Dear MIMsters: My Husband’s Death Drove Me Into This But I Need A Way Out ASAP

My husband’s death drove me into this but I need a way out ASAP.

I called him Nkem and he did likewise. We were married for just five years that seemed like 20-years; judging by the things we were able to achieve within that time. We were two completely incomplete beings whose  coming together made us completely complete; for we complemented each other in a beautiful way.

Nkem had always been an hustler, and despite the fact that he had health challenges, he was unperturbed in striving hard to do more. He ran his own food store business and was well known where his stores were located.

Let me tell you briefly about Nkem.

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Nkem had seven elderly ones ahead of him. Their ages ranged between 30 and 18 years before he was born. His parents did not plan to have him but when his mom found out she was pregnant with him when she was already in her 50s, shame made her keep to herself. Unfortunately, she passed away from complications of childbirth three days after Nkem was born.

His dad, unable to cope without his wife, passed away when he was 40-days old. He was left at the mercies of his siblings who kept passing him round their homes. He was SS and being always so sickly, they kept passing him round while hoping he would just die so that they could be set free of the burden handed down to them due to their parents’ carelessness.

By the time he was 12-years old, as sickly a child as he was, he had left the house and started living on the streets. And out of relief, none of his siblings looked for him. As far as they were concerned, he was better off dead.

I met Nkem when he was 24-years old and I was 21. When I met him, he was an apprentice with a towns man of mine and was about to gain his freedom while I had just finished my OND and was trying to get a place for my IT.

I eventually did my IT in their store and somehow, we fell in love. We got married 2 years later- I was 23 and he was 26-years old. It was at the point of coming to ask for my hand in marriage that he went back home to reunite with his siblings. They followed him down to see my father after much pleadings and Nkem’s assurance that he would be responsible for the financial implications.

A year into our marriage, we welcomed our first daughter, then a year after, we welcomed our son and that was when we knew what we had gotten ourselves into.

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Our son became very sickly like his father when he was a child and through tests, we found out he was SS. We all then ran the same test because we did not know our genotype before we got married. Unfortunately, the result showed that I am AS, Nkem SS, our daughter SS and our son, SS.

Due to advice, we tried to have another child and we took all the precautions we could with herbs but he was SS, too; so we stopped. As God would have it, only Nkem and our first son were constantly falling sick.

Also, a year plus into our marriage, Nkem got his freedom from his boss, but I could not proceed for HND because of the children. However, Nkem who had started his own business then was making great profits. In no time, he had two branches. He was not educated so I was in charge of the financial records while he managed sales. Within the five years we were married, we built two houses, we bought cars, he opened a secret bank account which only the two of us knew about and we committed a certain percentage of our profit into it every day.

Nkem’s siblings did not hide their dislike for me because once things started working for him, they started coming with their demands. Some he obliged, some he refused outrightly and at such times, they would expect me to step in but I couldn’t. I always supported my husband’s decisions as he did mine. We were very compatible and we respected each other a lot. Nkem ensured that we did not keep secrets from ourselves but we did from a lot of people. What we had was great but short lived.

Nkem had a crisis at the head office that black Thursday afternoon, and before he could be rushed to the hospital, he gave up the ghost. I died with him. His siblings insisted he must be taken to their village for burial so we all went. Unknown to me, while we were at the village, his siblings and his closest friend had moved into the house and taken all our things except my children’s clothes. They packed some of my expensive wrappers, our food stuffs, etc.

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With the help of my husband’s childhood friend, who also runs his kind of business, they took over the stores and left us with nothing. My husband’s eldest brother asked me if I brought anything from my father’s house …

I cannot begin to tell all I went through in the hands of those wicked people. My parents told me not to fight them and my father promised to help me with the children. They asked me to move back to their home and tearfully, I went back to my parents house after five years with  4 , 3 and 1 year old children.

I deliberately did not tell anybody about our secret account, not even my parents. My mom promised to take care of the children for me and my dad asked me to return to school for my HND. They placed my first and second children in school and my older siblings were helping my parents financially.

I finished my HND and went for NYSC and that was where I met Hilary.

(Continues in Part 2)