Story by Teinye Boyle
Hey folks, i’m here with a long read; something worthwhile for every husband or soon-to-be husband who intends to #Japa with a student wife.
I decided to shed more light in this direction as i will find that many people are sold faux believes.
Maybe because most men do not tend to talk about the emotional side of Japaship or maybe the few with ring lights and iphone 7s are busy wearing signature old ankara hoodie and telling the world that Nigerians are only studying because they want a ‘better life’ – one imagines.
As a dependent husband myself, i can tell you for free that men also struggle emotionally, i have friends and yes we talk.
I will form my case from living in the UK as i am not so sure how it is everywhere else.
As a UK dependent husband, the onus falls on you to shoulder the entire responsibility of your family, know this first and make peace.
Your student wife will hardly find any job so quickly due to her limited working hours so my guy, you will pack that shit first.
While i know many of us will probably have a high paying skill and can easily transition, the majority will be left to fend for their families with just any type of Job.
If you are proud, DO NOT COME TO THE UK!
‘UK will humble’ you is not a mere phrase, it is an actual state that you will be in for quite a while but it only gets better.
PHD holder? welcome to Amazon! you will pick and stow parcels with high British school leavers and some will even think they are better than you
Masters or Bachelors holder? care and support is waiting for you with open arms and legs.
But when you allow yourself understand that money is money, how you make it will matter less.
Let no one bobo you, it is not so easy from the start.
The emotional stress of first finding a job, the pressure to balance your wife’s school fees in record time and also be the shoulder for your wife who will likely be in a roller coaster of emotions herself as a student, is REAL.
If you are not watchful, your marriage will suffer a strain especially is emotional outbursts are not managed properly because every party is ALLOWED to feel some type of way about school and work.
If you are short tempered like myself, start working on it as you will find yourself most often in positions where you will want to vent but your venting might just be your greatest career undoing so begin to master patience if you truly know where you are going.
There is also that tendency for your spouse to change or seem to have changed owing to the fact that you now live in a new reality and society which equalises both sexes.
If you are a bad husband, you will see shege in the abroad (but i believe we are all good men)
Drop every form of ‘do you know who i am’ at Nnamdi Azikiwe or Murtala Mohammed as no one knows who you are nor gives a rat as, you are coming to join a queue – a very long queue of nobodys.
Think of it as a fresh start and act accordingly.
While we may not all have been in the same ‘Class’ whiles in Nigeria, here in the UK? no body is top tier as everyone is given equal opportunity.
Should you be earning £6-11k a month as a whatever? that is for you and your kindred to excite over – i say again, nobody GAF.
I took time to mention the above as too many of us come in here with an LV box full of empty pride which i find senseless.
A husband and wife got separated because the husband, an SBO insists to only seek employment in the UK banking system and no where else, left to fend for
the family is his student wife and her meager 20 hours job, woman got tired and filed for a divorce – What pride cannot do does not exist’
A woman beater? DO NOT COME TO THIS ABROAD especially the UK lest you vacation in police cells every now and then.
Your eye no dey see naked women? DO NOT COME TO THIS ABROAD
period.
Back to the emotional side of things for men, it may not seem like anything to worry about but most men get depressed and would rather show it to their fellow men than their wives and children.
Majorly, men forfeit plans, career goals and visions just to make ends meet…
If you are lucky to have planned appropriately or have had a strategy, you could easily transition from blue collar to white collar jobs but the system here makes that transition smoothless and often times, men are left at crossroads to which they will pick SURVIVAL over career
But in the end, it all depends on what you want out of this life and what truly matters to you.
Another thing which is more of an advice will be for you to take good acre of yourself when you can, go for holidays, visit places, renew and refresh your mind, meet people
mix with the locals, do not deny yourself of certain local opportunities because you have been told that white people are bad so you cannot have white friends – FALSE.
There are bad and good people everywhere, just know on exactly what you want from whom.
Too many of us are
limiting ourselves because we judge all what people same: snobby, and backstabbing – but your friend in Nigeria that slept with your ex is white abi? De play!
While it is good to join the black community, it has its own demerits and merits too – use Akaonuche.
Lastly, while i have told you the ‘down sides’ of this end, let me also expose us to you😀 we get money!
We just have the monies planned, trust me, you look at UK peeps and adjudge UK folks broke abi? what you will learn when you come here is how to DISGUISE to avoid billing!
