Turning to her I asked: ‘What sort of a woman are you?  Do you have any conscience at all?  Would you like to be treated like this if and when you eventually found a husband?  ‘On and on I went as I marched my son into his car and got in with him.  I asked the driver to take Tope to her new home and told Fola to take me home.

Gemima protested she didn’t need to, as she meant to go into private business right away.  But Fade ‘our friend’, talked her into changing her mind in case she had the prospect of a political appointment in future. Her ambition wouldn’t be flawed by a simple thing as the lack of a service certificate. So, the poor girl came home looking ravishing and sophisticated.

“I was really gutted and I felt  betrayed. Raymond showed no remorse whatsoever and it was him who told me Dupe was expecting his child. I was really bitter. So, I had an affair I was sorry for, but it was obvious Dupe set me up so she could steal my husband. A single mother, the father of her son had abandoned her when he travelled abroad.

With the passing on of one’s mother, the shape of a family changes abruptly. The children are in shock, and the father, even though he’s expected to be strong, is most of the time bewildered.  With time, the pain might be dulled, but the grief resurfaces from time to time over the years

a) Always look on  the  dark side of life. See the glass as half empty rather than full,    regard changing   circumstances   as    disasters    rather   than opportunities, always expect things to go wrong, and your negativity will remain intact.

For all you know, such `husbands’ are either non-existent or are out with other interesting `discoveries’. No matter what criticisms you have against this type of freedom, it is still good for the female psyche. You go out to let off seam and not necessarily to be mischievous as most men want to believe”.

“It was a most heart-wrenching experience dolling out retrenchment letters and watching the bleak expressions on the faces of staff who have lost their jobs”, she said sadly.  A few weeks later, I was her turn to get the dreaded `golden handshake’

“Only three short years after marriage, I sat on my favourite chair, the radio blaring music that was meaningless to me. Then, all of a sudden, this tune came on and all I could hear of the music was  the singer’s constant refrain: “Where is the love that you promised me?” The single might as well be echoing my thoughts, and I sat thee, too numb to think.  I shed all the tears there were to shed. The future looked bleak, and my husband was somewhere else living with a woman who wasn’t free to marry him.

When Wendy rang to ask me if I’d go on a date with her, my first reaction was that she’d gone completely insane’, recalled Jubril, a university lecturer.  “Our relationship was great when we first got together but it ended badly and since then we’ve only seen each other occasionally.

“After Michael proposed, we both went to my parents to give them the good news. As soon as they got glimpse of the sparkling engagement ring, they were ecstatic. ‘You’ve got a good man here, Lynda’, my mum beamed.  `My son-in-law to be!’ dad added, giving Mike a very warm handshake. I couldn’t wait to get married and my parents urged us to go ahead with our wedding plans – they were paying.  What’s more, we should spare no expense.

“The mum was constantly unfaithful to me, so I sent her away. Unfortunately, my second wife was hostile to her four step-children, so two of them opted to stay with their mother, Rose (the `mathematician’) and her elder sister. When Rose finished primary school, her mother informed me that the school had just started the secondary school wing, so I agreed for her to attend.  I’m off to that school now to find out what went wrong”.

With virtually all ‘heavy’ A list parties being dominated by women, it stands to reason that most of the exotic drinks, especially alcohol, would be guzzled by them. Little wonder that women are increasingly being told they’re are drinking too much, consuming more alcohol than ever before. Binge drinking, where you knock back the stuff at social outings is now a favourite activity.

The number of people getting married is decreasing, while the number of people staying single or in non-committal relationship is on the rise. As an alternative to monogamy, a lot of couples are opting for an open relationship for a variety of reasons.

In stressful situations such as sleep deprivation, these arousal proteins occurs at levels that are high enough to trigger pain”, says Allder.  “It is easy to see how several nights of interrupted sleep can make people more susceptible to developing chronic pain.

With all the fuss we made of Valentine’s Day and all the mushy gifts that cost the earth but are soon put at the back of the wardrobe, all the expensive cards that eventually end up in the dustbin – better alternatives that could be useful to your better half could come in handy.