I know her. She knows me. My husband knows I know her but he is not bothered. I should have known this is how things would turn out. I guess I was so cocooned in his love that I did not want to deal with anything I considered unpleasant. By this I mean, I did not address issues or try to resolve conflicts.

As a typical Nigerian woman, I was raised to overlook certain things a man does for the sake of peace. “Two wise people cannot rule a kingdom,” they say. That’s why we never had issues the entire time we dated. It was not because he was the perfect boyfriend, no. It was simply because I chose to ignore a lot of things that made me unhappy.

The first thing I ignored were the signs that he was cheating on me. I dismissed it with the saying, “Muslim men are polygamous so it’s normal for him to have a wandering eye.” I thought it wouldn’t be a problem. I thought he would stop after marriage, or at least he would be discreet about it.

However, I found out the hard way that marriage does not change people who don’t want to change. If anything it emboldens them to continue their bad habits. That’s how my husband started openly cheating on me after we got married.

Confronting him has never worked. He happens to be one of those people who manipulate you emotionally to the point where you blame yourself for all the things they do that hurt you. That’s how he made me feel every time I caught him cheating. He would say things that would make me feel inadequate as a wife. He would all but clearly state that I was the one who pushed him to cheat.

What didn’t I do to keep his eyes on only me? I made his meals the way he liked them. I dressed seductively around the house. I prayed for him. I did everything I could do to get his mind away from his little girlfriends but nothing worked. I couldn’t shake off the feeling that I was a failure.

When I realized that I had no control over what my husband did, or who he saw, I stopped fighting him and following him around to catch him doing something. He also stopped trying to hide his new girlfriend. The girl never tried to hide from me either.

So right now, I know his girlfriend. His girlfriend knows me. He knows that I know the girl he is cheating on me with. We all know about each other. When she sees me, she smiles and greets me. I also respond with a sweet smile and go about my business.

Although I am not pleased with my husband’s relationship with this girl, I have come to accept it. When I first found out about their relationship and confronted him he told me, “You know my religion permits me to marry more than one wife. So consider my relationship with her as courtship for marriage.” What could I have said to counter that? It’s been two years since they started dating. Meanwhile, our marriage is barely three years old.

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I am still here. I am performing all the duties required of me as a wife. I still pray for him. And I pray for God to bless me as well. As for his girlfriend, I have nothing against her. It was my husband who went after her so if anything, my fight is with him.

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My only hope is that when he finally marries her, she won’t disrespect me. That way we can all live cordially. I can welcome her into our home but I will not let sit down and take it quietly if she brings conflict to my doorstep.

I just need to share my story because I don’t have anyone to talk to. I feel like I brought this upon myself when I continued to let things slide, even before we got married. Maybe if I wasn’t so afraid of losing him, and I had spoken up, I would have known the kind of marriage I was walking into.

—Avril

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