Popular media personality Toke Makinwa is looking back on her marriage with clearer eyes and taking accountability on some of the things she now sees she too did wrong in her now-ended marriage. Making the revelations on a podcast with Madam Joyce, Toke got very honest in speaking about her ex-husband and their previous marriage. Here’s what Toke Makinwa had to say.
Speaking about things she did wrong in her last marriage, Toke Makinwa said:
TOKE MAKINWA: My ex and I are good friends now. Good-ish I mean. We’re good, we’re not enemies. And it took therapy to admit what I’m about to admit to you. I also don’t know who he married. That girl and I are two different people. I mean, I was having identity issues in my 20s. I didn’t know what I wanted from my career.
And to put that much burden on someone to make you happy is the worst disservice you can do to yourself. I let myself first down by letting my happiness hang on one man, and I don’t even know how he pulled through.
Because I’m sure he was trying to navigate his own life, and there is this girl who is holding onto you, who is dating so serious. I don’t know whether it’s the movies that taught us that when we date, we think every relationship must lead to you walking down the aisle. I don’t know where I got that sense of “oh my god, this is the one and and he must be the one, and I must be faithful to him and we must have this relationship that if it doesn’t lead to marriage, I don’t think—”It was just nasty. And it took me going through therapy to admit that we just were not fit for each other. Nobody deserves to be with someone who puts their entire happiness on them. Your happiness is your priority and your job, and I realized that in my 30s.
With everything divorce or relationship, it takes two. Nobody goes through a divorce by themselves. Like you know, I would admit I never cooked him a meal in the time that we were married because I didn’t think he deserved it.
Because I had a lot of resentment, so I didn’t see myself standing in the kitchen making you a meal cuz I’m just thinking “after everything you put me through, you not want to eat.” I shouldn’t have married him because nobody, even a prisoner on death row, deserves some form of mercy. Nobody deserves to be with somebody that is reminding them of what they did in 19-something-something.
I salute him for staying with that girl. It does not also absolve him of his faults. I’m just saying nobody deserves to hold the keys to your happiness, and I think you know getting the bag did that for me. Finding myself in my career, finding myself in the knowledge of what God feels about me did that for me.
So if I get married again now, he’s meeting a wholesome person. There’s nobody that’s going to tell me who I am. Like honey, I’ve been doing this before you came along. Sit down, I know who I am.