Post written by Funke Egbemode
What a married woman says about her marriage is most of the time the opposite of the truth and reality of what her life is. Her mother brought her up on the 'marriage is forever' creed. Her pastor said 'marriage is till death do you part'. The society insists that all divorced women are loose and lousy. What does she do between the devil and the deep blue sea? She tells everybody what they want to hear. Well, check some of these out and see if they are familiar.
1. If I come back into this world again, I'll marry my husband over and again.
The truth: Is my husband coming back to this world again? Aaarggh. God will have to choose between creating him and me. If that goat is coming back to the world, then I am definitely not coming. That way there is no likelihood of us ever meeting even for dinner, least of all marriage. I have had enough of him to last ten lifetimes. I know God is not wicked, so He won't allow me to marry this man again.
2. My husband has never raised his hands against me. I don't understand women who stay with men who physically abuse them. It is so crazy.
The truth: Of course, it is crazy and I'm no longer sure of my own sanity. Or why else am I still here? He has removed two of my teeth and I had been hospitalised with cracked ribs before. His eyes light up when he's beating me, so I think he's crazy too. Maybe we are both lunatics but trust me, nobody understands wife battery like I do. I guess we'll soon form an association, League of Battered Women, and I'd be the founding Country Director. It's not funny.
3. My husband is the perfect gentleman. He is so wonderful, all any woman would want in a man.
The truth: Perfect gentleman, my foot. He belches loudly, talks with his mouth full and doesn't know what you use a dessert spoon for it is different from what you use a teaspoon for. If he's not picking his nose in public, he's eating his nails. He's forever embarrassing me in public. What's worse, the only topic he can discuss intelligently is football. He can't name 10 governors in Nigeria but he can tell you the names of the goalkeepers in the Premiership. He forgets my birthday, comes home late on our wedding anniversary and has locked my father out of our home before. He runs me down in front of my friends and pinches their buttocks when he thinks I'm not looking.
4. No woman can snatch my husband.
The truth: This one? He was snatched a long time ago. I have given up on him and accepted my fate. He has two children outside from two different women and we are still expecting more. He is the original he-goat. If you put a skirt on an electric pole, he'll wink at the pole. He's insatiable. My only worry is for my life. A man who has children outside his marriage is a non-condom-wearing dog. And that makes me a candidate for HIV and its little brothers.
5. If not for my children, I would have left him.
The truth: Leave him and go where? Who will take care of me like he does? Leave him and forfeit my good life- summer and winter holidays wherever I want, contacts that being married to him gives me and the good sex? Not on your life! Sure, sometimes I feel like killing him but I'm not leaving him. In fact, he'd have to die to get rid of me. The advantages far outweigh the down side and never mind the children angle, if I really want to go I can take them, can't I? I'm simply not going anywhere, not now, not soon, not ever.
6. He is the pillar of support for my career.
The truth: What pillar? That man is permanently holding diggers and cutlasses to cut down my career and uproot everything good the whole world can see I have achieved. If you know what I have had to stomach to remain a 'Mrs', you will pity me. This man has come to my office several times to harass my colleagues, accuse my boss of sleeping with me. He once came into a restaurant where we were having a breakfast meeting to make trouble thinking that I was meeting a lover. He stormed in and found eight of us at the table. This 'pillar' of my life regularly locks me out of the house if I return home later than he wants. Right now we are in the middle of a major 'boko haram' because I want to go abroad to round off a PhD programme and he has said if I go, it would be the end of the marriage. He is asking me what I need a PhD for if not to be addressed a Dr when he is still a Mr. You should not believe everything you see because some of these things are photo tricks.
7. He is a great provider. He makes sure I don't lack anything.
The truth: I pay the rent and the children's school
fees. I am the one who makes sure he doesn't lack anything but it is such a shame and I cannot tell anybody. This human being is lazy but he loves the good life. I am sticking it because if I leave today, everybody will declare me guilty, arrogant and a deserter. I wish things were different but I have to sustain this lie.
8. He is a stud and he wears me out in bed all the time. In fact, I'm tired.
The truth: Stud ko, stud ni. I'm lucky if he touches me once in a month. All he thinks about are his containers and consignment. He has consigned me to the dustbin of celibacy. I am so hungry for the 'thing' now I'm eyeing Audu, the maiguard. Can you blame me?
