Justice Eberechi Nyesom-Wike and her husband, Governor Nyesom Wike are celebrating their 17th wedding anniversary and they have been through it all, but her love for him grows stronger because, as she said, he chooses her every time.

“You promised to give me the world at that time but you have given me much more than I could have ever asked for,” she tells him now, adding, “Our three adorable children are a testimony to that fact and I can’t tell you enough, how fulfilled I feel.” She said.

She narrated “For three years, we sat in the same lecture rooms and halls but never passed a word between each other,” the justice says in her post. “It was only after I chanced upon his law note books in the possession of a mutual classmate that everything changed.”

Please permit me to use this medium to share some of the life lessons I have learnt in these past 17 years of marriage, especially in reaching out to encourage our youths who have skewed perceptions about marriage.

You have to make the right decision about your marriage. I made a decision to become a happy wife 17 years ago, by contributing to build a happy marriage. I learnt that marriage in itself doesn’t make you happy. You have to make your marriage a happy one. Marriage is not what you get. Marriage is what you bring, what you give and what you do.

There is no perfect marriage or perfect couples. Rather, when two imperfect friends honour and celebrate each other, they are empowered to build up a great blossoming marriage with flourishing children. Marriage, it has been said, is likened to an empty box that couples should labour to fill up with all the good things they want in their marriage – friendship, understanding, respect, love, etc. Love does not come packaged with any marriage. Love is in people and people put love in marriage. People infuse romance in marriage. Same thing with all the other values.