I was looking for stories about malice in married couples when Tiffany* (31) reached out. She talked about getting married to the first man she’s ever loved after getting pregnant at 18. She enjoyed the first few years of the marriage, but it later broke down due to fights, financial abuse and infidelity.
This is Tiffany’s story, as told to Boluwatife
Image by Freepik
I remember the exact moment I knew my marriage was over. I can still recall how my husband casually threw an “I don’t have the time” to my face in response to my suggestion that we see a marriage counsellor. Before that, we hadn’t said a word to each other for seven months.
I met my husband, Ade*, at university in 2009. I was a fresh-faced 17-year-old first-year student excited to be finally free from the control of her strict parents.
I’m the first child of a family of five, and like most Nigerian first daughters can relate to, my mum took it upon herself to make sure I didn’t “spoil”. My life was a school, church and home rotation from primary to secondary school. I never went anywhere else, even on school excursions.
So, even before I finished secondary school, I knew university was my only chance at freedom. I convinced my mum, using the university’s academic ratings and impressive alumni network, to let me pick a school two states away from where we lived. Of course, I didn’t drop any hint that I wanted to stay far away from her, or it wouldn’t have worked.
I was in that state of freedom-induced-excitement when I met Ade. He was a classmate and was so handsome. I had a crush on him before he even asked me out. When he did, I said yes immediately. He was 20 at the time.
Ours was a whirlwind romance that resulted in me getting pregnant the following year at 18. When I found out, I thought, “Surely, my mother will kill me.” In retrospect, pregnancy shouldn’t have come as a surprise because, naively, we only used the withdrawal method of contraception. We were both too shy to buy condoms or seek out other ways to prevent pregnancy.
We tried abortion, but the pill he gave me didn’t do anything. We were still trying to figure out the next step when my mum visited me in school unexpectedly. I was four weeks pregnant then, but apparently, she’d had a dream where someone told her I was pregnant and warned her to make sure I didn’t get an abortion. On hearing that, I had no choice but to confess. Surprisingly, she wasn’t angry. I think she was still scared I’d go ahead with the abortion. When she asked about Ade’s plan to provide for me and the unborn child, I said, “We’ll get married”.
Ade and I hadn’t discussed marriage before then, but it seemed like the logical next step. If we were keeping the baby and we loved each other, why not just get married now rather than later?
I talked to him about it, and he was on board. Again, we were both naive. My mum was relieved that we wouldn’t bring shame to the family, while my dad worried about how we would survive as a family. Ade’s parents met mine, and they (his parents) promised to support us financially for the remaining years we had in school. We got married in 2010. I was 19, and he was 22.
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The early years of marriage weren’t as tough as you’d expect with married undergraduates. When I had my child, she spent more time at my mum’s and mother-in-law’s. It was their way of ensuring I focused at school. So, it was just Ade and I, and we were still obsessed with each other.
Image by Freepik
The real problem started when we graduated. Financial support from his family became inconsistent, and jobs weren’t forthcoming. Our child also started living with us. The pressure started to affect us, and we fought a lot, almost weekly. Anytime he was angry, he’d stop talking to me until I folded and apologised.
Things started to look better in 2014 when Ade finally got a well-paying job. He was supposed to bring in the money while I took care of the home and our four-year-old child. It sounded like a good plan, until it wasn’t.
He became financially abusive. If I asked for money for the smallest things like baby medicine, he’d groan and complain about how he works all day but can’t enjoy his money. He even started keeping tabs on the food items. If I boiled a cup of rice when he wasn’t home, he’d notice and complain.
My mum advised me to get a job to support the family’s income. So, I found a teaching job that allowed me to leave my child in the school’s daycare for free. But it didn’t stop his complaints. The new issue became how I’d started to make dinner late and didn’t have time for him.
I was still trying my best to get things to how they were before when I discovered he was cheating on me. I’d suspected for a while that he was hiding something, so I decided to check his phone one day. Apparently, he was dating someone in his office. I confronted him about it, and he turned it back on me. It became, “How dare you snoop through my phone?”
He stopped talking to me as usual, and I was determined not to apologise this time. He was cheating on me, for God’s sake! He stopped eating at home, and I also stopped cooking for him. We didn’t greet each other at all, and he even started sleeping in the sitting room. He even took it out on our child. If she asked him for a snack, he’d tell her to “Go and ask your mother”. We just ran out of things to say to each other.
It went on like that for seven months until my mother came to visit one day and noticed the tension. She was angry I’d let it fester for so long and made me promise to make amends. After she left, I asked him about seeing a marriage counsellor, and you know how that went.
That incident happened in 2016, and it was the beginning of the end. When he started staying away from the house for multiple consecutive days and speaking loudly on the phone to ladies whenever he was around, I knew I had to leave. My parents weren’t in support, but I moved out with my child in July 2016. The headteacher at the school where I worked was a good friend, and she allowed me to move into the school nurse’s quarters.
It’s been almost seven years since I left, and Ade has never called to know my whereabouts. His family was aware when I left, but apart from calling once in a while to check on my daughter, they made no attempts to reconcile us or make sure he was even doing his part for his child’s upkeep. Thankfully, I’m reasonably well-off financially and can take care of my child.
I still can’t pinpoint exactly what went wrong with us. Maybe it was life, or probably he just fell out of love. Maybe I should’ve handled things better. But it’s too late to start thinking of “what-ifs”. Last I heard from friends, he’d japa.
My child is asking more questions now, and I’m torn between reaching out to him to get closure for her or just ignoring her questions. For now, I’m delaying the inevitable.
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