Mum would often use her life as an example of the consequences of marrying the wrong person. She didn’t need to explicitly share her story for us to understand; her experiences spoke volumes. She lived in fear of our Dad, her husband, a fear that was so overwhelming it eroded her self-esteem and left her feeling humbled.
Before all this started, Mum had loved Dad with all her heart, and she would often recall how she couldn’t wait to marry him when he came to ask for her hand in marriage. She was young and deeply in love, eager to spend her life with Dad. Whenever she shared this memory, her eyes would cloud with painful nostalgia.
I could see the lingering longing in her gaze, a yearning to be loved by the man she married – a love she had only known briefly, a long time ago.
I could see it too – the silence, the monosyllabic responses, the shouts, and even the beatings. At first, we thought that’s how married couples behaved; that wives should have a reverential fear for their husbands, and husbands should dominate the home with an iron fist.
But as we grew older, my elder brother Ese and I began to notice the difference between other couples and our parents. We realized then that something was terribly wrong in our home.
Our parents were unlike any others we had seen. Dad never physically abused us, but he did abuse Mum. He would hit her at the slightest provocation and was quick to shout at her if she made any mistake. He would storm out of the living room if she tried to join him and would raise his voice if Mum was running late getting ready for church on Sundays.
He was hypercritical, finding fault in everything she did – the food she cooked, the clothes she wore, her initial joblessness, and even after she started a supermarket, he still managed to find fault in that too. He belittled her and rendered her voiceless, silencing her opinions and preventing her from speaking up when she disagreed with a decision.
Mum lived in the shadows of her own home, constantly afraid and lonely. But whenever Dad traveled and she was left with Ese and me, a different side of her emerged. We would laugh and share jokes, watch TV until we were exhausted, and go on shopping sprees. We’d dine out and explore all the fun spots in town. She’d invite her friends over and even join them for nights out, staying out late and enjoying herself.
She transforms every time into an entirely different person, and it’s that vibrant version of her that Ese and I adored. However, when Dad returns from his trip, Mum would retreat back into her shell, and the laughter and joy would be completely drained from our home.
I’ve never seen Mum and Dad share a conversation or laughter together; they live parallel lives, each engrossed in their own world – Dad in his smartphone, Bible, family devotion, and church services, while Mum does the same.
This created a suffocating atmosphere in our home. I often wondered how a man could once love and cherish a woman, bringing her close, only to leave her feeling isolated and alone after having children. It seemed like he deprived her of the very companionship she craved.
I carried this troubling image of my parents’ marriage with me when I left home for university.
******
Now at 33, I still hesitated to commit to any man. What’s the point of following someone if it means ending up as desolate as my mum was in her marriage? I’ve witnessed enough to know that I don’t want to get married only to become heartbroken and afraid for the rest of my life.
My brother Ese, on the other hand, was different. He had friends, including female ones, and eventually fell in love and got married. I was surprised at his decision but then I realized he was a man, and our parents’ troubled marriage had seemingly no impact on him, unlike me.
I was wrong; just six months after his wedding, Nadia, his wife, called me one morning as I was driving to work.
“He hit me!” she exclaimed, her voice trembling, “I accidentally spilled tea on his shirt, and he became enraged, slapping me and then beating me.”
I froze on the wheels, unable to move as I listened in shock. When she finished speaking, I realized that Ese hadn’t escaped the patterns of our childhood after all; the cycles of violence and abuse were repeating themselves in his own marriage.
READ ALSO: Silence is Not Always Golden
About Author
Discover more from TRW Interns
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.