Have you ever gotten really annoyed when you hear or find out that you have to wait?

Whether it’s at a bank.
Or CAC, MTN, NIN and other civil service offices.
Or when you have to wait for the traffic lights to turn green.
Or for a spouse.
Or for a child.
Or for test results.
Or for food that’s already in the microwave.

A while ago, news came out about a Nigerian magistrate who had just found out that he isn’t the biological father to any of the four children from his first marriage.

He’d already remarried and had children in the second (which is his current) marriage by the time he found out.

Which was just as well, cos the first thing that comes to the mind of any man in such a situation is that he might be infertile.

Even you, as you’re reading this, you’re wondering if that was the case.

Which is what came to the magistrate’s mind cos he then subjected the children from his current marriage to DNA testing.

Cos four times beaten, forever shy. Or something like that.

The current wife, who’s a lawyer, understood why and agreed to the DNA testing on her children. Plus she had nothing to hide; all the children from the second marriage are his.

Nobody knows why the ex wife did what she did. When they got divorced, she just upped and left and never stayed in contact with the children – the last one is about to go to uni.

In Nigeria, under general circumstances, you legally have to be at least 16 to go to uni. And if a man has four children, the last of whom is at least 16, you can imagine how old the man is.

Do you know that if this magistrate had just waited, yes time would have been passing yet he would have still been a father (cos he has children from the current marriage) but without the trauma from the first union?

Yes, he’d have been a considerably older first-time father (in the eyes of everyone around, including himself). But isn’t that still the case?

Cos in reality, despite what it looked like at the time, the first time he became a biological father isn’t when his now ex wife presented him a child more than 20 years ago!

He became a biological father for the first time when his current wife conceived!

But now he has to deal with the additional problem of not knowing what to do with the children from the first marriage cos anytime he looks at them, he remembers. A problem that wouldn’t have existed if he had waited.

Yet, there’s voices of people in his ear saying, “Oh, but you’re the only father they’ve ever known; don’t punish them for their mother’s sins.” Cos from reports, the ex was terrible.

The same people who would have said there was something wrong with him if he didn’t marry on time, according to their timetable!

Have you noticed how the very people whose perceptions and opinions of your situation torment you, are NEVER there to bear the consequences with you when whatever they’ve encouraged you to do backfires? And it always backfires!

When you don’t wait when or where you’re supposed to, there are always consequences. That’s why you might be in a union with someone who’s actually punishing you for what your razz/trashy/diabolical predecessor did! As if you’re the one who hurt them.

Or you’re even behaving irrationally toward your current, cos your dealings with ex have given you major trust issues. Who sent you there?

Imagine telling a wo/man who’s genuinely crazy about you and would never hurt you, that s/he needs to prove they’re not the ex that battered, cheated and demeaned you. Meanwhile that ex wouldn’t even have existed in your life if you had just agreed to wait for the real thing.

I said it before in this post about what to bear in mind when you find the wait confusing, and I’m saying it again: don’t allow anyone pepper, panic or pressure you into not waiting for your own.

But seriously though, why do you find having to wait, so hard? Let me know in the comments below.