Two years ago when he proposed marriage, I told him, “Let’s take our time. The world is not right. Everything is in a mess right now. I don’t even have a job and I don’t know when I’m going to get a job. Why don’t you wait until this pandemic is over and the road is clear for us to see the future very well?” His answer was, “We don’t know when this is going to be over. If it takes five years, should we wait all that while? It’s the new normal so we have to live life as if everything is normal. Tell your people. Let’s get married. All will be well.”

I called my parents and told them about it. The first question my dad asked me was, “Is he aware that you’re jobless?” I answered, “He’s aware but he says he doesn’t mind.” My mom asked, “And he doesn’t mind about the situation we are in now? Why don’t you wait a little bit and see how things turn out?” I told her, “He wants us to get married and I don’t want to waste his time. You know men, tomorrow he might change his mind so I better do it and hope for a better tomorrow.” 

In December 2020, we got married. We didn’t invite too many people. That was the time when there was a rule on the number of people who can attend functions like that. We were small but the occasion was big for us. I was getting married in front of my parents and childhood friends. It wasn’t small for me. We went through the whole thing as quickly as we can and later went on a honeymoon that lasted for a week. We were in the Christmas season so we decided to add honeymoon to Christmas and celebrate it largely. After my honeymoon, I packed all my things and went to live with him.

Before marriage and everything that came with it, I had started my TikTok page and was doing it for fun. It was the time of the Covid so everyone was on TikTok doing something so I joined. I was only following trends. Before my wedding, I had a sizable following who engaged with my content. I could have over 200 likes on a video and close to 100 comments. I was growing and I was happy about it. I didn’t talk about my wedding on my page. I only started uploading my wedding videos there and it blew up. They were surprised but they were kind enough to congratulate me and give me kind words. I even showed the results to my husband and he found it funny. 

I was married with no job. Early 2021, my husband was working from home so we were always in the house enjoying what the Lord has put on our plate. I was never lonely. I had a talking mate and had something to do so I dedicated all my time to building our union and making it thick. I didn’t do videos. I tried to pull him into my videos and realized that he wasn’t a fan of it so I pulled the breaks. In the middle of 2021, he started going to work. I didn’t have a job so I was left lonely in the house. It was an opportunity for me to find something to do so I started creating videos again. I was mindful of my marital status so I did videos that didn’t raise questions as to why a married woman will do something like that. I was consistent so my page kept growing. I got to 10K followers and in less than two months I was around 15K followers. I told myself, “If I put energy into this, I can make it ooo.”

I started watching videos on how to make it big on TikTok and how to improve on my videos. My phone wasn’t that good but it did the job. I got myself a ring light and other backdrops to improve my craft. I never did a video in the presence of my husband. When he’s home, he’s everything I cared about. He would be tired so I will get close to him and do everything a wife will do to keep a husband entertained. He didn’t question me about what I was doing on TikTok, he didn’t even have a TikTok account so I didn’t expect him to see what I was doing but it’s a small world so one day he saw my video on his Facebook timeline. One of his friends posted it and I think he didn’t like the comment on the video. He came home and showed it to me and was like, “What’s that supposed to mean? Is that what you do when you’re in the house alone? Instead of you get a job, you’re in the house fooling for people to laugh.”

I tried to explain things to him and he understood me, or I thought he had understood me. I had attended two interviews then and nothing had come out of it and he was aware. I told him, “You know I’m trying. It’s hard but I’m doing my best.” 

I still don’t have a job as I write this but I’ve tried my hands on a lot of things that didn’t work. It was even my husband himself who told me to stop doing those things. Regardless of that, I’ve been able to grow my page to a level where people have started bringing products for me to advertise for them. I earn from that. It’s not too huge but if I keep getting such an amount consistently, it would be better than what my senior sister takes home as a nurse. When I go live, I get a lot of money but I don’t like going live because of how the whole thing goes before you raise the amount. I’m not doing badly. I’m not exposing my body. I’m not insulting people for attention. I’m not doing anything untoward. I’m just a TikToker who is in her lane and gets things done. 

My husband came from work one day with a fit of anger. He took my ring light and threw it away. My small setup in the hall followed the ring light outside. I tried stopping him and I was thrown somewhere on the floor. He screamed, “What nonsense is that? Do you think you’re a small girl to be doing that on social media? What sort of embarrassment is that? If you continue going that way, very soon I’ll take the phone away from you. Go out there and get a job. Don’t you see what women like you are doing in the corporate world?” 

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He won’t let me explain or say anything. Again, he saw a video of me dancing on his timeline and got mad. I think he downloaded the app and searched for me and watched my videos. He’s not a social media person. Apart from Facebook, he’s not on any social media and he’s rarely on Facebook but because of what he saw, he rushed to TikTok just to see what was happening there. I asked him, “So which of the videos don’t you want me to do again? Tell me and I’ll stop.” He screamed, “Stop everything. I don’t want you there wiggling your waist like some girl from the street. Get a job. Leave home and make a change out there.” I told him, “Dear, this is also a job ooo. When was the last time I took money from you? Don’t you wonder where I get money to take care of the little things? It’s working and it can be my side job.”

He said, “If I wanted a dancer and a woman who will act nonsense on social media, I would have married a comedian.” 

My mom called me; “Herh, what kind of embarrassment are you giving to your husband? How can a married woman be dancing stupidly in public? Are you not aware that you’re for your husband alone? What’s that for?” My dad took the phone from my mom. He made things worse. He said, “That’s how it all starts. By the time we realize, your shuperu video is out there. If you don’t snap out of that craziness I will come and slap it out of your head. What’s that?” My husband reported me to them. He’s doing everything to get me out of the App.

I’m not angry. I think they need education for them to understand what’s going on but as I write this, no one is ready to listen to me. They all want me to go out there and find a job when I’ve been creating a job for myself all this while. My question is, what can I do to convince them? I haven’t done anything for the past one month. It’s killing my page. It’s killing my brand. I had to even refund an amount I took from people to do adverts for them. I’m looking for a job but I can’t sit idle when the job hasn’t come. What should I do? 

–Efua Underscore  

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