Art Imitating Life: When Love Hurts

‘He would do it again’, she said quietly.

They remained silent for a few seconds, staring into space. ‘I don’t think so’ she finally answered, ‘he has promised it would never happen again, he is very sorry, he has been apologizing ever since. We love each other, I know it wouldn’t happen again’.

Ngozi sighed, ‘they always say they would change, but they never do’, she goes on her knees, ‘please sister you can leave now, the bride price can be returned, its not too late sister’.

Oby shook her head, why was Ngozi being so difficult, Bode already apologized, he promised to change and she believed him. She tried to explain it to her again, slower this time, ‘he would never do it again, we have talked about it, he has promised that he would change, it was just a mistake. Besides it was my fault, I challenged him; I shouldn’t have confronted him about coming home late’.

Ngozi was almost in tears ‘I can’t believe this sister, you are making excuses for him. No man should ever hit a woman, there is no excuse for this cowardly act, any man that does that is an animal. Sister please don’t go back to him’, she begged.

Oby was getting angry now, why was she being so difficult. ‘I don’t blame you’, she said, ‘its because I confided in you shebi, you are now calling my husband an animal. Biko move from the road I am leaving’’.

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She picked up her bags, she had already packed them, Bode had begged her enough, and she was ready to go home to him.

That was ten years ago. Ten years on, she still regrets the decision she took in her mother’s kitchen that day. She should have listened to Ngozi, she was right, Bode didn't change, he only got worse. The only thing that changed was his method.

Over the years he graduated from just physical abuse to verbal abuse and mental torture, before eventually getting to the physical abuse. In time he started pushing her out of the house at night, leaving her to sleep outside. At first she sought refuge in Musa, the security man’s room, but after Bode seized his salary for accommodating her, even Musa refused to shelter her.

Oby was a broken woman. He had succeded. Everyone agreed that she wasn’t the same anymore. She was no longer the beautiful, intelligent and bubbly Oby they all used to know. A zombie looking, always tired, dull woman had replaced her. She rarely ever went out.

Her family had been divided when they found out about the beatings. Over the years, most of her family members had tried to get her out of this life, but she had stayed because she believed in the sanctity of marriage, she believed he would change, but most importantly she stayed because Jayden and Tara needed their father.

She kept having flashbacks to all those moments; she should have taken their advice to leave.

The first year into the marriage, she confided in her mother about the abuse. Her mother along with her aunties advised her to stay and not bring disgrace to the family by leaving her husband barely a year into her marriage. Her mother died after that but not before making her promise to stay married to her husband, while praying he would change.

But her siblings all told her to leave; they belonged to a different generation, where it was ok to leave an abusive spouse.

Obi had once beaten Bode up, after he beat her up and pushed her out of the house as usual. Obi had always been overprotective of her; he always claimed he came into the world a few minutes before her to make sure there was nothing waiting to harm her on the outside. He hadn’t really been around since her wedding, he had moved to the US barely two months after her wedding ceremony. On one of his rare visits to Nigeria, he witnessed the abuse. He called his cousins together and they all gave Bode the beating of a lifetime. After that Bode was scared to touch her for a while. Obi went as far as getting her and the kids a visa interview with the US embassy, he wanted her away from that animal, but she never showed up at the embassy for the interview.

Even though she rejected all their attempts to get her out of her abusive marriage, her siblings kept trying; they weren’t going to give up on her just like that.

‘How did I get here’, she asked no one in particular, ‘I should have left him a long time ago’. 

But it was too late. She sat beside the lifeless body of her husband, staring into nothing. 

‘How did I get here?’ she asked once again. Things had gone from bad to worse in a split second. Ten-year-old Jayden while trying to protect his mother had plunged a knife into his father’s heart, forever ending his reign of terror. It all happened too quickly, she didn't get the chance to stop him.

She sat beside his lifeless form for a while, too shocked to do anything else. After what seemed like ages, she picked up her phone and made a call that changed the course of their lives forever.

Writing For Recovery