PART 3 (final part)
“My husband eventually came to Enugu, I noticed he was behaving weird but I couldn’t point a finger at what it was. I ignored it all because I was determined to make our marriage work again.
He wasn’t ready to bring a dime for anything in the house or ask about how our son is coping in school, the fees or even how we coped all those years he gaslighted me.
He stayed for a week and said he needed to go to Lagos to apply for another Visa and would be back after following it up. I prayed for him and told him to try to cultivate a prayer life and I saw him off.
I discovered i was pregnant some days after he left. I called him to tell him the news and he was excited about it. He came back a month later and still went back to Lagos.
We kept communicating on phone for 3months until we heard the news of my mother inlaw’s demise. It was during the preparation of her burial that we found out that my father in-law didn’t pay her brideprice.
Her people insisted that her brideprice will be paid before she will be laid to rest and my father in-law refused. He buried her without their notice and unceremoniously.
He married one old witch in less than six months after my mother-in-law’s burial. My husband stayed with me at Enugu while waiting for his visa, I gave birth to a girl and a month later, he got his visa and travelled back to Germany.
He called me to tell me that he had arrived and while speaking with him, I overheard a woman ordering him to end that call and never call me again. I asked him who that person was and he ended the call on me.
That was the last time I heard from him until another 4 years. My daughter d*ied of pneumonia at 11months and he didn’t even know. My siblings and my son were my rock all through those moments.
My father in-law di*ed and I heard that my husband came back to the village after 4years with a Sierra Leone woman and 4 kids. I called him with his Nigerian line and the woman picked his call.
It was as though she has known me for years and has been crammed what to say to me anytime she gets the chance. She warned me never to call her man again, threatening fire and brimstone on me and told me that she’s there to give my husband children since I definitely would di*e with just one child.
I called him the next day and he picked, I didn’t tell him what that woman told me. I just told him to stop by at Enugu for us to discuss after his father’s burial.
I went for the burial alone cos it’s what is expected of me as his first daughter in-law. I saw my husband, saw the woman and her children. I made sure I didn’t act out of character until I left that same day after the burial.
When my husband came to Enugu, I recieved him as a visitor and gave him a seat at the parlour. I narrated all the woman said over the phone and asked him who she was.
He opened his mouth and told me that she was someone his younger brother introduced to him while he came to visit him there. He thought I was already with as another man as his brother said and he decided to move on as well.
They’ve been living together for over seven years and the 4 kids are his while the firstborn is another man’s child but he now takes her as his child.
He was saying it without a single remorse like someone reciting a presentation. No single emotion or empathy for the person listening to those words.
I asked him if he has paid her brideprice and he replied NO. I asked him what his intentions were for me and he told me to my face that he cannot leave a woman that has given him five children for me that has only one child.
I asked him if he heard of his daughter’s demise and he replied YES, that his younger brother told him. I asked him if I did him any wrong since we got married, he replied NO.
I don’t know where the courage came from but I took my time to take him back memory lane, what I’ve passed through with his family, the loneliness, pain maltreatment and yet my faithfulness to him!
I gave him 5 minutes to go inside and pick every single thing belonging to him there and leave my house. It was around 11pm at night cos he arrived really late but I didn’t care.
I threw him out and decided to cut him off so I can stay alive to take care of my son. It’s been 16years now, we haven’t spoken to each other.
He hasn’t left Nigeria again since then till today, he lives in Lagos with the Seirra Leone woman and her children, he didn’t contribute a Kobo to train my son.
Thankfully God gave me a husband in my son. My son has never made me feel bad, he carries me like an egg and protects me like I’m his child.
He hustled to see himself through the university while I also went ahead to acquire a degree. I got a good job after my degree and I still work there till date.
I’m also grateful for my siblings that has stood solidly by me till now and helped me train my son. My son is a graduate today, he gave me the best daughter in-law in the world and she has given us a very beautiful daughter as well.
My husband couldn’t believe his eyes when he came to my son’s wedding. He avoided all the process of marriage rites, it was the oldest man in our village that stood as my son’s father during the process.
After the traditional wedding, my husband’s kinsmen insisted that my son would take his wife to the village and she will spend the night there. My husband was in support of it and I got annoyed.
I refuted it and asked him in the presence of his kinsmen if he has a room in the village, he couldn’t utter a word. I asked him where my son would sleep with his wife and on whose bed they would sleep. None of them could utter a word further, my son took his wife to his own house.
My daughter inlaw is so beautiful and tall, a medical doctor with class, very chubby, huge and outspoken. She’s not small size like me, nobody will have the nerves to approach her and spit trash. She’s so homely, playful and respectful. Oh, the daughter I now have!
I’m very sure my husband and his siblings took note of the class of family my son married from with the little display they saw that day. A financially stable and very spiritual home!
The way I danced that day, people would think I was the bride.
My son has been in contact with his father, whenever they talk on phone..he always reminds my son never to make the kind of mistake he made. He advices him to respect and always put his wife first.
I guess he’s in deep regrets now but it’s forever late for him because I can never go back to him. God held me up and gave me a new life, peace and most importantly a family I’m proud to call mine.”
THE END
(True life story)
The Humans of ABUJA
DROP YOUR COMMENT
