At the time I got married, I was twenty years old. My husband at the time was thirty-nine. At that age, you would think he should have been married already with kids. But he wasn’t. He had a lot of sad stories to tell about his relationship history though. According to him, all the women who came into his life treated him badly. He gave them his love and they spat it into his face. I believed him. I bought all his sad tales about him being the innocent victim of his life while all his past loves were villains......See Full Story>>.....See Full Story>>
I promised I would treat him better. I was so sure I was the woman meant to kiss away his pain and love him right. Then I became his wife. Let’s just say that I found myself empathizing with every woman who had ever loved him. This man gave me no peace.
We lived in his late father’s house with his mother. Yet this man went about promising people he had a room for them to live in. They would pay him for the rent, but he had no room for them. I never knew what he did with the money. Only that it never affected our lifestyle at home.
The people whose money he took often came to the house to fight with him. Whenever he knew they were coming, he would take off and abandon me and our child to face them. There were times when the people caught him and had him arrested. After his first arrest, I thought he would change but he didn’t learn anything.
He continued to defraud people under the guise of giving them a place to rent. This got him arrested more times than I can remember. It got to a point when every time he was sent to the police station, the officers over there would tell him, “It’s you again. You are back here again?” I tried to be a dutiful wife but there was only so much I could do. Besides, how could I help someone who didn’t want to help himself?
One day I told his mother, “I can’t remain married to your son anymore. I want to go and stay with my sister.” His mother didn’t stop me. She was a witness to everything he was doing so she understood me. My mother, on the other hand, didn’t support my decision to leave. She called me while I was at my sister’s place and repeatedly asked me to return to my matrimonial home. I didn’t want to but my husband also came begging. He said he would change. “I will be the husband you deserve and the father our child needs,” he promised.
Despite everything, I still didn’t want to return to him. I only wanted to start my life over again. However, I found out I was pregnant with our second child. By then our first was four years old. This changed everything for me. I felt with the new development, I had to go back.
When I returned home, I met my husband’s absence. He had gotten arrested again for the same crime. His relatives were tired of bailing him out so left him in jail to rot. They said if he stayed there a little longer, he would learn his lessons.
He remained there until I had the baby. It was when the baby turned three months old that he was released. After he came out he seemed changed. He no longer defrauded people. I was convinced that he was a new man. We put the past behind us and forged a new life for our family. That was what I believed.
It turned out that this man is a suitcase full of vices. When he gave up the defrauding act, he took on cheating. He didn’t even have one mistress he was sticking to. No, my husband was out there sleeping around with multiple women. As disheartening as it was, I put up with it. I was so sure that I could stomach it until he upgraded.
He went from sleeping around to sleeping out. He would leave the house for months and refuse to answer my calls for the entire time he was gone. Even his family’s calls went unanswered. He didn’t care that I had to feed our kids and myself. He made no provisions for us whatsoever.
Soon enough, he graduated from leaving home for months to leaving home for an entire year. At that point, I was out of love with him and too tired of his inconsistent ways. So I told his brother that I was done with the marriage. “I want to leave him this time around for good.”
Lucky for me, his brother, sister, and a male friend of mine helped me to move out of the family home. They gave me enough money to rent a two-bedroom apartment and buy everything I and the kids needed to start a new life. So far things are falling into place.
I know I am not looking at an easy road as a single mother of two, but for the first time since I married this man, I have some stability. That is one thing I am grateful for. Slowly, I am taking back control of my life. This is not how I imagined my life would turn out but I am thankful that I have my children. With God as my strength, I will do everything within my power to be an amazing mother to them.