My father didn’t like my husband because of his tribe. The day I took him to meet my father and he asked about his tribe, he told him right to his face that marriage between us would not be possible. “No, my family doesn’t marry from your tribe. I’m sorry I’m telling you this when you are ready, but it will benefit you and my daughter not to marry.”

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I had already warned him he would face that challenge, and he said he would like to try because he loved me too much to let me go. So he wasn’t surprised when it happened, but he was shocked that at this time and age, my father would think like that. We didn’t give up. I brought my uncles and aunts in. They also didn’t like the idea, but at least they understood me and tried to help. My dad still said no.

My husband didn’t give up. He also brought his church pastor, a man we both knew from the beginning of our relationship. He led us to meet my father. He told him it was God’s will, so he shouldn’t try to separate us. My dad responded, “Do you think God is a fool when He created tribes? He gave us where we belong and told us to belong there.”

For over a year, my dad said no to us. My husband gave up. He told me we should let go. In fact, we broke up at some point, but a week later we found ourselves together again, having sex. We laughed at ourselves and asked, “Who are we deceiving?”

Our love grew stronger in the time we said we had broken up. He would come to my house at dawn because he was missing me. I visited him and didn’t want to leave. The emotions were that strong, so we decided to try again, but we didn’t want to go with the same strategy. We waited until something better came to mind.

While waiting, my dad asked about my husband and whether we were still together. I said we had broken up because he wouldn’t allow us to get married. He responded, “You should have done that long ago. Now let me give you a man who is worth your beauty and intelligence.”

He brought a man who had already been married twice and divorced twice. I told him right there that I didn’t like him. When he pushed, I told him I was pregnant for my husband but didn’t have the money to abort. In my tribe, abortion is the greatest taboo. If a child does that, it is believed the spilled blood becomes a curse for even the living generation.

My dad screamed, “You can’t do that. Why did you allow that fool to impregnate you? What kind of embarrassment is this?”

A week later, my uncle called. He told me my dad was ready to receive the dowry, so we should prepare quickly and do it before he changed his mind. The pregnancy was just a way to escape the man he was forcing on me, but somehow he believed it and decided to allow us to marry.

We wanted to have a beautiful wedding, but because we had to marry in a rush, we did a traditional wedding and later signed in court. My husband never forgave my dad because of that. But somehow, my father softened along the way and loved my husband as his own son. He was respectful toward him. Whenever we visited, he welcomed us warmly and sat with my husband all day, talking about what it took to be a man.

Four years after our marriage, my dad passed away. Grief did not come alone. It came with silence, tears, and heartbreak. Regardless of everything he did at the beginning, my dad was a great man and a good father. He wasn’t rich, but he forced us to go to school and did everything he could to pay our fees. He was always there for me, and I had to be there for him at his funeral.

There is a traditional rite husbands perform when their father-in-law dies. I told my husband about it, and he said he wouldn’t do it. I asked why, and he told me plainly that my father didn’t want him to marry me, so he wouldn’t perform any rite for him. I begged him because my sisters’ husbands would be there to perform theirs, and it would be embarrassing for me not to have my husband there.

He told me, “Don’t worry, I won’t even attend the funeral.”

At first, I thought I had misheard him. I asked again, hoping he would correct himself. He didn’t. “I said I won’t attend the funeral,” he repeated, slower this time, like he wanted every word to land. He added, “The dowry. Your father overcharged me, and you know it. All because he thought I had gotten you pregnant. I remember everything.”

I didn’t argue. I didn’t fight. I was too wounded to have the strength. Somehow, I thought he would change his mind and do the right thing. He didn’t give me a penny to support my father’s funeral, and just as he said, he didn’t attend. I had to lie to everyone that he had traveled for work and that it was an emergency.

But you can fool some people some of the time, not all people all the time. I said what I said to cover my shame, but my demeanor didn’t support it. My elder brother saw through the lies, but he understood me. My tears were twofold because the one I would lean on to mourn my dad didn’t show up.

I never forgave my husband after the funeral. I came home numb because I had been through so much pain. I felt empty, like I had no one to lean on. He didn’t even ask me how the funeral went so I could break down and let it all out. He didn’t ask a single question.

I see him now as a man who doesn’t forgive, and I’m afraid to go against him. We talk, but life is empty. I play my role as a wife, but I don’t tell him anything. There’s a silence between us. He has noticed it and asked why. I told him, “There’s nothing wrong.” He thinks I’m still mourning my father, but I’m mourning this marriage and its future.

It’s Not God’s Law For A Man To Apologize To A Woman

I don’t have any of my parents alive. He still has both of his. Does he expect me to attend any funerals if something happens to them? Maybe I will die before his parents and that will settle everything. But if I live to see that day, I doubt he would even have the courage to ask me to go with him.

I’m speaking from fresh wounds, so maybe time will heal and I will change my mind. If not, aura for aura.

—Solace 

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