When we were growing up and of age to marry, it was drummed into our ears how unsafe it was to always allow a third party into your marriage. It would take the sweetness out of it, and people would mock you. They told us, “Keep it under your sleeves and work it out. That is how a marriage keeps going and working. Not everything you need to run to tell a third party.”

Those words have stayed with me, and I paid more attention to them than anything. When I started dating, I didn’t tell my friends about the problems I was facing or anything.

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I have been married for six good years now. The thing they said has been internalised so much, but I am rethinking it. Because if I don’t talk about it, I may die out of exhaustion.

My husband made us move in with his mum last year, and I regret it. I didn’t stand against it when it came up. I said that it was better for me to relate with his mother. But I regret it so much now.

This woman will intentionally do things she knows are not right, but when I talk about them, it becomes a problem. My husband lives in another town. She calls her son to complain about everything I do in the house, when I go out, the time I return, who dropped me off, what I am doing outside, how I look, whether I am looking too good to go outside as a married woman, and even whether I flushed the toilet properly before leaving the house.

If I wash, she calls him to tell him. She makes all the rules in the house and decides what should be eaten. Woe betides me if I say I don’t feel like eating that particular food or I don’t eat all that I am served.

She intentionally riles me up. When I try to ask her questions about her behaviour, she ends up saying that I am disrespecting her, so she calls her son. The sad part of all this is that my husband won’t even listen to my side of the story. He’d just call and make matters worse.

Some few months ago, I told my husband to ask his mum to stop preparing meals with me in mind if that is why she disrespects me so much. Maybe she thinks she feeds me, so my world revolves around her.

I expected him to say something in support of me. When he opened his mouth, he called me names. He called me a witch and even said I was a very ugly woman who was bent on not making his mother happy.

Should I disagree with this woman over something, the next moment my husband would call me to pack my things and leave the house.

To stop the bickering between me and his mother, he asked me to look for a new place and move into it, which he would pay for. I found the place, but he said nothing about paying, so it ended nowhere.

I have done my possible best not to inform anyone of what I was going through, thinking we would talk about it and everything would be okay. But no.

Now, I am at a point where I want to involve my family or church elders.

Some few days ago, he called to talk to me harshly because his mum told him she spoke to me and I didn’t respond, which wasn’t true. He then said that I should pack out of the house if I find it too hot to stay.

I told him, “You brought me here. I didn’t come on my own accord. If you want me out, come and pack my bags and throw them out.”

Both my parents are late, so I called my paternal aunt, who is about 80 years old, to report to her. She said I should come to our hometown and narrate my ordeal to the Abusuapanyin, which I think is too far.

Is There A Man Out There Who Doesn’t Cheat?

My maternal aunt, whom he went to report me to, has advised all this while that either I allow her to come and meet us both with a relative from my mum’s family and see how to settle things, or inform my church elders about what is happening so they can call us both, find out the problem and settle it.

I am tired and need to find a way out before something kills me.

— Esther

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