40 Years In Marriage With 11 Children: The Adinnus Share Their Journey In Advice To Young Couples

Four decades ago, Augustine Asomba Adinnu of Umudurugochu kindred, Okofia Village, Osumenyi in Nnewi South Local Government Area of Anambra State, met his wife, Veronica.

At the time, he was a tradesman who had finished serving his master while Veronica was still in secondary school. Although it was love at first sight, he had to wait for three years after paying the bride price before they could consummate their union.

Parents of 11 children, six boys, and five girls, today the Adinnus are reaping the fruits of their marital union.

The couple shared their experiences with Daily Sun in Asaba, Delta State.

How did you meet your wife?

Augustine: I met her in Kano. Then she was in SS 1, and she asked if I could wait until she was through with her education. I said yes.

What were you doing in Kano?

Augustine: I was into electrical parts. After agreeing to wait, I met her parents, paid her bride price, and waited for three years until she finished her secondary school education. Those three years were not easy for me. She is a younger sister to Bishop Hilary Okeke of Nnewi Diocese. And in their family, you don’t just marry their daughter and live with her until you get wedded.

During those years of waiting, she couldn’t even come to my family’s house and stay overnight with my mother. I did not sleep with her. After three years of waiting, we were wedded. Though it was a difficult journey but today I am happy.

Is the story the same with you or do you have something to add?

Veronica: The first time I met him was in my father’s house. He came to pick me up to go for a holiday with my brother. It was not in Kano that we first met. He took my immediate elder sister and me for a holiday to my eldest brother’s home in Kano.

Augustine: Yes. I actually lived with her elder brother, Lt. Col. Joseph Okeke in the same house. In 1977, my master settled me, and when I was travelling home for the settlement, I told him. When I came back, he asked me about it. I said everything went well. He said what about the car because I was using one pick-up van at the time. I said my master took the car from me.

He said I should not worry, that I would be using one of his wife’s cars. I used that car for almost a year. I wondered what the family saw in me as to merit such a favour. I prayed for God to strengthen the bond between our family and theirs. When I travelled for the settlement, he (Joseph) told me to come with two of them for a holiday with him.

He also gave me a letter to his mother. Immediately, I got to their house, it was my wife who opened the door before going back. It was at that moment I told her mother that this is the type of woman I would like to marry.

So it was love at first sight?

Augustine: Yes, immediately I saw her. So with the car favour, I prayed for something to cement the relationship between the two families. Although I was not fully prepared for marriage at that time, when I got home on one of the occasions, I told my foster-father or my uncle, because my dad was no more, that I would like to marry from this family that gave me their car to be using.

He said okay. I didn’t know what his plans were. In the evening, he asked me to go and buy wine, which I did. And, we went to their place and met her mother. After everything, she gave me a letter to give to her son in Kano. Like my wife had told me, he too said I should wait until she finished her schooling.

Were there no other suitors that came your way to try to woo you over?

Veronica: The truth is that I was a little girl then. I didn’t know what marriage was all about. I was the type that didn’t mingle with men. I don’t even look their way. If a man touched my body, throughout, I would be annoyed, maybe, for one week.

In secondary school, I was very jovial but it ended at that level. That is the kind of home training I was given. I didn’t know parts of the body until I finally entered into marriage and started hearing about them from my parents.

You said men irritated you, how did you finally succumb to him?

Veronica: What he told me, I didn’t even know it was marriage. I was 14 or 15. The way they raised us in our home when they came, I was instructed on how to respond whenever they said anything to me. And I loved and respected my parents so much that I didn’t disobey them.

How many children do you have?

Augustine: As God would have it, we have 11 children, six boys, and five girls.

Why such a large family?

Augustine: I believe that things happen the way God purposed them. The second thing is, when love is there, you can’t even wait for the other one to grow. When the children were coming, I didn’t understand but after the tenth child, we adopted the Billings method of family planning.

Veronica: We started using the Billing method after our fifth child. The truth is that we agreed to have four children. But after those four, children stopped coming. Then I became sick. One day my husband had a dream and woke up in the night shouting, ‘I will not kill.’ I asked him what happened.

He said they lined up children and told him to kill the ones he didn’t want. That’s why he shouted: ‘I will not kill.’ For me, I am a person that communes with God. From that time, all our children started coming at regular intervals of three years; we were using the Billing method. The interval was very regular until the last baby we had after seven years. I see everything as God’s making.

What is your advice for spinsters on courtship and relationships?

Veronica: I advise that there should be sinless courtship. As he said, for three years, it was easy for us not to mate because I was against it. It is good to have courtship to enable you to understand the things you will tolerate or not tolerate when you finally go into marriage.

No man is perfect. You will continue to tolerate based on the understanding you had when you were in courtship. So if you have love, commitment, forgiveness, you will live with any man even if he were a lion.

ALSO SEE: Knowing Your Spouse Before Getting Married And More: The Oziokos’ Share Nuggets From Their 50-Year Marriage

What’s your advice for bachelors who are intending to get married?

Augustine: As a bachelor, if you are committing fornication here and there, you will find it difficult to get a good wife to marry. But if you fear God and seek His guidance on getting a wife, I believe that He will give you one. So I advise bachelors who want to get married to do courtship.

I didn’t do courtship, I only waited. And never regret marrying your wife because of little mistakes. For instance, because you have dated maybe Agnes before getting married to Grace, any mistake from Grace, you start regretting as to why you did not marry Agnes. It is wrong. Let people live right and pray to God to give them their own partner.

From your own experience, what is your advice for young couples who are just starting up?

Veronica: My advice for them is, first of all, let there be truth in the marriage. Truth is the highest thing that brings marriage together. For instance, if I tell my husband that I am going to this place but from there I go somewhere else without his knowledge, there is no truth in that. I was with some people the other day and I told them that my husband would come looking for me.

Someone asked: ‘looking for you?’ In five minutes’ time, he came to that place, and everybody started laughing that in this old age, your husband is still looking for you? It is because I told him the truth and nothing but the truth, that’s why he knew where to come looking for me.

There should be mutual love in the relationship. I have never slept in a separate bed from that of my husband. Our bed used to be very big. At some point, I told him I was not enjoying it. He bought a smaller one which I like. We take our bath together. We do everything together. And when you do things in common, you will know when the devil is trying to come in.

There will always be problems but it does not stop us from doing things together. When we bathe together, sleep together on the same bed and eat together, the quarrel soon stops. So I advise couples-to-be to be very close to each other.

My children bought me a car. I used to drive but at a time, I said I won’t drive. Let my husband be carrying me about so that anywhere I am he would be there. We go to church and other occasions together. The advice is to let there be that commitment, truth in marriage.

Augustine: There are a few additions I will like to make to what she said. After we were wedded, we started a joint account. There is a personal experience which I will like to share. When my father was alive, he hid his money in the village; he didn’t open a bank account. He tied his money in a plastic bag, used an old cloth to wrap it, and kept it somewhere. So when he died, his relatives came to my mother to ask for money he kept.

My mother said she was not aware. They went inside the room and searched everywhere. They didn’t see the money but swept it out as a part of the refuse and set everything on fire. After the fire had started burning they discovered that what was in the nylon and piece of cloth they thought was dirt was indeed money.

Everybody shouted. Based on that experience, I vowed that such would not happen to my family whenever I get married. Immediately my wife came, I took her to my bank to open a joint account. I don’t want a situation whereby if I close my eyes tomorrow they would start going to swear an affidavit that ‘this is my husband’s account.’

I want it to be a case of you just signing your signature and continuing from where I stopped. Another thing is this sleeping together. If you read first Corinthians chapter 7: 1 – 10 or so, where it said “do not deny yourselves of each other,” that is the basis of marriage, and it is normally responsible for many problems in the home.

When a man comes back from work, and the wife had already slept off and continuously for two or three days, when a man needs his wife she just faces the other side, you are killing the union. But the Bible in 1 Corinthians 7 proffered solution when it said ‘do not deny yourselves each other.’

When you practise that frequently, you will always find a way for reconciliation if there is an issue. But if you are having affairs outside, you may not take it seriously if your wife denies you of her body. And this is not good for the union.

Bathing together is rooted in the book of Genesis, I think chapter 2, verse 25 or so where it said the two were naked and not embarrassed. If you have money and you tell your wife that you don’t have it and she discovers it, you are creating mistrust in the union.

One more thing is keeping out the third party from the union. Couples should stop gossiping about their partners to friends and family.