‘A Husband’s Wife’: Chronicling rupture, betrayal in modern marriages
By Anote Ajeluorou
RELATIONSHIP alert/hazard: Young women stealing married men! And in an era where women do not brook their husbands taking a second wife, a somewhat sinister and ironic situation has become self-evident: young, unmarried girls, who would do anything to stop their future husbands from having extra-marital affairs now find married men the centre of sexual attraction. And it appears they’re winning. These young women, when they finally get married, go to great lengths to secure their future husbands to themselves. But while they remain unmarried, other men’s husbands become play things in their devious hands.
Indeed, it’s arguable who actually perpetuates the side-chick phenomenon. Is it the married men or the unmarried girls that make the first move? Does a married man professing his status hinder young women from hitting at them? Do they know what this would do to them when the tables turn against them years later, as wives, to find that other young girls are hitting on their own husbands? This is the pulsating dramatic fair A Husband’s Wife served guests. Carefree and vivacious, these young women are attentive to the emotional needs of married men the way their wives do not and cannot, because of their own busy career pursuits like Tomi, who will not hesitate to tell Femi to man up to his responsibilities. But not so these nubile young ladies, who have all the time in the world for the married men or sugar daddies, as they call them.
The picture pained above isn’t exactly the accurate dramatic situation performed at the unconventional stage, a restaurant and drinks parlour, at The American Guest Quarters (GQ) on 16 Oyinkan Abayomi Drive, Ikoyi, Lagos. The audience is not told what Tomi’s (Tosin Adeyemi) past life was as a young girl, but a younger girl isn’t just hitting on her husband, Femi (Paul Utomi), she has practically stolen his heart and their 18 years of married life is crashing because of it. Wise, still beautiful in a stately sort of way, but Tomi is no match for this unknown female quantity that her Femi is so enamoured with, and she’s having none of it.
At the heart of this dramatic offering is Femi’s seeming waywardness. What’s so fascinating about this young, nameless girl that his close to 40 years’ old wife Tomi does not have that he hankers after and for which he breaks his marital vows? Why would a 45-year old man possibly want in a 20-something old girl? The audience is as much baffled as Femi’s wife, and she wants to know. Femi, obviously fed up with the sham that his married life has become under his own roof, does not waste time in throwing his wife under the bus. But his excuses end up like a small boy whining because he has been dispossessed of his favourite toys.
Femi (Paul Utomi – on the floor) and Tomi (Tosin Adeyemi) in A Husband’s Wife
But for what it’s worth, Femi’s complaint against his wife, though seemingly out of social expectations of what a ‘real man’ should be, is at the heart of a disconnect that men face in a patriarchal society that requires a man to ‘man up’ and not succumb to some base emotions. Femi has lost the empathy he expects from his wife, who constantly flings his weaknesses back at him. Femi is no longer the king in his own home. His wife Tomi constantly holds him up for intense scrutiny unlike his young side-chick, who adores him, who makes him feel like the man he believes he truly is. Femi believes it’s his wife, who has pushed him into the arms of this younger woman, where he’s discovering himself all over again. His wife, Femi believes, has used up the best years of his life and was done with him, and so does not value him any more, as the young girl who craves his attention all the time.
As the back and forth argument rages between husband and wife on the whys and why-nots of Femi’s indiscretion, Femi decides it’s useless arguing over the inevitable. He’s done with his wife’s constant nagging and lack of affection and wants out; he will explain to his teenage children schooling abroad why he is separating from his wife and going for a younger lover. He has his bag packed ready to head out, but when his wife flings the bag out, a photo drops to the floor, the photo of her husband’s younger lover, a photo that shatters her very world, including his such that the sheer embarrassment of discovery leaves him stammering a tepid, shamefaced apology.
Written by Tyrone Terrence and directed by Bimbo Olorunmola, A Husband’s Wife is an intensely plotted relationship drama that was delivered by two passionate actors, who inhabited the fictional worlds created for them and took their audience through the crucible of emotions. There are no shortcuts to the dilemma presented, and only the audience could determine for themselves what state they were in their own marriage or marriage-to-be relationships. A Husband’s Wife is therefore a mirror that reflects a social standpoint. How does betrayal creep into marriages to destroy them? What external factors take the credit?
Is love enough in a relationship? Perhaps not, as Tomi finds to her horror, as the man she married years ago is slipping through her fingers for what she believes to be no fault of hers. But is this altogether true? How much of her marriage has she taken for granted? And how much investment is she making? Often, wives tend to think that having secured a man’s heart with marriage, all has become well and settled, and she can afford to go on a long vacation and still expect the man to be where she left him. Femi left long ago and Tomi can’t understand it. How many wives are living in such blissful assurance of a love that stands still, with the hope of returning to find it where they left it for supposedly more important chores? A Husband’s Wife is a wakeup call for wives and husbands alike. Never take for granted that which you have; it could slip through your hands if you don’t care for it, tend it like a garden and take out the weeds. And there are many hungry goats parading the yam barn and ready to feast on any less protected yam tuber. So many younger, wild women out there just waiting for a chance to pounce on the Femis of this world! They don’t respect the marriage band on men’s fingers; they actually find it alluring.
For Tomi and Femi, there isn’t a second chance to make amends, as Femi’s fatal attraction and desire become the ultimate undoing of 18 years of their married life and love. A Husband’s Wife is a must-see 2-man stage drama made all the more poignant and intimate, as the action moved among guests having dinner and drinks at a restaurant to create a homely, unforgettable ambience.
