UnMask

Story I

Nothing prepares you for marriage especially to someone that you’re not supposed to be married to. Your family values and views on life are different, you have conflicting dreams and goals, you’re just not united. I was married for about 10 years and knew almost immediately that I married the wrong person, but I still tried to make it work. It had been a long-distance courtship, we only dated for about 6 months before we married. It was the most difficult 7+ years of my life.

I lived through constant criticism from my ex-husband and his family about even the most mundane things, this made me very insecure, that I started to believe some of the criticisms, and I would repeat them to myself and others. From the happy, funny girl that I was before marriage, I became an angry, reclusive woman and threw myself into my work, but even that couldn’t keep me going.

By the 5th year, I was done and stopped trying. Instead, I started planning my exit. I made a choice to also leave Nigeria, because Nigeria is an unkind place to women, and even worse for a divorced woman who had the audacity to leave her husband.

I started saving towards a master’s degree in the U.S. with the intention to stay on after my studies.  I’m naturally a very focused person, so it wasn’t difficult to stay focused on my goal. But no matter how carefully you plan, you will always get some curved balls in life. I left the marriage, moved into my own apartment with the intention to work another year to finish saving up for my masters, then I lost my job.

I was facing a lot of battles; I became much more spiritual and got very close to God. Finally, at age 41 I set out to the U.S. to start afresh, despite advice from some well-intentioned friends that I may be too advanced in age and career to achieve any form of success in the U.S., but I held on to my faith and my favorite verse in the Quran “Allah alone is sufficient for me”. I needed a fresh start, rediscover myself and heal.

When I first got to the US, I realized that I was having incidences of losing consciousness of time. I could be driving with the GPS loudly giving directions, and I would suddenly find myself an hour or two totally out of my way! I needed help and fast! I started counselling, which helped me a great deal to heal, forget most of the pain and to actually even forgive the people that deliberately set out to destroy my character and derail my life’s mission.

I now live in the U.S. with a comparable career and peace of mind.

Story II

We met at a girlfriend's 18th birthday hosted at my place. He kept calling for my attention the whole night and I kept obliging him, which was unusual because I get irritated quickly when a stranger wants my undivided attention at any event. Boy! I didn't come to attend to you, I came to mix and mingle, but I didn't. He had this quiet non-threatening demeanor about him that I found attractive. He frequented my place afterward, unknown to me, he had asked around and was told not to bother. She's very friendly was the advice, and that's all he was going to get. The advice not to ask me out informed his strategy. He frequented my place as a friend so that my walls were completely gone and he finally asked me out. I usually could sniff a suitor out miles away, but I didn't see him coming at all. The seven years of our courtship was something out of a romance novel, we spent every chance we got together. I immediately noticed how he tried to hide his lack, since I love to cook, I would go to his place and drop all kinds of assorted meals and deserts in his fridge. I also had more than enough, so we shared everything I had. I enjoyed cooking for everyone who wanted to eat, so cooking for him was not a big deal. He ate like a king. I also enjoy sharing, so again not a problem to share my resources with him either. Seven years later, employment secured at a bank, PE1 ICAN exam on the horizon, while he was serving his NYSC, we got married in the typical big celebrity type wedding Nigerian parents are famous for.

We relocated to the states a few days short of our first wedding anniversary. The planner that I am, I had the bright idea that a smoother transition for us will be for him to get his medical license first which will quadruple our family income and I can go back to school afterward. It didn't help that I got pregnant one month after we arrived in the states. So off to school he went while I by sheer miracle got an entry-level accounting job. The funds that came from my parents went towards his international student fees. I worked while he went to school and we shared a joint account. Heaven forbid that my husband will ask me for money. Life was perfect.

He's always had the tendency to control, but I wasn't a pushover, so when he came strong, I pushed back and that settled our fights which I decided were just differences in upbringing and personalities. I like small pleasures when we could afford them, he found them wasteful and unnecessary. e.g. taking my son to MacDonalds, creating memories where he could play with other kids(my parents took us to every eatery in Lagos while we were growing up) he found them unnecessary and wasteful. I loved to entertain, cook gather friends and make noise, he was private, so we didn't entertain friends at our apartment. One of my favorite things to do was hang out with my girlfriends, he didn't like that either, but I refused to give that up. He continued to raise his objections, I continued to push back but we continued to keep our eyes on the goal, His certification.

When certification was accomplished. I must have celebrated more than he did, we have finally arrived so I thought, but there were always good reasons for me not to go back to school as planned. He never said "Don't go back to school" but created a space where it was impossible to. Refusing to babysit on days I needed to be in school, of course, no financial support from him, So I would struggle to start, then drop it, The advice was to give it time, my children are young and need their mother. Pregnant with child #3, I decided I couldn't wait any longer, it was nine years after we arrived and I wasn't getting any younger. There will never be a good time to begin to accomplish my dreams, so back to school, I went. I'm the first child of five and the only one with a bachelor's only. Six credit hours shy of a master's, He "unintentionally" got me kicked out of school. That broke my spirit. I cried for days... Am I developing a phobia or this man doesn't want my progress.

He continued to find reasons to be less supportive financially. Did not think part-time daycare was necessary for child #2 and 3 since I had dropped my 9-5 job to focus on real estate, It meant I was available to take care of them. I enrolled them in daycares, 3x a week 3days from 9 am-12noon so they could develop social skills, and that's all I could afford. It also gave me space to run my real estate business. When we had quarrels, he would stop paying bills that benefited the children or me, the joint account was no longer funded. He had opened an account of his own because I dared to open a business account excluding his name. When fights are settled which could last months sometimes, which meant I went without for those months, no reimbursement was forthcoming, for any bills I paid during the period which led to more fights. We fought over extra-curricular activities for the kids, again he found them unnecessary, I found them necessary. I continued to take my children out to eat but got better at hiding those, we also continued to quarrel over his insatiable need to control my social life. e.g. I danced to secular music at parties or I danced too much. I enjoyed hanging out with friends sometimes, he preferred to stay home all the time, but I couldn't leave the children with him if I decided to go out without him, so will find nannies to babysit. Every time I found a reason to coexist happily with him, every time he would throw in another curveball.

My first pregnancy was a breeze, but my second was difficult. No matter what pain I felt, it was because I didn't exercise enough faith for divine health, so he would ignore my cry for help or my need for assistance. One time I had tooth decay so bad, the right side of my face was completely swollen. A previous visit to the dentist had escalated into a fight because I used funds that I got from a real estate deal without consulting with him first, so I decided to wait for him in this case, besides I didn't have the funds, this time. It won't be so bad, my pain threshold is high. My mother's yearly visit ended that foolishness. Another time, I was in so much pain I couldn't get out of bed, called him to get milk on his way home, I didn't dare tell him to get groceries, he hates to be sent on errands, but milk that his son needed the next morning shouldn't be a problem. It was. He didn't buy any milk because my lack of planning shouldn't become his emergency. Many times I got the cold treatment from him not knowing the reason why. Since previous attempts to get to the bottom of the issue had proven futile, I got better at ignoring him and found connections with family and friends when I needed them. The need to push family and friends away intensified.

I no longer found joy in my union. Memories were filled with trauma. I have prayed and I have fasted, I have refused to be laid hands on, God forbid. And at a point I was getting bitter, never at God but at the idea of this futile praying and fasting for a man to love and appreciate me. How is this different from going to a spiritualist and love portion? It shouldn't require this much to get affection from the man who has sworn for better for worse when I did nothing for his love in the first place. The more he tried to isolate me, while not providing any bond, the better I got at finding joy with or without him.

2015, life suddenly came to a screeching halt. My whole life upended. I could no longer renew my papers, so I couldn't renew my driver's and real estate license. Every extracurricular activity for the kids stopped so redirected my focus and energy on balancing life with nothing. We went for walks, had Friday nights as movie nights, we'll turn off all lights, turn on the volume, and eat popcorn. In the meantime, he was gone for weeks on end and the few nights he came around, we fought about how my shoes were arranged in the room for example, or why we had continued to live without factoring him into our lives, never mind that he was gone weeks on end. He also began to terrorize the children. A few times I stood between him and our first son to de-escalate things, which ended up into "me turning the kids against him" fight. Over the years he had stopped paying for everything but the mortgage and utility bills even though his income was 5 times mine. When I was no longer able to earn income, he didn't pick up any bills he had stopped paying including money for food, so my brother sent his bank card so I could get groceries. I was locked up in the house, a prisoner in my home. My kids went to school and that was it. so we were on lockdown years before covid, when covid happened, my children were wondering what the fuss was about. Friends avoided coming to my place because he was becoming increasingly unwelcoming. Fortunately, he wasn't around much, they will call, to ask if he was home before coming over and a few times he would come in the middle of the day unexpectedly to meet a friend in the house. Twice he walked a friend out. Family members were also no longer welcome at our place. One time my sister and her husband were visiting from Nigeria, he asked them to leave when he casually walked in 3days after their arrival. I had not seen him for a month. I called the police for that. They told him he couldn't walk my guests out of my primary residence since I lived there. It didn't matter if he didn't want them. It was my house too.

Although no longer able to move around, I stayed connected on social media. My friends would not come into our home, but they could stay on the street. As the head of his home, my village respected his wish even when he wasn't home. I would hop into their car and stay on the street and bond. We could stay in the car in front of our house for hours or be driven off to whatever event I needed to attend. A few times, I met him at those events, although he had not been home in weeks.

My body started to malfunction, I didn't realize my mind needed attention too. One night we had another argument and I walked to my neighbor's house in the middle of the night in my nightgown, barefooted. This was not the first time, but when she saw me, she said there was something different about me, so she called another sister-friend to come over. I started to narrate and right before them, began to disintegrate. I started to laugh non-stop. I knew when I felt my body but couldn't control it. They started to hit me but I didn't feel anything, their frantic prayers didn't bring me back, so they called my mother. I found my way back to my mum's voice and light came back into my eyes. I stayed at my neighbor's house that night, no he didn't come looking for me. I went back at 6am to get the children ready for the school bus. I also started to have panic attacks. A few months later, I collapsed and was rushed to the ER. Friends began to notice the neglect so my support system grew. This infuriated him even more. When I would ask friends(usually men) to go help me get my stranded son in school late at night after a game, for example, they would call to inform him out of respect, he will tell them I was just bent on making him look bad, that he had provided means when he had not. In the daytime, my 16year old, football, walked home from school a 40min walk one way. He was bent on playing football, which meant he would miss the school bus. Many times, his coaches brought him home, but on few occasions, he was stranded in school.

Dec 2016 with no end to the decade-old plus suffering in sight, I filed for divorce. Three years in family court, just to get alimony and child support from him pending the time my papers can be reinstated. I got my final decree signed and delivered Feb.2020, exactly 28years after that valentine's luncheon when he made his intentions known. My experience during the three-year court battle is another story entirely.