Thirteen Years Later, He Is Back To Claim His Son

I didn’t know my mother when I was growing up. It was just my father and I living together until he married my stepmother. I was twelve when it happened. The kind of treatment she gave me was so inhumane. I don’t even wish for my worst enemy to go through that experience. Every little thing I do, she would flog me. There was a time she almost poisoned me. Only God knows how I survived.

After high school, I couldn’t take the maltreatment anymore so I left my dad’s place to my uncle’s house. My uncle took care of me through tertiary school. Then I got to my final year and got pregnant by a guy I was dating. I was convinced I was so much in love with this guy until it came to light that he used jazz to get me.

Apart from the fact that our love was fake, his family didn’t accept me. They said their son was too young to marry me. I was twenty-four while he was twenty-six but they said he had a long way to go. And fatherhood was not part of his journey at that moment. However, they agreed that I should live with him until the baby arrives.

I didn’t know what I was getting myself into. Could you believe that two months into my stay there he started bringing girls over? I saw another level of hell. I would be asleep and he would wake me up. “We want to use the room so excuse us,” he would say. If I protest, he would beat me in that condition. He even beat me when it wasn’t about him and his girls.

Sometimes he would get so angry that he would shout, “My life has been one big mess since you came along. I curse the day I met you.” I stayed through it all because I didn’t have anywhere else to go. I convinced myself that he would start acting right once the baby arrived.

Unfortunately, things got worse when the baby came. This guy would initiate intimacy. When I respond he would start crying, “I don’t know why I am touching you. I have promised God that I won’t come near you again but because you are a witch, you keep drawing me back.” After that, he would make phone calls to girls in my presence.

Eventually, I got tired of listening to him ask other girls what they ate and how their day went. So I opened up myself to making friends and meeting new people. When my son turned one year old, I met a guy on 2go. We connected so quickly. Before I knew it, I was telling him my problems. He was there for me when I needed a friend.

He encouraged me to move out of that toxic environment. “No woman should be with a man who beats her and forces himself on her afterwards.” I took his advice and told my family that I would like to move back home. They told me, “If you want to come home then leave your son with his father. We cannot accommodate the two of you.”

As someone who grew up without my mother, how can I leave my son? I didn’t have the means to rent my own place so I continued to stay with my abuser. After a few months, I received a call from an unknown number. The caller was a woman. She introduced herself as my mother. I was so happy to hear from her. I remember begging her to let me see her. She is Togolese, so we planned that I would pack my stuff and go and go live with her for a while.

We were still making preparations for our visit when she passed away. Knowing that I never saw my mother before she died, broke me. It also helped me assess my life. I realized that if I died out of abuse, my son would grow up without any memories of me. He would never know his mother. What was the point of staying then?

It was not easy but I summoned courage and told the guy I was chatting with on 2go, to accommodate me and my son until I got back on my feet. Joseph didn’t mind. We had never met but he agreed to take me in without asking any questions.

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The bond between us grew intense after I moved in with him. I thought I was the only one feeling it until he told me one day, “I want to meet your family for official introductions.” I remember asking him why. He smiled and asked, “Why does a man go to meet a woman’s family? Especially, a woman he is living with. I am in love with you. And I know you feel it too. So let’s get married.” He was not wrong. I also loved him so I said yes.

By God’s grace, we are happily married. We have two more children. He loves me like nobody’s business. And he doesn’t joke with my first son, who is now thirteen. Nobody in our community knows that the boy is not my husband’s. Even my son doesn’t know. He and my husband are best friends. You can’t come between them even if you tried.

I’m Attracted To Women Who Have Children

I was at my shop yesterday when I saw my ex with his people. They came to beg me for forgiveness. My ex wants to be a father to my son. A child who is now thirteen. There’s no way I will let them anywhere near him. Unless they kill me first. I told them the boy already has a father so they should wait till he is old enough to decide for himself if he wants to know his biological father.

As for my husband, he’s angry. He said I should not accept them into our son’s life. I wouldn’t even do that. My problem now is that these people are rich and powerful. So I am afraid they will use their influence to take my son from me. What can I do to fight them in case they try anything?

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