Forgive, but do not forget; Love, but carry your brain along with it.
For the sake of anonymity, we are going to be calling this woman Lady A!
Lady A met her beau several years ago when she was in JSS 3; he lived in the same neighborhood with her. However, they lost contact for about four years. She later gained admission into Olabisi Onabanjo University (OOU) in Ogun State for a Diploma program, and then they met again, and reconnected; he was not a student. A relationship started between them, and unfortunately, she fell pregnant for him.
She had to drop out of school, because her parents who were disappointed at her refused to continue sponsoring her education. Lady A moved in with her lover and they started living as a family without the proper procedures, and she gave birth to a baby girl; their first child together.
Along the line, things became tough for them.
After her daughter clocked two, she moved to Abuja to stay with her sister and he moved to Lagos. From there, she got a job at a fueling station and started working. She was able to save up some money to rent an apartment and live on her own with her daughter after a while, and all this time, they stayed in touch. A few years later, he complained to her that things were pretty rough for him in Lagos, and being that he is her baby-daddy, she allowed him relocate to Abuja, moving straight into her apartment on arrival, according to plan, and they started living together again as one family. She fell pregnant for the second time. Being pregnant now, she could no longer continue working, as against the policy of petrol stations and their attendants. Therefore, she had to resign. Since then, it became difficult to get another job, even after the birth of her twin girls, and by then, her baby-daddy had already started doing a small business…selling phone accessories and video rental services, so technically, she relied on the man for full responsibility.
Things took a turn for the worst when one day at home, he asked her to grind fresh tomatoes. She did not know that he wanted her to use a grinding engine, so when he came into the room and found her using a hand-grater, he became furious and pounced on her…and that was the beginning of several punches and life-threatening beatings. The beatings intensified with every slight provocation. Also, her appearance became an eyesore.
The little business he was managing crumbled to the ground.
Luck did shine on her much later as she eventually got a job at a ‘cold room’ where frozen chicken is sold, but soonest, her employer’s customers started to complain about Lady A’s unattractiveness, which was making it really uncomfortable for them to patronize her. The business owner, knowing the predicament of Lady A and being overly compassionate knew that her employee needed the job more than anything else in the world, and at the same time, wanted to keep her business running. She however, spoke to a few friends about Lady A, and she was pitied upon and employed as a cleaner in a school. Sooner than expected, she was promoted to the position of a clerk in the school.
In the midst of adjusting to her new job and dealing with an abusive jobless lover, she fell pregnant for the third time, and gave birth to her fourth daughter. At some point, he moved from just beating her to molesting their first daughter. Meanwhile, she never mentioned to her family what she was going through in the hands of her man, but when she realized that the situation was beyond her, she called her family members and reported him to them.
As usual with dysfunctional homes in Nigeria, they called him and “talked” to him.
As a family, even if you were upset and disappointed at your daughter for getting pregnant while in school, especially for a man who isn’t even educated, shouldn’t you welcome her back into your arms when the man in question becomes violent and a child molester? No woman deserves to still live with a man after he has laid a finger on her or molested her child, especially one that has a family. More importantly, no woman should be advised to continue to co-habit with a man who is an abuser, whether to her or her child.
Anyway, after her family talked to him, he amended his ways, but a leopard cannot change its spots, can it?; he went back to his old ways…and it continued that way.
Lady A saw that it wasn’t a situation she could manage anymore, so she narrated her plight to her boss at work, and she was loaned some money-of which was being deducted from her meager monthly salary, to enable her pack her things and run away from the beast in human clothing. She took her daughters and went to a local village in Abuja where she felt the man would not be able to locate her, and where she would also be able to afford. She also changed the children’s school. Her boss and two other senior members of staff who knew about her story made sure to support her in ways they could. Others even gifted her some of their neatly used clothes, bags and shoes, just to help her look better and presentable.
One day at work five months later, she received a call from her neighbor that the man had discovered where she lives through their daughter’s school teacher, and he was currently in the house with the girls. Lady A began to panic, deadly afraid that he would take her daughters and run to a place she would not be able to find them before she closed from work, but when she got home, he begged her for forgiveness, promising to change for the better.
Lady A fell for it and welcomed him into her small face-me-I-face-you one-bedroom apartment, again.
This time around, Lady A did not tell her boss and all those that were supporting her that she was back together with her baby-daddy, because she knows that she would be scolded for accepting such a man back into her life, and into her daughters’ life.
Just like how it had always been, he resumed beating her mercilessly and also, molesting their daughter. It was so terrible this time around that he started coming to her workplace in the afternoons. He would bang the gate loudly, screaming her name and asking her to come out. This action of his, of course was a threat to her job, because should her employer find out, she might get fired. She had to take a drastic action by confiding in a male staff. It was this male staff that helped her scare him off her work premises.
Weeks later, they got into a misunderstanding and the man pounced on Lady A again. This time around, it was as though he meant to kill her. However, concerned neighbors who could not just stand by and watch him murder her, especially as she is not willing to help herself, immediately called the attention of an NGO in Abuja that is specialized in saving women/girls from domestic violence and molestation. They swung into action and rescued Lady A from his hands, and transferred her to their camp where they house saved women. Some days later, they went back and took Lady’s A’s girls from her former apartment.
For now, Lady A is separated from her beastly baby-daddy, and she is trying to put her life together again.
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Life can be cruel sometimes
And quite unfair.
At times we should not tie our lives to someone just because we had something with the person. Because life can be so cruel. Nice piece
Yeah.
Nice piece dear…. Keep it up
Thank you!
Things are happening.I listened to a message from a pastor recently advising the parents not to just push out their children because they have made mistake,it could sometimes mean pushing your child to death or ugly suitations….. I pray she heals and find happiness again!
More importantly, I pray she never accepts him back, because that’s what she’s been doing until now.
Love is beautiful if you believe 😘
Hmmmmm, what a life.
Terrible.
May we not fall in love with the wrong person… The guy is a beast, i hope she won’t fall for his tactics again.
The last sentence…
Things are really happening……….I hope and prayed she finds d happiness she really deserves
I hope she does.
Great read. 👍
Thank you!
May God never allow us to meet unfortunate people in this life🙏
Amen.
No amount of advice can save her, except she decides to help her self and her girls. Simple
This is the comment📌
Nice piece dear….. Keep it up
No Lady deserves to pass through such treatment from a beast that calls himself an husband. No matter the love either party have for the other, separation is very essential at times in order to avoid stories that touch…… Take for instance what happened to the famous gospel artiste Osinachi (The lady who sang Ekwueme)
Right!
If the guy had money now and was taking care of her, I would have said probably that’s why she stayed and kept up with the rubbish( not that I am justifying rich guys abusing their women) but then that’s not even the case here….
Anyhow sha, thank God she came out the case alive
And let’s hope she doesn’t fall for him the next time he’ll come around again.
It’s a sad one and the reality of some people even till now. God help us.
Amen
Runaway from an abusive relationship while you still can. This is for both gender!
True.
Hmmm.
A sad one indeed, but she can still do better. Save yourself from an abusive relationship/ marriage.
If only she’ll stop allowing herself fall for his dead apologies.
This is beyond me, make I Dey read una comments.😤
Right?
Very sad. It won’t be was but I hope she finds herself again.
I hope she finds herself again
I hope so too, and I hope this is enough reason to put a stop to letting him back into her life.
It’s just so sad that she continued to let him into her life repeatedly.