My marriage will be one month in a few days, and I’m a 26-year-old woman. The problem is, I am still finding it so difficult to forgive my husband. A few weeks before our wedding, he beat me up so badly that I lost my pregnancy. He begged me not to tell anyone, and I didn’t, but now his parents have found out after our wedding. He cheated on me before we got married with a girl. He told her that he was in a “complicated relationship,” even though we were perfectly fine at the time. I later called the lady and asked her to please leave him alone, but he told her that if she wanted to stay, it was fine. They ended up as friends with benefits, but they eventually broke up. Now, I can’t stop overthinking everything. He has apologized repeatedly, but I still can’t forget it.
After the wedding, I discovered I was pregnant again, and I was about to tell him when he beat me up again. He hit me so badly that I had bruises and lost the baby, again. This marriage is not even a month old. Now, I’m even more scared. I can’t stand being intimate with him; he irritates me so much. If I refuse, he will rape me. Once he apologizes, the next thing he wants is sex, and he does it so roughly that I end up feeling pain in my abdomen. I’m exhausted and confused. I don’t know what to do, and my parents are not helping—they won’t support me. They’ll start saying, “Ile oko l’omo ngbe” (A woman’s home is with her husband). I’m tired and confused. Someone suggested that we go for couples therapy or counseling, but I’m at a breaking point. I just hope I don’t end up killing him or myself one day.
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