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.

Tomiwa*, 32, has been married for two years and has always maintained friendships outside his marriage. When some of his university friends planned a weekend getaway to Ibadan, his wife hinted that she wanted to come along. Tomiwa decided against it, and now she thinks he cares more about his friends than he does about including her in his life. 

At the end of this story, you’ll get to answer one question: Did he fuck up or not?

This is Tomiwa’s dilemma, as told to Adeyinka.

My wife and I have mutual friends, but we also have separate friendship circles from university. I’ve kept in touch with most of my friends from school, both men and women. Most of them know my wife, and some have met her several times, but they aren’t really her friends. I don’t see that as a problem because I like to keep our friend groups separate.

When my university friends started planning a weekend getaway to Ibadan, I was excited. It had been a while since I had spent proper time with some of them, and I knew it would be one of those trips where we could relax, drink, talk about old times and generally be ourselves. I never considered it a couples’ trip, so I assumed I would go alone.

A few days before we left, my wife started saying she would be lonely while I was away. She said she didn’t have anything planned and kept asking what everyone was doing in Ibadan. She never directly asked to come, but I knew what she was getting at.

I still didn’t want her to come, and I had three reasons. The first was that I wouldn’t be as free around my friends if she came. I’d spend the whole trip checking whether she was enjoying herself, whether she felt left out and whether I was spending enough time with her. I wanted a weekend where I could relax with people who knew me from university.

The second reason was that she wasn’t friends with these people. I like that we have mutual friends, but I also think it’s healthy for us to have separate friendships. I don’t want every friend I have to automatically become my wife’s friend just because we got married.

The last reason sounds worse, but it was part of my thinking. My wife complains a lot. If something annoys her, she usually says so, and I could already imagine her having an issue with something on the trip. Maybe it would be the accommodation, the food, someone’s behaviour, or even how we spent our time. I didn’t want to spend a weekend managing that when I was supposed to be relaxing.

So I didn’t invite her.

I went to Ibadan for two days, and I had a great time. We caught up, drank, ate and talked about university memories. There were things my wife would have enjoyed, but there were also plenty of inside jokes and stories that only made sense because we had all been there together years ago.

I posted a lot from the trip on my Instagram story, and she watched it all. I wasn’t trying to hide where I was or what I was doing. We spoke on both days, but not for long because I was usually with everyone else. She didn’t complain about that while I was away.

When I got home, though, her mood changed. She became quiet and distant, and whenever I asked what was wrong, she would say nothing was wrong. After a while, she started making comments about how I had clearly enjoyed myself without her.

One evening, she said, “At least you had your friends.”

I asked what she meant, and she told me she felt like I had deliberately excluded her. She said she didn’t understand why I was comfortable travelling with people who were important to me, but didn’t think she should be there.

I explained that it wasn’t because I was ashamed of her or because I didn’t want my friends to meet her. Most of them already knew her. I simply wanted to spend time with my friends without having to think about whether my wife was enjoying herself.

But she said that was exactly the problem. According to her, I had already decided that she would spoil the trip before she even had the opportunity to come. She also said that if these people mattered enough for me to travel to another city with them, she didn’t understand why I was so resistant to letting her get to know them better.

That made me think about whether I had handled things badly. I still don’t think every trip has to include your spouse. If my wife wants to spend a weekend with friends I don’t know well, I wouldn’t automatically expect an invitation. I also don’t think marriage should mean losing the friendships you had before it.

But I can see why she felt hurt. She was clearly hinting that she wanted to come, and instead of having an honest conversation with her, I decided for both of us that she shouldn’t come. Maybe I should have told her directly that I wanted this particular weekend to be with my university friends and allowed her to tell me how she felt about it.

She’s still moody about the trip, and I don’t know if she’s genuinely upset about being left out or if there’s something else. 

I don’t regret enjoying the weekend with my friends, but I do wonder whether I could have done so without making my wife feel unwelcome in an important part of my life.

Did Tomiwa F-ck or not? Take the poll here.

 *Names have been changed to protect the identity of the subjects.