Over the last few days, there has been a story making the rounds that the 10-year-old marriage of Star Actress, Foluke Daramola to popular Media practitioner, Kayode Salako has packed up.
A few hours ago, the husband granted Citypeople magazine an exclusive interview during which he debunked the rumours. He revealed that there are some people out there who have been praying for their marriage to crash. Below are excerpts of the interview.
Good morning my dear brother. How did you feel when you woke up to see the story of your alleged fight with your wife on social media?
I wasn’t surprised, because it has been like that since I got married to Foluke 10 years ago. There are some people somewhere, who still hate the fact that, against their expectations, we are still sustaining it and they are sad about it. So, they secretly hire quacky and irresponsible journalists or hungry bloggers to keep doing the job of writing rubbish about the marriage. So, Foluke and I are used to it, but what I know is that I will always be here to do my own response to keep telling and assuring Nigerians that Foluke and I are still good and intact together.
What is really going on between you and Foluke?
What is going on between Foluke and me is that we are still living together as a couple. We still share the same bedroom and the marriage is still intact and doing well for the purpose God Himself consummated it 10 years ago.
How old is your marriage and what has kept your marriage going?
By God’s grace, the marriage will be 10 years old in about 4 months time.
And, what has been keeping the marriage going is the fact that we love each other; we have resolved not to allow it to break and the conviction that it is the will and purpose of God for our lives that must continue to be sustained. If there is no good conviction about it, the marriage might have gone away before now, because it has really, really been very challenging, tough and peculiar all along.
Why are many people so interested in your marriage to Foluke?
I Think that question should better be answered by such people.
But, for me, I think it is because Foluke is a Nollywood celeb and I a public figure, and besides, probably the way and manner the marriage was consummated and had been running successfully against the expectations of some Nigerians and haters from the beginning.
If not, I really don’t know the reason behind the unnecessary fuss about a marriage that is 10 years old already.
Do you compliment each other?
From our looks and in pictures you should know that.
Besides, if we do not compliment each other, we would not be in it, in the first place. And, if after getting into it, and we feel it is not worth it, we would have gone our separate ways before now.
10 years in a marriage is not a joke.
There is no point, wasting your life on a venture that is not worth it.
It is only one life, my brother!
What are the things you have done to make your marriage work?
As I always tell people, it is not love which sustains marriages. If not, most marital relationships would not be breaking, because everything about it always starts from ‘I love you!’
What sustains marriages as far as I am concerned, is the willingness of the two parties involved to decide they want to live together and continue to sustain it together against all odds.
They must know why they must continue to run it together. They must be convinced about it; be resolute about it and always work to make it work like that.
Foluke did not marry me, because I was the most financially endowed guy around her consciousness and consideration when we met. And, neither was she the most successful Nollywood actress as at the time. We just convinced about it and we trusted God that we could make it work.
However, all along, Foluke has never been a perfect woman in it and neither have I, but in the 10 years, we have both lived to accept our fates in it.
She is still willing to continue to sustain it with me and I am also still with her soul, body and spirit.
So, in a nutshell, our marriage has been working, because we do not only love each other, but we are still convinced about why we must continue to be together, regardless of our challenges and all the normal odds of marital issues in it.
Do you see this as the price you have to pay as celebrity?
Of course, celebrity marriages come with a lot of pressures from the expectations and impressions of the society.
If not for these attendant pressures, a lot of celebrity marriages wouldn’t have been crashing.
Unwarranted pressure on the wife; and unnecessary pressure on the hubby!
People just expect that, because you are in the face of public exposure, then you must live the way they want.
You must be a perfect human, who must not do things like the normal imperfect human beings any more.
You must live and run things to satisfy their impressions about it and you must never do anything below how they expect you to keep presenting it.
But, for us, we do not run our marriage under such kind of sentimental and cosmetic mentality.
Foluke and I live as if we are not celebrities and that is why the marriage is still surviving up till now.
Another secret of why my marriage to Foluke is still surviving here is that we both understand our situations perfectly. We both live to over look many things, and I, in particular, hardly read meanings to things around me or all she does. I learn to over look; read little or no meanings to things; live with Foluke to forgive easily and lead a simple, open and cerebrally straightforward life style.
That is part of the reasons the marriage is still working till this moment.
I let Foluke live her life the way she deserves it. She enjoys her freedom optimally. I don’t gag her. I hardly suspect her of infidelity and I don’t lord it all over her.
The policy of what we have been building and running together is purely on the principle of ‘live and let live’ basis. She is okay with her life under me and I am okay with mine as well.
Who is Kayode Salako? Has he been misunderstood?
Olukayode Salako is just a man, who likes to live his own life the way he deserves it and that is why I hardly go to the hospital to treat anything. I have been a very healthy man all my life. Nothing that people think that I am is in my head.
As I have always said to people around me, nothing can tie you down, except you want to be tied down. And Foluke knows this about me.
What culture says cannot tie me down; what religion says cannot and Foluke knows that even what the marriage I am running with her says cannot tie me down. Except I want to be tied down, because when I die nobody goes with me, including Foluke herself, or any of my children.
Education cannot tie me down and neither can the dictate of social norms can. I just live my life to be free, okay and good in it.
Mentally, I am free!
Emotionally, I do not have any issue with anyone!
And, psychologically, I am a complete man!
So, whatever people think about it that I am do not bother me. I just live my life as simple, open heartedly and as good as I like to feel and enjoy it.
When I need to express anything about situations around me, I do it and when it is not neccesary to respond, then you won’t see me say anything about it.
My best hubby is writing and expressing it to inform it and to educate the society.
Mr. Salako, can you say your wife is an ideal woman for you so far?
Foluke, like every natural daughter of Eve, the wife of the Adam in the garden of Eden, cannot be expected to be perfect, but she is trying her best to sustain her marriage and continues to survive responsbly in it, in spite of all the social pressures on her head as a celebrity.
There are occasions, when we have to drag issues, which is normal to every marriage.
Sometimes, we would drag it and people around us would think it was over between us, but the bond we have built; the conviction we got before we got into it and our resolutions to continue to live together have kept us still in it up till now and for the 10 years.
In all of these, one thing you can’t take away from Foluke is that she is a genuine lover. If she loves you, she loves you. And she is a responsible woman to the core.
If Foluke had not been a woman of such beautiful values and virtues, the marriage would have long gone. Or, perhaps we would have stopped sharing the same bedroom.
My wife is not perfect. In fact, she a very tough and dogged woman, and could be very troublesome sometimes, but she is still ideal and okay for me as my wife.
Send Us News, Gist, more... to citypeopleng@gmail.com | Twitter: @CitypeopleMagz
