I married him because I was pregnant with his child. We didn’t want to deal with the disgrace of having a baby out of wedlock. So he proposed that we perform the traditional marriage rites as early as possible. My people agreed and so did his people. We were married before the pregnancy got the opportunity to announce itself. At that time we had known each for almost a year.

I am currently in my thirties while he is in his early sixties. I met him when I attended a wedding. It turned out to be his cousin’s wedding. He saw me and decided he liked me. I didn’t encourage his attention but somehow he knew where I lived. He sent his cousins to my house one after the other to ask that I meet him or at least give him my number. By the time I could get a hold of the situation, my entire family knew about the man’s interest.

My parents and some aunts persuaded me to give him a chance and so I did. He was going through a divorce from his ex-wife at the time. We started getting to know each other and spending some time together. We spent weekends together as well. I was sure I knew what I was walking into when I agreed to marry him.

When our baby was five months old, I visited some of his relatives. I found out from his nieces that day that the family didn’t welcome me. They told me all about the people in the family who opposed the marriage because they felt I was too young. I felt bad to hear this but what could I have done? Lord knows if I had heard about their disapproval before the marriage, I wouldn’t have made the mistake of joining their family.

Our marital problems began two years after our baby was born. I had started talking about going back to work but my husband was not having any of it. I had lost my job a few months after we got married. I didn’t try looking for another one immediately because of the pregnancy. However, after two years I felt ready to put myself out there again.

Anytime I mentioned that I was tired of staying at home, my husband behaved as if I was fighting with him. Meanwhile, in my unemployed state, I couldn’t ask him for money to buy certain things. I was helping friends order goods from the north in exchange for a token. It was the money I got out of these trades that I used to take care of my intimate needs.

I was at home one day when he came to tell me he found a pub someone put up for rent. “You’ve been saying you want to work. I didn’t want to accept it at first but now I am listening. Let’s rent the place so you can run it.” Honestly, I had something else in mind but who questions a gift horse in the mouth? I didn’t want to sound ungrateful so I accepted the opportunity and ran with it.

We started the pub with a food business attached. The first four months were good but sales declined after that. I didn’t have any experience running a pub so I asked my husband to help me stabilize things. He couldn’t be bothered. I had to fall on suggestions from family and friends and combine them with some trial and error.

While I was trying to keep my business afloat, I found out that my husband was busy flirting with all sorts of women. He did it with younger girls, his ex-wife, and acquaintances. Whenever I saw something of this sort and confronted him, he would stop talking to me for about two weeks. After the silent treatment, he would then apologize.

We did this back and forth till I found out I was pregnant with our second child. The firstborn was five years old then. I was about to break the news to this man when I found out that he was having an affair. The affair itself didn’t wreck me as much as whom he was doing it with. His twenty-one-year-old niece. I was completely shattered to learn this.

This is incest so I couldn’t keep it to myself. He is a traditional leader. I felt I had to report him to his brother so they would take up the issue. When they confronted him he denied everything. To add salt to injury, he stopped talking to me and started travelling from one place to the other with the small girl in question.

The emotional abuse my husband was putting me through coupled with the stress I had to handle working at the pub contributed to a difficult pregnancy.

During this pregnancy, I found out my husband was making plans with his ex-wife to travel abroad for their son’s graduation. That didn’t bother me. I only had a problem when I learned they planned to take my boy along. My husband didn’t tell me this. It was his brother who let it slip in a conversation.

It turned into an argument when I confronted him. All I said was, “As someone who always tells me you want to protect us from your ex-wife, why should I allow my son to go on a trip with you when she is going to be on the same trip?” His cousin got involved and took his side. When I told the lady not to interfere with the decisions I make about my son, it became a family issue. My husband made me apologize to everyone in his family, including his nosy cousin.

Everything and everyone in that family feels like a carefully laid out plan to make my experience in the marriage horrible. I developed high blood pressure as a result of all the issues. The baby even came preterm.

Two of his nieces are staying with us. One helps with the pub while the other is supposed to help with the chores at home. After the baby arrived, these two girls decided to add to my stress. Apart from disrespecting the customers and acting bossy over each other, they refused to do anything at home.

I would go to the market alone, offload everything from the car, and stand on my tired feet to cook. They wouldn’t lift a finger to help but as soon as I leave the kitchen, they would rush in and serve themselves.

All they had to do was sweep the compound and wash dirty dishes but they wouldn’t. When I complained, they started cooking their own meals. Then they seized every opportunity to mock me because of my husband’s extramarital affairs. It was bad bad.

I told myself I wasn’t going to take it anymore so I locked my freezer and stopped them from using the foodstuff I laboured to buy. They reported to my husband that I was starving them. He never asked me for my reasons. Rather, he chose to stop eating my food and asked the girls to cook for him.

When our baby turned six months old, some of my friends got me a corporate job. My husband didn’t want me to do it but I stood my ground. I got one of my cousins to help with the baby while I was away at work. He stopped me from running the pub because I went against him but I didn’t mind. I was doing something that took me away from my toxic home for most of the day, and that was all that mattered to me.

After all the ways I was trying to help myself, nothing changed. He continued to abuse me emotionally. As for intimacy, he stopped touching me the day I asked him about his incest. I kept asking myself why I was still in the marriage.

I tried to leave at some point, which resulted in me quitting my job. The plan was to get another one after I was settled at my parents’ house. However, I had a change of heart. Instead of leaving completely, I took a break. I travelled to another city with my second child.

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We were gone for three months but when we returned, nothing was better. Everything was worse. One day I couldn’t take the insults from the girls anymore so I fought with one of them. We both sustained injuries at the end of the fight. My husband chose his niece’s side over mine so I also went to the police.

Currently, I have dropped the case but I have started packing out of his house. I don’t want anyone to notice I am leaving and convince me to stay like my cousin did the first time I packed my stuff with a truck. So this time, I’m doing it in bits. Every time I visit my parents, I take some stuff along.

I Called Her Affair Partner And He Said Something I Will Never Forget

The only reason I haven’t completely left yet is because of the kids. It’s the middle of the school term. That’s why I’m holding on. As soon as the term ends, I’m gone. They say marriage is for better or worse but I am tired. I don’t have any more energy left in me to be with a man who puts everyone else in his life above me. Because of all the stress, I look older than my age. I am beginning to hate him.

There are even days I regret crossing paths with him. But I look at my kids and tell myself, I will take the good I got from him and strive to give the kids a better home.

— Cassandra

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