too?” I smiled, gave her a peck on the cheek and confessed to her that I love her very much too. “Blessing, I love and adore you very much. You are the queen of my heart. Thank you for being a true friend and I pray everything works out well for us,” I emphasised.

Totally sure of what we felt for each other, I decided to take the bold step to propose to her three weeks later. Hence, I asked Larry’s wife to get me a beautiful diamond engagement ring. While we were relaxing one fateful Sunday evening, I asked Blessing to be my wife. I went on bended knees and pleaded, “Blessing, please marry me and make my joy complete.” While she was still trying to make up her mind, I quickly slipped the beautiful diamond ring into her finger and then waited for her to give me her response. With tears in her eyes and shaky voice, Blessing said, “Of course, I will marry you and make your joy complete. Wow! The ring is beautiful, thank you my prince charming,” she enthused.

Since I have found my wife, I didn’t want to waste anymore time so I told her, our traditional wedding would take place within three months, exactly on my birthday. Although she agreed, I noticed that she was a bit worried. Her worry was that we didn’t have enough money to plan the kind of wedding she would have wanted, especially for the fact that I just got a job. But I promised her everything was going to work out fine.
I knew I cannot perform my traditional wedding at Ajegunle so I had to device a means to convince her that it should take place at my uncle’s place at VGC but the truth was that I wanted it to hold in my compound in VGC. It took time to convince Blessing and her family but thank God they eventually agreed. I lied to them that my uncle will make buses available for Blessing’s family members, friends, loved ones and colleagues to enable them attend the wedding with ease and so I had to make sure everything was in place.

I left Ajegunle a day to our traditional wedding, to ensure everything was ready as I was so excited that I was finally getting married to the woman who truly loved me. The next day, Blessing and her family entered into the compound and saw the calibre of people within the premises. Things almost got out of hand when I introduced Blessing to my exquisitely dressed parents and siblings. “Hello darling, please come let me introduce you to some important people in my life. Meet my wonderful parents and siblings,” I said.
Immediately, I recognised that she was a bit shocked but she managed to exchange pleasantries with them. She also noticed that the wedding card we printed was totally different from the one people were holding and as if that was not enough shock already, Blessing became furious when some of my staff came to congratulate me calling me CEO.

At this point, she called me aside and pleaded with me to tell her what was going on. She threatened to call off the wedding if I don’t tell her the truth about my identity. After I had finished telling her the truth about me, she shook her head and said, I am sorry Benjamin but there won’t be a wedding. Crying, she revealed to me that she was once involved with a rich young man but his family refused them getting married just because she came from a poor background. As such that incident made her vow that she was going to get married to a man who was in her class so that they would start from the scratch together and nobody would call her a gold digger. When I told her my reasons for acting like a poor man, she insisted that I would have opened up to her after proposing to her and allow her to decide if she was still going to marry me or not. “Blessing it is not that easy. I was afraid you were going to leave me. I am sorry I should have told you the truth. Please forgive,” I pleaded.

When I saw that she was not willing to forgive me and the wedding was supposed to have started about 30 minutes earlier and guests were waiting anxiously, I had to call my parents to intervene. Blessing angrily told them that the wedding should be called off since I lied about my true identity to her. For more than an hour, our wedding was put on hold because Blessing refused to change her mind. My mother held her close to her bosom and had a mother and daughter talk with her. And thank God, she was able to convince her that I pretended to be poor just to find true love because of what I had gone through in the hands of young women. She also added that I truly loved, adored and cared for her.

Finally, she assured Blessing that she was welcomed into our family and pleaded with her to find a place in her heart to forgive me for deceiving her if she truly loved me and make me happy. Minutes later, Blessing told me, “There will be a wedding and I promise to make you happy.” She however made me promise that I will never hide anything from her again and I promised her. Our traditional wedding held in grand style and everyone, especially my parents, were so excited. Weeks later, we had our registry wedding and held a low-key reception in our house.

Today we are so happy together and we love each other dearly. My whole family loves her so much because she has indeed made me a very happy man.
Some of my female friends still come to my office to see if they can still extort money and gifts from me but I proudly flaunt my wedding band and inform them that I am happily married to one of the most beautiful and wonderful women alive. We have been married for six months and she is three months pregnant. All I pray for now is that none of our children should look like me because it will be a disaster.