My Husband Has Seized My Passport. He Says I Can’t Travel Without His Permission

When we were dating, my husband admired my ambition. He loved that I had a job, ran a business on the side and was always thinking about what I could do next. He used to tell me he was proud that he was dating a woman who wouldn’t sit around waiting for a man to provide everything.

I had a nine-to-five job and a small buy-and-sell business I managed alongside it. The business wasn’t making much, but I had plans. I wanted to grow it into something substantial enough to become my main source of income. My dream was to resign from employment within five years and concentrate on my business so I could also have time to care for my kids and husband.

My husband knew this before we married. We discussed it several times, and he always sounded supportive. Then we got married. The first disagreement came when I told him I wanted to pursue my master’s degree.

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He frowned. He said I should concentrate on having children and settling into marriage before thinking about further education. I told him it would be easier to study before children came. I also wanted to acquire knowledge that would help me manage and expand my business.

I bought the admission forms anyway and submitted my application. That decision became a serious problem between us. He accused me of making important decisions without respecting his authority as my husband. “I’m the head. If you disobey my guidance, where do you think this marriage will end up?”

I told him I wasn’t trying to challenge his position. I wanted to further my education, something we had discussed even before marriage. He insisted that I should wait until after childbirth. I reminded him that nobody knew how long it would take us to have children or how demanding motherhood would become.

By the time I gained admission, we had argued so much that I was almost afraid to tell him. I started the programme anyway. Even when he picked a fight, I still attended lectures. Two months later, I became pregnant.

My husband was happy, but he also saw the pregnancy as another reason for me to abandon my studies. He said the lectures and assignments would put unnecessary pressure on me and endanger the baby.

Whenever I had online lectures, he complained that I was spending too much time studying instead of resting. Then one day, he disconnected me from our home Wi-Fi. I initially thought there was a technical problem. When I asked him about it, he admitted he had deliberately disconnected me because I wouldn’t listen to his advice.

He expected me to fight so he would have a fresh opportunity to tell me to stop the master’s programme. I didn’t say a word. I bought a data bundle on my phone, used it as a hotspot for my laptop and took it from there. He never reconnected me again.

Pregnancy wasn’t easy, but I kept going. There were evenings when I returned from work exhausted and still had assignments waiting. I studied when I could and rested when I needed to. My husband never asked about my progress. As the months passed, his anger became something I learned to live with.

I gave birth just a few weeks before my final examinations. My husband suggested that I send a letter to the school and explain why I couldn’t write the exams. I refused. I had come too far to postpone everything when I was so close to completing the programme.

I arranged for my sister to come and help with the baby while I prepared for and wrote my examinations. Those weeks were difficult. I was recovering from childbirth, sleeping poorly and trying to remember everything I had studied. There were nights when I held my baby in one arm and read lecture notes with the other.

Whenever I returned from an examination, he would frown or barely acknowledge me. Not once did he smile and ask, “How was the paper?”

When the graduation date was announced, I informed him. I wanted him to attend because, despite our disagreements, he was my husband. I wanted photographs of us celebrating something I had worked so hard to achieve. He agreed to attend, but on the day of my graduation, my husband was nowhere to be found. I attended the ceremony alone, took beautiful photographs and recorded videos with my mates.

I posted some on my social media pages and WhatsApp status. Friends congratulated me. Relatives called. People who knew how difficult the journey had been celebrated with me. My husband never sent a congratulatory message. Not even a simple “Well done.”

Three years later, my business has grown significantly. I’ve continued working and reinvesting my profits, carefully building something I hope will eventually support our family. For the first time, I’ve saved enough money to travel to China and purchase goods directly for my shop.

This is something I’ve wanted to do for years. When I discussed it with my husband, his first question was, “You’re going to China, so who’s going to take care of the child?”

“You mean you can’t take care of him for just three weeks? No problem. I will bring my mom to help.” He retorted, “Why do you make it look like I got married to your mom? Everything, your mom. She’s not coming anywhere, and you’re not going anywhere.”

We argued, and I told him I intended to go ahead with the trip because the arrangements were already underway. As I write this, I have only one week before my scheduled departure, but my husband has seized my passport. He says I can’t travel without his permission.

For the first time in our marriage, I called his father and involved him in our disagreement. I’m usually shy around my father-in-law and have always avoided discussing private marital issues with him. But I was desperate. His father listened and agreed to speak with him. When his father called, he told him, “This is my marriage. Allow me to handle things in a way that will make me happy.”

He claimed he didn’t know where I got the money for the trip. According to him, I’m travelling with a wealthy man who is financing my lifestyle. I’m travelling with the big man on vacation and using my business as an excuse.

I was devastated. This is a man who has watched me build my business for years. He knows the products I sell, the customers I serve and the effort I put into growing it. Yet suddenly, my financial progress has become evidence of infidelity. I asked him whether he had any proof. He simply insisted that I couldn’t afford such a trip without help from another man.

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That’s when I began seeing our disagreements differently. When I wanted to pursue my master’s degree, he opposed it. When I became pregnant, he used the pregnancy to discourage me from continuing. When I had a baby, he wanted me to defer my examinations. He didn’t attend my graduation. Now that my business is doing well, he has seized my passport.

Every time I move forward, he finds a reason to bring me back to zero. Everything shows he’s just jealous of my progress. He wants me to rely on him for everything so he can dictate the rhythm of my life, and since I’m building my own, he feels threatened.

I’m not choosing China over my marriage, just as I wasn’t choosing my master’s degree over my marriage. I believe both can exist peacefully. But my husband keeps treating my progress as a threat to his authority.

By all means, I have to go, but what do you think I should do to escape this situation? How do I deal with a husband like mine?