Ace-comedian,
Atuyota Akporobomeriere, a.k.a Ali Baba, shares the story of his
eight-year-old marriage to his wife, Mary. He has always testified that
marriage has brought him happiness, and fulfillment. Their marriage is
blessed with six children, including an adopted daughter. - See more
at:
Marriage has
been good. It’s a stablising factor, it helps one to plan properly. It
also redefines your responsibility pattern. When you are a young man, you don’t
have the kind of responsibility you should have as a man. For instance, if
somebody says ‘let’s go partying in Ghana,’ you are ready to storm Ghana
without anything holding you back.
But when you
get married, you will no longer take that kind of decision on your own.
It means that a lot of things you do will now have to be shared
with your partner. Marriage also helps you not only to reorganise youself in
respect of how you want to live your life, but, more importantly, how you
spend the money that you make in your business.
Meeting my
wife
I met my wife
after I had started my comedy business.
My wife being
my fan
Not at all.
She was my banker. I met her while I was banking with the now rested Citzens
Bank.
Proposing to
her
It took a long
time. For the kind of person that I am, particularly in my own kind of
business and also, in her own kind of profession, she needed closure and a lot
more to be offered to her. Given my kind of business, you don’t blame her if
she’s skeptical because of the exposure that comes with it. I think
sincerity of purpose was one of those reasons that made her to accept my
proposal.
How long I
have been married
I have been
married for eight years. But we have been together for over 16 years.
Courtship
before marriage
Yes, courtship
with a purpose, indicating that this is where I am going to, and it would be
nice if you would go with me. Unlike when you say, ‘this is where I am’, and
your partner says, ‘okay, I am thinking about it’. You will be compelled
to convince the person that you are actually going in that
direction.
Secrets of the
success story of my marriage
My wife has
been the secret of our success story in marriage and God. She is the glue that
keeps holding us together. She holds the home front, she also manages me. I am
not the easiest person to live with, considering the fact that I am an
artiste and always on the move. She’s somebody who believes in firm planning.
She likes to do everything according to plan. I am the kind of person that
works on the fly and I think on the fly as well. But she finally began to make
me to fall in line. She’s a stabilising factor in my life.
Having
admirers in marriage
You will
continue to have admirers even after marriage. It’s natural that everybody gets
attracted to what is good. And so, for anybody who becomes a celebrity, you
would see people who would want to associate with you, not because of
your real person, but because of the popularity and cloud of celebrity that
surrounds you. It’s a mix of all of that and you decide on how to handle the
situation.
Love at first
sight
It was a case
of getting to know the kind of person she was, and knowing that she was a
family oriented person. She’s also a very professional person, and it took a
cousin of hers to introduce us to each other.
Your parents
opposing the union
Not at all. My
dad’s main concern is whether she’s somebody that ‘you are comfortable with,
somebody who can support your dreams and make you grow as you would want to
grow. If she’s, then we will support you’.
Pitfalls in
marriage
When respect
is eroded and when the causes of happiness are missing in marriage. If
your spouse is somebody who likes to be pampered and you do not have the
means of pampering her or don’t have the time to pamper her, it begins to
get at her. So, in every relationship, once your partner begins to want
something that is
supposed to
make him or her happy, it systematically leads to break up of that
relationship. But beyond this, issues of infidelity, jealousy, incompatibility
and inreconcilable differences could also lead to break up of marriages. You
need to know the kind of person you are going to spend the rest of your life
with.
What I don’t
like about her
There are a
lot of things I don’t like about her just as there are lots of things I like
about her. Sometimes, she pushes me too hard. She’s like telling me ‘you can do
it, give it a trial’. Sometimes, I resist the pressure she mounts on me. But
later, I discovered that after I have done it, it actually works out well. She
sometimes feels I am not where I am supposed to be yet. And the pressure
is not about her, rather it’s about where she feels you are supposed to
be, and you are not. That’s positive. But there are some people who can’t take
that.
Hanging out
We hang out a
lot. She’s always a busy woman, but as much time as we have, we hang out. She
dances very well, but she’s not the partying type.
Attraction
A lot of
things attracted me to her. Apart from being a professional, she’s a stablising
factor in my life. She has great sense of humour, she cooks well and she’s a
very pretty woman. She understands the thespian in me, having read Theatre
Arts as her first degree. Above all, she normally sees where my dreams
are going.
Advice for
young couples
Getting to
understand themselves. For a lot of young artistes, it’s not knowing who you
really want to settle down with because fame has crept in. You find it
easy to settle down with somebody who wants fame to set in. But when you now
become popular, you do not know who really loves you for who you are, or
because of the fame. What I’m saying is that, as a celebrity, it pays if you
get married before you achieve fame. This is because, as soon as you
become famous, a lot of distractions and camouflaging will come into play.
Break up of
celebrity marriages
I don’t have
issues with that. To me, your happiness in marriage is key to every
thing. That is not to say, for every flimsy excuse that you have, you
walk out of your marriage. But if the person you finally got married to, turns
out to be somebody totally different from somebody who you thought he
was, or totally different from who you expected the person to be, you are in
such a situation where the person is key to your happiness, you prefer to be
away from home in order to find happiness than to come back home and
break down.
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