Dear MIMsters: See How My Foolish Idea Of Submission In Marriage Almost Ruined My World

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I sincerely wish women would know when to take a bow from abusive marriages without minding what the society would say. This same society will judge you if you die in the struggle. I wish I knew this earlier…

I married Alade as a very young woman. We were very much in love or should I say, I was naively, deeply in love with him.

Let me briefly tell you about my family.

It is made of my wonderful dad, my supportive mom, my calm eldest brother, my demanding but doting elder brother and the beautiful overly protected me.

The evening I brought Alade home to meet my family and have dinner with us, everyone fell for his charm except my eldest brother.

Yes, you guessed right! The calm one! However, we all took his reservation to be because he is a reserved person and he couldn’t understand why someone would be as chatty as Alade was, especially considering the fact that he was meeting my family for the first time.

Fast forward to a year later, at the age of 21, I got married to the ‘love’ of my life in a society wedding.

The first sign he gave was that immediately we settled into married life, he asked me to quit my job and like a submissive wife, even though I did not want to, I did.

He painted a good picture of how it wouldn’t be alright for us to have other people raising our children by the time we started our own family.

Next, we moved out of the state my family lived in because he got a transfer from his workplace.

Shortly after that, we had our first child, a boy and next, a set of twin girls and we stopped.

Now, being a full time house wife with my hands full, I had no time to socialize. I also need to tell you how Alade ostracized my family members from me. If anyone from my family visited us, he ensured they never spent the night in our home, if he couldn’t help discouraging them from visiting, he would get them settled in a hotel in the city. When I had my babies, not even my mom was allowed to come in and help me though he allowed his own mom come around. We stayed in a four bedroom duplex but my husband felt it would be too uncomfortable having both our moms stay with us about the same time.

I suggested they probably should rotate but he shrugged off my suggestion.

As our children grew, they could not have a good relationship with my family because not only would he not allow my people visit, he would not also let my children out of his sight. Since we got married, he ensured I never went back to visit my parents. My brothers had both relocated outside Nigeria and my mom would always tell me to submit to my husband’s wishes even when it does not favour them as my parents.

Had it been both sided, it may have been possible to understand it but no… Alade’s people could visit even without informing us but mine couldn’t.

As our children grew, he also did not give them room to socialize because, according to him, he did not want them to get under undue peer pressure so as they matured to secondary school age, they were shipped off to boarding schools.

After boarding schools, they got admitted into the University.

Give it to my husband though, he provided all I needed financially for me but socially, he killed my esteem. And he would always emotionally blackmail me. Whenever I told him how bored I was because the children are now out of the house, and I desire to get something doing, he would ask me if I lacked money. He would tell me how ungrateful I was and how many women would kill to be in my shoes. He would tell me to compare what I looked like before marriage with what I look like presently. Sometimes, he would say to me, “You do not work, yet you have grown this fat. I see women struggling to keep their family together but here you are, always nagging.”

Lest I forgot, at the advent of mobile phones, Alade refused to get one for me for a long time. If I needed to talk to maybe my parents or brothers, I would have to wait till he got back from work before I would be able to talk to them. After a while, my elder brother bought a phone for me and sent it down through courier. Guess what? Alade insisted I returned it saying he was capable of taking care of his wife. Of course, the phone was sent back and my brother did not find it funny.

He had bought a phone for me the next day, but would always monitor my calls and messages.

My daughters signed me up on Facebook about 4-years ago and added me to many groups there. Life became interesting to me again. I stopped making too much demands for Alade and his time and when he noticed, he asked why I had changed. My son told him, “Mommy is connected now.” He then asked that I got off social media before I would go and make a nuisance of myself online. With my battered esteem, I stopped checking Facebook again because I believed he was right but my daughters kept urging me to stay woke (Lol, that’s what they called it.)

Through Facebook, I hooked up with most of my school mates,relatives and made some acquaintances. I started to see the world and women who are succeeding in various endeavours. I talked to Alade about starting a business again and he asked me what experience I had to think I would be successful like the women I wanted to copy, then I dropped the idea, again.

One of my relatives whom I linked up with on Facebook was going to celebrate her 50^th birthday and she invited me. I am ashamed to tell you all that beyond my wedding and my children’s christening, I hadn’t attended any other social function in the last 19-years of my marriage. I was happy to have been invited, more so, it is in the state where I grew up though my parents had since relocated outside the country to live with my eldest brother.

I told Alade about the invite and he said I couldn’t honour it but I was determined to do so. Immediately he left for work that Friday morning, with the help of one of my cousins, I got on board to Lagos; I was going to unwind for the weekend.

Immediately I landed in Lagos, I sent him am SMS but he did not reply and I started to panic but my cousin took my phone and told me it was time to unwind and that I should cease wearing that ‘mournful’ look.

On Sunday, I returned home to meet a bare house. Alade had moved all our things out of the house without informing me of his whereabouts.

Continues in Part 2