Sometimes, life puts you in messy situations where you’re not sure if you’re doing the right thing or not. That’s what Na Me F— Up? is about — real Nigerians sharing the choices they’ve made, while you decide if they fucked up or not.
Bose* (55) and Tayo*(34) became close friends after bonding over their shared experiences as stay-at-home mothers. However, Bose’s well-intentioned assistance to Tayo’s husband started a chain of events that has now left her questioning her choices.
When you’re done reading, you’ll get to decide: Did Bose fuck up or not?
Tayo and I met when I moved into my apartment with my family in 2018. She lived in the flat directly opposite mine, and as stay-at-home mums, we began to spend time together after our kids had gone off to school.
I was initially reluctant to throw myself into our friendship due to our significant age gap, but it didn’t prove to be an issue, and I took on a “big sister” role in Tayo’s life.
Because of our closeness, our families also became close, and so when she complained that her husband couldn’t get a better-paying job, I asked my husband to help him find better opportunities. My husband connected hers with a new job that came with a generous salary in Abuja. Unfortunately, this became a source of strain in Tayo’s marriage.
She felt that the new distance created by her husband’s job, along with his bigger salary, would give him the space and resources to begin cheating on her. I knew Tayo’s husband and felt that he was a good man who wouldn’t betray her, so I told her to stop thinking negatively about it and instead consider the positives that came with his job. She didn’t see things my way.
On a trip to visit her husband in late 2019, she went to his office and accused one of his coworkers of trying to wreck her home. Her evidence? Her husband uploaded a group photo taken at the office to his Facebook page, and she had noticed the lady was standing “too close to him to be his friend”. Tayo’s husband felt embarrassed, and he also got into trouble at work, receiving a stern warning.
When I heard about this from her husband, I was disappointed in Tayo and tried to speak to her about it, but she insisted that if she didn’t do something too drastic, her husband was bound to try to cheat on her when he was away.
The lockdown rolled around in 2020, and our husbands couldn’t visit from Abuja as often as they used to, so we kept each other company for the most part. In September that year, I noticed that Tayo was spending more and more time with a man who owned a car dealership near the neighbourhood.
As a friend, I advised that it wasn’t a good look for a married woman to be spending so much time with an older bachelor, especially since it was within the neighbourhood. I was sure that tongues would soon start wagging and spreading rumours. She dismissed my concerns and didn’t take my advice seriously.
As I predicted, rumours that Tayo and the car dealer were dating started spreading and eventually got back to her husband. When he came home for the Christmas break, they had a huge argument about it that ended with Tayo’s husband storming out of the flat and going back to Abuja.
I tried to de-escalate things, but Tayo confirmed to me that she was indeed dating the car dealer, and he had promised to marry her and accept her kids, too. She said they planned to relocate to Germany in January 2021, and she would file for divorce. There was nothing I didn’t say to try to convince her to change her mind, but she claimed to have lost trust in her husband and was ready to leave.
January came, and one day, I woke up to Tayoknocking angrily at my door, accusing me of destroying her marriage. I was shocked.
When I asked why she’d accuse me of that, she said the car dealer had broken up with her and had gone on with his relocation plans with another woman. She blamed my husband and me for introducing her husband to a job that led to their marriage becoming a long-distance one, which she claimed was the main source of their problems.
I won’t deny that I felt bad for her. I even followed her and some of her family members to visit her in-laws, to try to see if we could get her husband to forgive her and reconcile, but he refused and insisted that they go through with the divorce.
We still live opposite each other, but our friendship has fizzled out. She no longer responds when I greet her in the mornings, and she keeps her children away from mine.
I thought I was helping a friend out by securing a better job for her husband. Was I wrong for not considering that she would hate the distance that came with it? My husband says it was her jealousy that was her undoing, but I can’t shake the feeling that my interference also played a role.
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