TW: Emotional abuse.
Deborah* (22) talks about her parents’ troubled long-term marriage, encouraging her mum to leave and why she wishes their separation had happened earlier.
As told to Boluwatife
Image by Freepik
I like to tell people I ended my parent’s marriage just to see the shocked looks on their faces and the silent questions they desperately want to ask. Sometimes, I provide context. Other times, I don’t.
If you ask me, I think their marriage shouldn’t have happened in the first place. My parents got married in 1997 as literal strangers. According to the story I heard, they met because my dad returned to his village to pick a wife after years of hustling in the city. His mother spoke to my mum’s aunt, and their marriage was arranged.
My parents met a week before the wedding and moved to my dad’s place in the city immediately after the bride’s price was exchanged. My mum had to start married life in a new place with no friends or family around. With nothing else to do, she began popping babies out. My mum was either pregnant or delivering a child every year in the first five years of marriage and finally stopped with me in 2002.
To this day, I wonder how that happened — the pregnancy every year bit — because I don’t think there was ever any love lost between them. My mum said they lived like roommates who shared a bed for the first few months of marriage. My dad made it clear he didn’t like unnecessary talk or “women’s gossip,” so apart from normal greetings, they hardly talked.
Becoming parents didn’t change much. Since my sisters and I could crawl, we knew daddy was a no-go area. He was this fearsome creature no one neared or talked to without being asked a question. It wasn’t just that he beat us — that happened often —it was also what he said.
My dad can make stupid money by holding a masterclass in emotional abuse because he’s honestly a professional. He was so quick with the insults and humiliation whenever anyone did something he didn’t like. If he saw us watching TV, he’d lash out and complain about lazy children who only watched TV and didn’t know how to do anything well. If we were in our bedroom, the complaint would be, “Why are you all sleeping like pregnant women? Don’t you have anything better to do?”
One time, when I was 12, my dad asked me to bring him a cup of water. When I did, he dumped the water on my head because, “If not that your head is empty, don’t you know I don’t like this cup?”
My mum got the worst of his verbal attacks. My dad is mean on a typical day but gets downright evil when he wants to. His favourite pastime is telling my mum she’s a disappointment because she couldn’t give him a male child. They’d be talking about something as random as the children’s school fees, and a switch would flip in his head, and he’d just start berating her.
My dad was the one who insisted my mum didn’t work, but whenever he was angry, he’d complain about how she and “her children” were finishing his money and not adding anything to his life. If it wasn’t name-calling, it was asking if she couldn’t see that she was getting fat.
He was also fond of breaking or seizing things whenever he was angry. He once threw a screwdriver at our TV because my big sister accidentally burnt a pot of soup while watching a telenovela. Then he turned his anger on my mum and blamed her for giving him wasteful children.
My dad’s antics aside, I was angrier that my mum didn’t see anything wrong in his behaviour. I was the only one of my siblings who didn’t go to boarding school, so I had a front-row seat to everything. Whenever I asked my mum why she never stood up to his insults, she’d say he had a lot on his mind, and it was just the pressure getting to him.
The first time I suggested my mum leave my dad was in 2018. She’d visited me for my university matriculation, and we decided to return home together. Only, we met a locked gate. My dad was inside, and when we knocked, he came outside and asked us to return to where we came from because my mum didn’t seek his permission before leaving.
We stood at the gate for almost two hours, begging this man, but he didn’t budge. When it became a scene and neighbours started gathering, I dragged my mum away, and we went to sleep at her friend’s house.
It hurt me to see how accepting my mum had become of abuse. She was shaking, fearing what my dad would say if he realised she hadn’t stayed outside all night waiting for him to let her in. It was like I saw her clearly for the first time that night. The woman was literally wasting away. Growing up, my mum was robust. I didn’t recognise the lean woman sitting across from me. I asked her that night why she hadn’t left him. Her response was, “At least he doesn’t beat me.”
But that didn’t discourage me. Over the years, I kept applying pressure and making my mum see why she had to leave. I even sought the help of my sisters also to convince her, but she always refused.
When my mum finally left in 2022, she did it without drama. I’d graduated from uni three months prior and hadn’t been home since. The plan was never to return, actually. I couldn’t bring myself to remain in that environment.
My mum called me one day to complain and try to convince me to visit. I jokingly told her I didn’t think we’d see again if she remained in my dad’s house. Then, she responded, “I’m moving to your sister’s house next week.”
I thought she was joking, but my mum actually did it. When I asked what changed her mind, she said she just decided to accept what I’d been saying all these years. An elder in our church had used my parents’ marriage as an example of a long-standing marriage during one of his sermons, and my mum realised that external validation was the main reason she’d endured for so long. People were looking up to her for staying married for 25 years, but she was literally dying inside the marriage.
My dad didn’t take it so well. For the first time in a very long time, he called me and my sisters on the phone and asked us to speak sense to our mother. Of course, we didn’t tell him we were solidly behind her.
It’s been about two years since they separated, and I honestly think it’s the best thing that happened to them. My mum isn’t lean anymore, and she has peace of mind. I heard my dad has brought one young girl into the house. I guess she’s bringing him the peace we apparently didn’t give him.
To be clear, I don’t hate my dad. If not for anything, I appreciate that he sent us to school and provided — even though he regularly complained about doing it. My parents are the typical example of people who had no business staying together. I wish they’d separated earlier. Maybe I wouldn’t have the anxiety I struggle with now.
*Name has been changed for anonymity.
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