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Title: When the Honeymoon Ends
Episode 3: “When Money Gets Funny”
Word Count: ~1,130 words
Amaka’s POV
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Three months into our marriage, I stopped calculating love with butterflies. I started measuring it in power units, gas refills, and transport fare to work.
Money—or the absence of it—was quietly strangling us.
Chike had been promised a promotion at his job months before we got married. But after the wedding, all he got was “We’re still working on it.” Meanwhile, his N68,000 monthly salary came late, and my own N45,000 teaching job barely lasted two weeks in our hands.
By the end of every month, we were scraping through—borrowing, postponing bills, and sacrificing essentials.
But nothing prepared me for the day our landlord knocked.
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It was a Saturday morning. I had just finished hand-washing our clothes and was spreading them on the line behind the building when I saw him. Mr. Okoye. Grey beard, sour face, shirt tucked into faded trousers like a retired soldier.
He didn’t smile.
“Madam,” he said. “Good morning. Is your husband around?”
“He just stepped out to buy fuel,” I said, suddenly nervous.
He nodded. “Please tell him I need to see him today. Your rent will expire next month. And I don’t want stories.”
I forced a smile. “Okay, sir. We’re aware.”
But we weren’t.
Chike had mentioned something about it during our engagement, but I assumed he had handled it. That evening, when he returned with a jerry can of petrol and change of ₦300, I broke the news.
His face dropped.
“I totally forgot,” he said. “But we’ll figure it out.”
“Chike, the rent is N180,000.”
He sighed, rubbing his forehead. “Let me call Emeka. He still owes me N50,000 from the wedding. Maybe he can return it.”
But Emeka’s phone rang unanswered for days.
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By the following week, we were skipping dinner to save what little we had. I sold one of my Ankara wrappers online and got N4,000. Chike pawned his old phone for N6,000. But it was a drop in the ocean.
Still, we kept showing up.
We’d laugh over soaked garri like it was pepper soup. We walked to church to save transport. We even stopped subscribing to data bundles—we’d hotspot from a neighbor’s Wi-Fi after “borrowing” her password during Ada’s visit.
But the pressure built quietly.
One night, Chike snapped.
I asked, “How far with rent?” and he flared up.
“Must you remind me every time? Do you think I’m not trying?”
I was shocked.
“I didn’t mean to upset you,” I said gently.
He looked at me with a mix of guilt and exhaustion. “I know. I just… feel like a failure sometimes.”
I didn’t reply. I simply held his hand.
We sat in silence, surrounded by heat, darkness, and the low hum of the neighbor’s generator.
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That same week, I got sick.
It started as a mild fever. Then body pain. Then I couldn’t get out of bed. We had no savings. No HMO. Chike rushed to a nearby pharmacy and begged them to sell drugs on credit. Thankfully, the pharmacist knew him.
I recovered in a few days, but the scare shook us.
That night, I told him, “We need a plan. This hand-to-mouth thing is draining us.”
He agreed. So we drew up a budget on paper.
We listed everything we spent monthly—from NEPA bills to sachet water. Then we crossed out non-essentials: no more shawarma treats on Fridays, no data unless it’s strictly for work, and no more “borrowing small money” to dash relatives.
It wasn’t much. But it was a start.
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One day at work, my colleague Chioma whispered that she made ₦10,000 extra every week writing lesson notes for other teachers.
“You should try it, Amaka. You write well.”
I didn’t think much of it—until I gave it a shot.
Within three weeks, I had earned N15,000.
I came home one evening and handed Chike an envelope.
He opened it. “Where did you get this?”
“I wrote for three schools. Lesson notes and schemes.”
He smiled—genuinely. “My babe, the hustler.”
I blushed. “We’re in this together, abi?”
That N15,000 became N30,000 the next month. Chike too started doing weekend wiring jobs with a friend from church, even though it meant leaving the house by 6 a.m. and returning dusty and worn out.
Bit by bit, we gathered N90,000 for the rent.
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Mr. Okoye gave us a stern warning, but he accepted part payment. We signed an agreement to clear the rest in two months.
We celebrated that night with cold Maltina and fried plantain.
It wasn’t just about the money.
It was about surviving our first big storm.
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I used to think love was proved in candlelit dinners, surprise gifts, and matching outfits.
But that night, love was Chike pressing my blistered feet after a long day, whispering, “Don’t worry, we’ll buy a car one day—even if na keke first.”
We laughed.
And somehow, everything felt light again.
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To be continued in Episode 4: “Between Us and the World”
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