adminLAGOS: The fact that “break-up” has been tagged on TikTok more than 21 billion times shows just how many people want to talk about or get advice on heartbreak.
So maybe it’s no surprise that there are break-up coaches, like Aronke Omame, who make a living by helping them through the experience.
It’s 1993 and 35-year-old commercial lawyer Aronke Omame is about to learn a lesson in heartbreak that will change her life.
She is in a court in the Nigerian city of Lagos, but for once she is not representing a client.
She’s supporting her friend, Mary (not her real name), whose parents are going through a divorce.
Mary’s mother, Aronke notes, keeps looking over at Mary’s father across the aisle. It’s not subtle.
She is craning her neck to catch his eye.
Then, as the judge calls for a short break, Aronke watches, frozen, as Mary and her mother cross towards Mary’s father.
The courtroom is silent, all eyes on the family.
There’s a gasp at what happens next.
Mary and her mother kneel before the father. With their heads bowed they implore him to not break up the family.
But Mary’s father raises his chin and with a sneer begins swearing at the women loudly, in front of everyone. When Aronke was 18, she was in law school when she fell in love for the first time.
But there’s a problem.
He wants to have sex and she is not ready.
“I didn’t believe in sex before marriage,” she says, “I was very homely.”
She tries to compensate in other ways, to be available, loving and spontaneous.
One day, she goes to his home to surprise him, only to find the young man kissing another young woman.
“I was heartbroken. I stomped out thinking to myself that he was going to come after me.”
He didn’t. For the next few years she immerses herself in studying family law and relationship coaching.
Her friends always nicknamed her “Sisi Lawyer” (lady lawyer), now they call her “Sisi Lawyer: break-up coach”.
She went through a divorce of her own, but hers had never turned as ugly as the public humiliation she’d just witnessed.
She wonders how a woman in her 60s could kneel before a man who clearly mistreats her, and beg him to not leave her. Then it clicks.
“The culture supports a woman being subjugated to her husband,” Aronke says. “If I hadn’t noticed it before, I did now.”
But there certainly seems to be a market for help getting over heartbreak.
Aronke charges 150 000 Nigerian naira (about £300) for three sessions. She says she starts by giving her clients a framework on how to get their life back on track. The first two weeks are crucial, she says.
She encourages her clients to cry, unfollow or mute their ex on all social media, and task a trusted friend to help stop them reaching for the phone to call him.
“Your mind will trick you with excuses on why you feel you need to call them,” she says. “Don’t listen to it, it is lying to you. If you need to, hand over your phone to your friend.”
A more unusual tip is to change your ex’s name when you speak about him.
“If his name is Steven, call him Robert while talking about him. You may be less angry and more objective about Robert.”
Then Aronke instructs her clients on how to strategise for the long term.
“Often money and property are mixed up in relationships, and they need to be separated. It’s messy and people need help with that.”
She helps women go through their finances and budget for being alone.
Sisi Lawyer says she does get criticism online from people saying, “Of course this lady wants to break up families, she is a divorced woman.” It doesn’t bother her, she says. She has a partner but it wouldn’t affect her even if she was single.
“Either way, I am happy,” she says, “And isn’t that the point? There is light at the end of the tunnel. Sometimes losing a relationship is a wake up call to learn how to build better relationships going forward.”
l The digital rise in break-ups
◆ Google says searches for “get over break-up” have doubled in the past five years, and more than tripled since 2012
◆ KeywordTool.io, an AI-powered tool that measures search terms over several platforms, says Ireland has searched most for “how to get over a break-up/your ex” in the last 10 years, and that Nigeria, Singapore, India, Australia, Kenya, the US and the UK are among others in the top 10
◆ On TikTok #breakup has over 21 billion tags and #gettingoverabreakup has 8,7 million
◆ The International Coaching Federation, the industry body for the personal development coaching business, says relationship coaching, which includes break-up coaching, is now worth more than $1bn per year, — BBC.
Mathew Masinge
Online Reporter