The self acclaimed leader of Free Nation Online Church and popular on-air personality, Ifedayo Olarinde known as Daddy Freeze has given insight into why his first marriage crashed.
He gave the insight in a chat with Stephen Akintayo on the latter’s recent leadership podcast on YouTube.
Olarinde said one of the allegations of his ex-wife against him was domestic violence which he agreed was true. He confessed, “We used to fight and the fight used to get physical”
He added however that the fisticuffs he had with her was not painted the exact way it happened to the public.
Reflecting further,, he said the reason he had issues with the marriage was because of his immaturity and the fact that he made the wrong choice of a wife.
“My choice was wrong. I think we made bad choices about each other. I probably would not have married her. I was immature when I married. I was 24 and she was pregnant for me already.”
He explained further that apart from the bad choices they made; both of them also did not manage the crisis well.
Olarinde took more of the blame for the bad management stating for again, “We had no business getting married in the first place. It was a cat and dog relationship.”
While insisting that divorcing his then wife was inevitable, he said, “Divorce is not good. The solution is not to marry the wrong person. If you are in a bad marriage you can leave for the sake of your sanity.”
Asked if separation rather than divorce would have been appropriate, he said, “If I had done separation, I might not be able to move on.”
Though he had two children with his former wife, a boy and a girl, he said, “With my new wife, I have a ten-year old son. Separation hangs you in limbo.”
He said what finally put a closure to his first marriage was the way his former wife packed out of his house. “She packed out in the full glare of the public. That to me put a closure to the marriage. It was impossible for us to reconcile.”
He recalled that his former pastor spent about four hours with him and his ex-wife to see if they could come together again. “But I refused. We could not just reconcile”
He exonerated his former pastor on the failure of the marriage but expressed disappointment at his former church’s refusal to allow him continue working with it on some of its projects because of the marriage issue
Citing the example of the woman by the well whom Jesus used as an evangelical instrument to a nearby village, he said, “That woman had four husbands and she was the evangelist to her community because Jesus could see there was something special in her.”
He disagreed with those who said his fallout with his pastor led him to start attacking the church on the issue of tithe. “We were still talking three years after the divorce thing. I did not have issues with my pastor. I was not going to his church. But we still talked”
He agreed however that his experience with his first marriage opened him to what he believed “Was the error of leaders.”
Olarinde said further that it was when he went public with his tithe thesis that his pastor allegedly attacked him from the pulpit and it turned to a rofofo mediafight for a long time.
He said because of the way the domestic violence issue with his first wife was painted to the public he lost many clients and fell out of favour with many people.
Olarinde’s first marriage to Opeyemi lasted for 10 years. The marriage crashed in 2014 over allegation of adultery and domestic violence.
He latter married Benedicta Elechi a divorcee who had earlier been married to one Paul Odekina.
