A widower also shared his experience with me, recently.
The major lesson that I learned from his story is that there are certain lines that a person who is emotionally stable is not supposed to cross (especially in marriage) but if you find yourself saddled with a spouse who is crossing those lines, please know that they are NOT OK. And you have two options.
It’s either you wholeheartedly nudge them towards professional help or you walk away, especially if your mental health is fragile, also. Don’t say that time will take care of it, they actually get worse with time because a sickness that is left untreated is only made worse by time. Don’t say age and having more children will correct it because it is a problem that requires a practical (and not wishful) approach.
Don’t say you will get used to it; it will simply drain or kill you. Don’t say that is how men or women are because everyone out there is not in a bad place mentally. Don’t say that is how marriages are because marriage is not supposed to become a fountain of toxicity.
Read him…
‘’The only happy time that I could remember with my ex-wife was probably when we first met and the sex was everything. Otherwise, I jog my memory to remember a time when we were not fighting in our marriage.
It got to a point that I started keeping a set of clean clothes outside my home so that I could have something decent to change into on my way to work because her issues could awaken when one was about to leave for work and I would end up with a torn cloth…as I run out of the house. Someone who is not ashamed to be seen in her pants and brassiere on the street…chasing me with a weapon in her hand.
Is it the numerous times she showed up where I had a job with a machete in her hand and was meant to begin destroying my work equipment until some men that were present kicked her out of the premises?
What sexual immoral lines did she not cross? My wife had been caught with a man on our matrimonial bed and she made sure I walked in to see them with my two eyes.
My wife had seduced her elder sister’s husband and began to have a sexual relationship with him and she made sure their cover was blown open.
The question she often threw at me was ‘‘what can you do, are you a man’?’
She’s a woman but her physical strength is like that of two men combined. And there’s this crazy way she fights with weapons.
I don’t know if she fights out there too because (although very light-skinned) it’s difficult not to see a part of her that doesn’t have some kind of scars. Scars that are being made worse by her bleaching cream but she wouldn’t listen.
At a point, our families intervened and it was decided we should be staying separately.
We have three children between us. My mother offered to take the children with her. I was made to cough out one million naira to start a business for her. This was aside from the numerous businesses she was doing which were packing up in weeks.
She also collected money from me to move to a different part of the state for her business. My account was already in red but it felt like buying my peace.
She stayed away for about one year but in between the months, she would show up unannounced. The last time she showed up, she was unwell but claimed that she had taken some medications.
I kept observing her and I suspected she was pregnant but I wasn’t sure. I wanted to take her to the hospital but she refused. She has so much faith in the herbal concoction that her mother gives to her. Anyway, I received a call from her around 11 pm, two days later. And what she said to me was ‘’I am not well. I am dying.’’ Before her people took the phone from her and demanded money for her medical treatments. I did a transfer of N200, 000.00 immediately but she died by midnight.
Since then, my life has felt like a bad chapter that was closed for good.
Do you know that I shaved my hair, quit my job, and relocated to another state to start all over again?
These changes I made were very spiritual to me because it was my way of leaving that energy behind and giving my life a rebirth.
I have my children living with me and my new woman now. And they love her.’’
Credit: Chukwuneta Oby