Why are men no longer keen on marrying church girls?
September 12, 2026 12:45 am
Chukwuneta Oby
Many Nigerian men looking for a wife are now de-emphasising church.
Some of them claim that once they hear that a lady is a “born-again”, too many vices (and not virtues) come to mind, including:
The possibility of an extramarital affair with her pastor
Loyalty to pastors and not her husband
Priority to church and not family obligations
Becoming an agent of disunity in the family she’s married into
Sowing church seeds with his hard-earned money
These men believe that the charity of many church girls does not begin at home, but starts and ends with pleasing her pastor.
They are armed with so many disturbing narratives that one can’t even argue them into a change of heart.
According to a man who contacted me recently, the “church” victim was his relative, a practitioner in the medical field, living with her husband and three children overseas.
A woman who was said to be doing so well economically.
All of a sudden, her friends (living overseas as well) sniffed out a Nigerian miracle-working pastor and, in no time, the women began to take turns to observe a “pilgrimage” in the man’s space.
One went and came back with testimonies about how the husband was loving her more and doing all she said.
The second one went and made the same claim, in addition to “not seeing her period” again because a miracle baby was on the way.
So, his relative packed her things, told her husband and children that she was visiting Nigeria for a short holiday … only to unpack at the pastor’s place.
He said that the family became alarmed when unreasonable sums of money were being withdrawn from the family’s account, followed by her reluctance to return to base, often claiming that life over there was too stressful and she wanted to rest more in Nigeria.
The husband pulled some strings and the account was blocked after he notified the bank that he could not ascertain her whereabouts.
Then came the shocking realisation that she had actually moved in with the pastor.
She lived with that pastor for five good years before she found her way back to the US, with a toddler.
The husband had already remarried and moved on.
Tales were rife about how the pastor was “offering” her to other men, too.
It’s believed that the numerous abuses she experienced at the hands of the pastor were actually what made the scales fall from her eyes.
Unfortunately, she had lost everything and relied heavily on handouts from people to start rebuilding her life.
A man once told me the story of how he discovered that the every-Saturday-morning drive his wife made from Lagos to Ibadan was for a naked bath that a white-garment prophet gave her in the stream.
He said that he could not wrap his head around it because she lacked nothing, despite being his second wife. They are currently separated.
The man said that he does not feel safe around her anymore and that she could not even convince him of what that naked bath in the stream was all about.
What I tell people…
If you have a relatively stable/peaceful marriage, please kill that thing telling you that it could be better somewhere else. It is seldom so. And you will find out the hard way.
What’s often needed is for those in that union to roll up their sleeves and keep going at it.
A deliverance of the self that many Nigerians need to carry out is the penchant for miracles!
God does not need you to move “crazy” before He does what He will do for you.
Besides, let us make peace with the fact that life can never be perfect. There will always be areas of our lives that make us sigh, but that’s what God is there for, so hand over such concerns to Him and find peace.
If the church you are attending is not helping you become a more positive and loving person, you are in the wrong environment for your soul.
If the prayers and sermons are all about people who are “chasing you”, your mental health will become a mess in that space before you catch yourself.
Keep your distance from people who are always sniffing out miracle centres. Most times, they don’t give you the full picture, and that is also human nature… that selfish desire to not be the only one who has touched dust.
Nigerians are yet to realise that religious settings harbour an unbelievable pool of individuals who are mentally unwell but cover it up with the name of God.
You only need to get closer!
Then again, how many people really know how mentally fragile their spouses are?
What efforts are you making to help save them from themselves?
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