The Igwenyis’ Submission From 30-Year Marital Experience Will Help Your Marriage

Benjamin Obasi Igwenyi, former Attorney-General and Commissioner for Justice, Ebonyi State (2011-2015), and his wife, Nnenna, Director, Personnel Management, Ebonyi State Local Government Service Commission have been married for more than three decades now.

The couple’s marriage which turned 30 on October 10, 2022, is blessed with two medical doctors, a lawyer and a law graduate preparing to go to law school. In a recent chat with DailySun, they shared their marriage experiences.

How did you meet?

Mr. Igwenyi:  My younger brother, Ogbonna, and I were called to the Bar on December 14, 1989. Then we lived at Aba, practising. He had a girlfriend called Esther, from Nkwere. I always discussed this with Esther. I told her that I wanted to marry someone that is taller than I am. I also wanted someone who was science-based.  I said that as a lawyer, I didn’t want to have children who would just be good in the Arts only.

Esther would always visit us at Aba. It happened that in 1990 that she was posted to the 2 Mechanised Division of the Nigerian Army in Ibadan for her NYSC. Then my wife was also posted to that place. She studied Science Laboratory Technology at Bauchi Polytechnics.

Two of them became friends. One day, they were fetching water. My wife asked her where she hailed from. She said Nkwere. My wife said she was from Okposi in Ohaozara. Then Ohaozara was part of Imo State. Then two of them being from Imo State became friends and started discussing.

Esther told my wife that she had a boyfriend from Okposi. She mentioned my younger brother’s name. Nnenna said that she had seen the Igwenyi but not his elder brother. Esther told her that his elder brother was looking for a wife who was science-inclined and taller than he was and that she got all the qualities. That was how it all started.

During the wedding of John Osi and Rose which took place in Warri in July 1991, Esther, Ogbonna’s friend now elected to come with my wife to the wedding knowing too well that I would be there.  There was no mobile phones then. I attended the wedding and that was how I met her. I discussed it with her. By October 10, 1992, we were married. So, there was no courtship. 

Madam Nnenna:  It was in October 1990, I was posted to 2 Mechanised Division, Ibadan, Oyo State for my National Youth Service Corps. One day in January 1991, we were about five girls fetching water from a well at the Corpers’ Lodge. The five of us were just talking. Suddenly I told Esther Izuogu who is now my husband’s younger brother’s wife that her Igbo was different from the rest of us. It sounded Anambran.

She told me that she was from Nkwerre in Imo. I told her that I was from Okposi, then in Imo State. She shouted and told me that she had a boyfriend from Okposi. She asked whether knew the Igwenyi family. I said I had heard about one of them who was a lawyer. I said I met him in my uncle’s compound, Aja Nwachukwu’s place.

She said actually they were two lawyers in that family, the senior one was Ben while the young one was Ogbonna, her boyfriend. She said she was happy to see someone from Okposi. There and then at the well, she said that she had seen a wife for Ben, the elder brother of her boyfriend. I started laughing and asked whether I told her I was looking for a husband. That was how we became friends.

I recalled that she travelled to Aba and told them about me. Incidentally, his boyfriend accepted that he had seen someone like me in his uncle’s house. When she came back after two weeks she gave me a letter. When I read the content I said: ‘Esther, just take this letter from me.’ She said: ‘what was the problem?’ I said ‘take the letter and read it yourself.’ 

She collected the letter from me and read it and started laughing.  After a long laugh, she said: ‘That is Ben for you. No time for frivolities.’ So around April, his younger brother, Ogbonna, who visited Esther, his girlfriend, came with some gifts for me.  I was not around. He dropped the gifts for me. Our first meeting was about this wedding he is talking about. It took place in Warri.

A day to the wedding, I was in the parlour with John, my relation. People were busy and Esther had gone out to meet with her boyfriend at the hotel. Then Ben walked in. I recognised him because of the pictures I had seen with Esther. I greeted him but he didn’t recognise me as he had not set his eyes on me. He had already told John about me, that I would be coming for the wedding.

So, when they came in, they started chatting and Ben asked John ‘where is Nnenna? Has she gone?’ John laughed and took him out to the balcony. They spent about five minutes discussing. Shortly afterward, they came into the parlour again. It was at that time that John teased him saying: ‘Look at Nnenna, you want to marry someone you don’t know.’  We all laughed.

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We understand that you had an unusual marriage proposal. Tell us about it.

Mr. Igwenyi: Immediately Esther came and relayed to me that she had seen somebody who met my qualities, I wrote a letter and gave to her to send to my wife, proposing even though I had not set my eyes on her. She was surprised and said that I was not serious. But Esther told her that I was a serious-minded person and that I meant what I said in the letter.

Madam Nnenna: So what was in his letter? Three sentences only. Ben wrote: ‘Nnenna, I sympathise with you for what you passed through as you were growing up. Now I want to marry you. Please, enclose your picture so that I can know what you look like.’ I recall asking Esther what she told them about me at Aba. She said she didn’t tell them anything. I asked her again if she went with my picture.

She replied that if she had gone with my picture, they wouldn’t be requesting for my picture again. Then, I replied the letter.  In my reply, I said: “thank you for sympathising with me.”  I didn’t respond to his marriage proposal. I said, I don’t know why he should be proposing to someone he had not seen and that I cannot enclose my picture because it looks deceptive.

What were your parents’ reactions?

Mr. Igwenyi: When I told them that I had found who to marry; they only said they would go and find out more about the girl’s family. After my father’s fact-finding mission, they gave their consent. On the other hand, I didn’t go to check what her family was like, the number of her siblings; whether they were rich or poor.

Madam Nnenna: My mother-in-law received me from day one she set her eyes on me. She actually said I was the first girl Ben had brought home to say he wanted to marry. Because of that, she loved me and supported me in being her daughter-in-law. My father-in-law was excited. But he said he must make an investigation before giving his approval.

My mother-in-law received me as her first daughter, showed me pure love, and we remained like that till the day she departed this world. But I must state that he (Ben) visited me that December. I paid him a return visit in their compound. When I got there, I liked his compound because I didn’t see anything that convinced me that the family was rich.

I had always prayed to God that I wanted a man with whom we could build our home together, not already made man. It was one of my aunties that took me to their place for the first time. So, as we entered the compound, I saw the environment, turned to my aunt and told her that I would like to live in the compound. At that time, nobody in their house had come outside.

We just parked our car outside. She now asked me why? I said she could see the compound. At least we had only one mud house in our compound. But in theirs, they had three mud houses with zinc roofing. Only one of them was plastered. So, I said with this, I knew we would be starting from scratch.  At that point, I made up my mind because of all of those things. While we were talking, I was weighing him.

How would you describe your marital experience?

Mr. Igwenyi: As far as I am concerned, people say marriage is an ups and downs. But it is a bed of roses for me. I have never had any problem with my marriage and I believe we will never have any problems until we join our ancestors. It is the mind that you have while getting married that makes you capable of handling it.

For example, I wasn’t expecting to get a servant who would come and be serving me, wash my clothes, and cook for me. It is symbiotic, with each person making a contribution. I do my own part of the whole, she does hers. What would have been big problem was that I am a hot-tempered man. If you annoy me, I would express it. 

I won’t keep quiet so that I would be branded a good man. I would react; my wife is someone that if you angrily answered her, the next thing is that she would start crying. So I had to start conditioning myself even when I’m not happy.

I would absorb the shock to a reasonable degree, to a point that even if she annoyed me, she would be expecting me to say something. But I would keep quiet and she would feel that I was ignoring her. It has been my ability to match her feelings with my own feelings. So far, so good.

Madam Nnenna: For me, it has been a combination of the good, the bad and the ugly. But to the glory of God, the pleasant aspect of this marriage is greater than the challenging aspect of it. We did not court before marriage; in fact, the first day we stayed together was the day of my traditional marriage.

Even though my first visit didn’t give me a chance to know one thing or more about his character, the first five years were very challenging. The first year was challenging because of his temperament. He is hot-tempered. But I didn’t know that I married a hot-tempered person.

It wasn’t easy initially because the thing is that when you trigger his anger, even if he’s outside, he would be vibrating from there and be coming. Even when you want to stop him to give your reasons why things were that way, he won’t have time for that.

It was that way until I decided to talk to myself that the two of us cannot last if we continued this way. That was the initial challenge. So I went back to God and asked Him to handle me. He’s the man of the house. I submitted immediately and started asking God to help me handle my home and it is a testimony now.  

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How do you handle your differences?

Mr. Igwenyi: It is a matter of understanding. I know what she doesn’t like and I believe she knows what I don’t like. I don’t go to the area she doesn’t like. For example, when she was made an elder in the church, we agreed that we should not bring alcohol into the house and it was implemented that way.

The younger brother made arrangements for those who wanted to drink alcohol outside the house that very day. So, what makes a marriage is understanding. Understand your spouse. But if you start to claim your rights, that things should be done your way because you’re a man or a woman, then the problem comes.

Madam Nnenna: We do sometimes have misunderstandings. And I want to thank God for helping us. We normally handle our differences by ourselves. We’ve never had a situation in which we brought in a third party to settle our differences if we had quarreled.

We quarrel in our bedroom with bedroom voices and settle it there. But we can stay for like two weeks without talking to each other. In the midst of the quarrel, we would eat together. If we had visitors, we would come out and receive them and discuss them with them. Both of us would see them off. But when we get back to where we were, we would start back again. 

What about managing finances? Did you support a joint account?

Mr. Igwenyi: My impression of marriage is that like the Bible said, the woman is coming to help you. So, I have never seen a woman as coming to take up my responsibilities. I believe that I have a major role to play. So, whatever comes from the woman is okay by me. 

So far, God has always blessed me with a position where I have a serious advantage so that if it is a question of contribution, whatever comes from her is okay by me even till tomorrow. We don’t have a joint account as such completely. But we have a joint account in one of the accounts where she could go and take money even when I am not around.

When I travelled to Ethiopia sometime ago, I wrote a letter to one of my banks asking them to allow her to be taking money from an account that we don’t own jointly. I would advise couples to have a joint account while they also maintain individual accounts for the purpose of savings.

Madam Nnenna: We have been able to manage it; we have a somewhat joint account in one of the banks and it’s working for us. It has its advantages, so, couples who can run joint accounts should not hesitate to do so. 

What’s your advice for young couples?

Madam Nnenna: I will advise girls, even though this generation we find ourselves is not my own generation, to go for wherever they find genuine love. I mean love that is not based on material things. Go for where you can trust that the future will get better if you see any trace because God does not allow human beings to see all that is designed for them completely before you move into it.

The problem we have now is that we look for material things, the things that the eyes can see. These things can develop wings and fly away. If you see love, care and a man that has emotions, marry. I am not talking about hardened sadists.

If you see a trace of sadism, run away. But assuming that the starting is small, don’t overlook it. Go ahead. With God on your side, you will get better with time. I know we always have a small beginning. Even me and Ben, we started  small. But we thank God today.