The lead pastor of RCCG The Envoys, Lagos, Daniel Olawande, has revealed a deeply personal chapter in his marriage, disclosing that he once became so emotionally disconnected from his wife that he was no longer sexually attracted to her.
Speaking candidly in an episode of the Love Gist podcast, the youth pastor admitted to feeling overwhelmed and repelled by his wife’s attempts at intimacy during that period.
According to him, despite her desire to connect, he found himself constantly irritated and distant.
He said, “There was a time that I felt disconnected from my babe, and I was just tired of her. I know you’ll be shocked to hear this but I was just tired, I was just fed up as in she wasn’t appealing to me anymore, she wasn’t attractive and I became overwhelmed, like she touches me, I’m touchy, like she was even the one asking for s3x at that time and I was not available. Any little thing, I was not excited anymore, and I don’t know what was happening, so I had to go to a mentor to talk to her about it.
“I don’t know what is happening, I get angry easily, I get emotional, I mean I just become defensive, I’m not just attracted to her as it were and we’ve not, of course when I fast, we don’t have s3x but this one, there’s no fasting and I’ve not been able to even come close to my wife for a while.
Olawande described the experience as confusing and emotionally draining, noting that there was no external reason like fasting or illness, just a sudden loss of desire.
In a bid to salvage the relationship, he sought help from a mentor, who in turn reached out to his wife.
“I was just disconnected from her, and I was not really feeling it anymore, but I went to her mentor, and her mentor spoke to her, her mentor apologised on her behalf, her mentor said that she was going to talk to her, so her mentor called her for a meeting,” he said.
Following the intervention, his wife planned a surprise romantic evening that reignited the spark in their marriage.
She picked him up under the guise of visiting someone, only to drive him to a hotel room adorned with roses and a lavishly set table of his favourite dishes.
“I don’t know what they discussed and then the next evening, we were going out and my wife requested that I allow her to drive and then she drove the car and drove me to a hotel and I got there, she said we’re going to see somebody and then we’re going, I was like who am I going to see and I entered the room, I saw roses on the floor, roses on the bed, I saw a table set before me, a lot of, you know, a lot of different kinds of dishes and I’m like what’s this, what’s happening she said I made all this for you and I’m like wow, I sat down, I started eating, I was eating this, eating this, before I finished it, I transferred money to her, something immediately, you know, and then all the love that died, the love came back that night.”
Pastor Olawande shared the story to emphasise the importance of vulnerability, mentorship and effort in maintaining a healthy marital relationship.
