I was married as a baby-making machine
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| Credit: Freepiks |
I was full of ambition when I completed my diploma studies. My then fiancé, now husband, was based abroad.
We attended the same junior high school before his father took him to join him.
Before he left, he proposed to me. Well, we were teenagers in love albeit nothing ever happened between us. It was just that teenagehood thing.
Fast forward, we lost communication after he was sent away.
And six years later, I learnt from the grapevine that he was back in the country and I was so happy. Not that all these years he was away, I was waiting neither was he. We lived our lives separately.
When he first reached abroad, we kept in touch, and he did me a favour here and there, like helping me pay my school fees before the communication got shortened.
I quickly looked up his profile on Facebook and wrote him a message. We exchanged pleasantries and had a good chat.
I then proceeded to ask him if he was indeed in the country like I'd heard, but he denied it.
Where I heard the news from was a trusted source. The person had nothing to gain by lying to me because he's a very close buddy of my husband.
But I didn't push it. I thought perhaps he wasn't ready to let me know.
Then later, he told me he was around. I excitedly requested his number, and he refused flatly by giving me an excuse that he wasn't able to get himself a local SIM card yet.
I wondered then how he could be using the internet because, as far as I know, he needed a local SIM card to subscribe to a data bundle service.
Again I didn't push it because I thought maybe he was using that of his close buddy.
With every ounce in me, all I wanted to do was to see him because it's been six long years!
Well, I kept forcing myself to see him and told him at least for just one time.
After several trials, he finally gave me his number and I excitedly saved it. We spoke for a couple of days before finally getting to see each other.
Oh, my! To say I was excited was an understatement. He equally was. Words eluded us. We kept giggling like toddlers.
That night, I felt something within me awaken.
Old charcoal, the elders say, catches fire quickly.
I realised my feelings for him were still there somewhere in my heart. They never d!ed. They just went into slumber.
Luckily, I wasn't in this feeling alone. Him too. We talked like we never stopped talking at a point in time. Everything was so fresh like when we were teenagers. I believed this love was pure.
He then told me his father, too, was in the country.
I wanted to meet my future father-in-law so badly.
But my fiancé couldn't make that happen.
His father knew about me when we were teenagers and even gave me money to settle medical bills. So I thought I should use that chance to see the father and say a proper thank you.
It never happened. I forgot all about it and instead, I dragged my fiancé to my parents.
He wasn't ready but I forced him to.
They had a nice chat, I thought.
Soon, our lovey-dovey moment came to an end as he was returning. I was sad but he promised that he would keep in touch.
True to his words, we kept in touch.
A year later, he touched down and we got married.
A month into the marriage, we began having issues.
I was staying with his extended family even though that wasn't the plan but I endured it. He went back abroad and I found out that I was pregnant. He was happy when I informed him.
Unbeknownst to me, his family didn't want to agree to the marriage. They wanted him to marry another lady when he introduced me to them.
So in their mind, I have to serve them. Take care of everything in the house, including cooking and washing, as well as caring for his little cousin and the elderly woman in the house. It was something they discussed before the marriage. He hid this from me.
While I busied myself with work and planning to go back to school, my in-laws didn't like it. They always complained to my husband and said all sorts of things about me to him, and he, in turn, never bothered to ask me what was going on.
Throughout the pregnancy, he never spoke to me. He even stopped sending my monthly upkeep, not to talk of the one I will use for antenatal.
All of these were to serve as a punishment for my deference. No one in the house too spoke to or with me. They avoided me like a plague. I managed on my own, saved money and went back to school and hell broke loose.
According to him, he never permitted me to return to school. I have to obey him as his wife and do as he instructs me to.
I told him I remembered discussing with him how I would like to go back to school and pursue my career, and he was excited about it. What then changed, I asked him but he didn't tell me anything reasonable. All he could ask was, who do I expect to take care of his mother, grandmother and his little cousin?
I was shocked and asked him whether I was a caretaker or a wife.
The problems continued and I was getting stressed. I moved to my parent’s single room. I told my mother I was not going back and I intended to give birth at her place. She didn't want to have it but had no choice but to let me stay.
Three months after I was put to bed, my husband's uncle came to my parent's house one early morning demanding I return to my husband's house because he was coming back from abroad.
I told him that am not returning. Besides, during that period, I was reading for exams.
When this man opened his mouth I was very shock3d.
He said to me and my mum that I was fortunate to be married to his nephew, and having kept in a beautiful home to give birth to children, I'm refusing. Can't I see the room in which my parents and I sleep?
I'm not from a rich background. Not even from a middle-class family. This pierced me so much, and it was the straw that broke the camel's back for my father, who refused to say anything about my marriage.
This was because he didn't like my husband the very first day I took him to meet them.
But what my husband's uncle said had hurt him a lot and he told me not to go back. If they could raise me to this point, there's nothing they couldn't do for me and my three-month-old son.
The insults were just too much but I'm already invested in this marriage. I know I am young, only 26, but I've been thinking lately about what to do because I don't want to raise my son as a single mother, and I still love my husband, although he’s not talked to me for close to a year now.
Besides I've been advised by some older women in my husband's family that it's not advisable to have a child and leave the marriage. It's better to have two so that the children can have each other's company.
I don't want to lose my career because I've made a pledge to take my parents out of poverty, and I'm seeing it coming to fruition.
On the other hand, I want to keep my marriage. I'm confused.
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