Let’s Talk To Awo
David Bondze-Mbir (DBM): Thank you for participating. What name would you want to go by? (It can be your real first name or any other name of your choosing)
Participant 55: I choose Awo
DBM: Hello Awo. How would you describe yourself?
Awo: I’ve been through a lot, but I think I am strong – stronger than I know
DBM: What do you want to talk about?
Awo: My husband used to grow his left-little finger. He kept it rounded, polished and clean. It used to be really cute, till he accidentally poked my right eye during sex. My retina tore and fluid came out of my eye. My right eye practically opened, and the rest is history. I lost my vision for the right eye, even after undergoing surgery.
DBM: Oh, my goodness!
Awo: The pain I had to endure for months… Hmmm!
DBM: I can only imagine.
Awo: The incident made me hate my husband for all the wrong reasons. I developed a lot of negative feelings towards him, I was not exactly sure why. I wouldn’t let him touch or even get close to me for almost a year.
DBM: I can understand
Awo: Here is the other thing, I’ve had a fallout with my mother-in-law.
DBM: Why?
Awo: She doesn’t like me
DBM: Why?
Awo: Because her son married me. She’s been against our relationship for the longest time. She had the ‘perfect’ lady-in-waiting to date her son, but he wasn’t interested in her. My mother-in-law thinks I ‘stole’ her son from the woman she approved of.
DBM: Did you come between them?
Awo: I did not
DBM: Okay! How long have you been married?
Awo: Nine years. We’ve been blessed with a boy and a girl
DBM: That’s great!
Awo: You realize I’ve still not told you why I am in your inbox?
DBM: Why are you in my inbox?
Awo: Dave, I try to avoid any form of conflict as possible. I abhor fights, and I am always careful not to get into arguments with people. But my mother-in-law wouldn’t hear it. She’s had a problem with me since the beginning of time. The annoying part is, anytime she feels like visiting my husband at home, she comes unannounced and uninvited. Actually, I don’t even have a problem with her being here. The children love to have their grandma around. My husband, however, finds an excuse every time his mother arrives – to be less available to her at home. He expects me to bond with a woman he knows doesn’t like me.
DBM: How do you relate with her when she’s around?
Awo: We don’t really talk
DBM: You at least, greet her, no?
Awo: I used to, but she wouldn’t respond and so I stopped.
DBM: And, your children are a witness to this?
Awo: She tells them that I don’t respect her. Dave, it’s a long story.
DBM: I see
Awo: So, in one of our arguments two weeks ago, she made fun of my right eye. She did not know it was her son who caused it, and so I angrily rubbed it in her face, and I think I went overboard to insult her. I threw her things out and sacked her from my house. She stood outside the gate till my husband got home. He wanted to bring her in but she insisted on leaving. And mind you, it was late. Dave, I cannot forget the look of sadness that crossed my husband’s face when his mother started to cry.
DBM: You felt bad about it?
Awo: Yeah, but it wasn’t because his mother was crying.
DBM: What was it then?
Awo: Because I told her he poked my eye. We had agreed not to inform her, due to the toxic relationship between us.
DBM: Why was his mother crying?
Awo: I don’t know
DBM: I see
Awo: I heard my husband talking to a woman on phone, asking if he could bring his mother over for the night. He drove his mother to wherever, and returned home after 12 am. I pretended to be asleep till he started snoring. I checked the call history on his phone, and checked his conversations with the lady he had sent his mum to on WhatsApp.
DBM: What prompted you to do this?
Awo: It was a raw, gut feeling I had, suggesting to me to check his phone. You men may never understand. My internal feeling was telling me something wasn’t right the moment I heard him talking on phone with the other woman outside. Even before I found out that they had been having an affair. There wasn’t much conversation between them as at two weeks ago, because he had been deleting all of their chats. He probably forgot to clear their chats that day because of the altercation between his mother and I.
DBM: How did you feel after what you discovered on his phone?
Awo: Dave, it ruins everything between us.
DBM: Hmmm!
Awo: I am still considering what to do
DBM: It’s always better to make a considered decision, rather than an impulsive one
Awo: If only you knew what is going through my mind right now
DBM: Did you confront him?
Awo: I did, and he is using my issue with his mother to score a stupid point.
DBM: What is going through your mind?
Awo: I want to do something to hit him where it hurts.
DBM: Something like what?
Awo: He breaks my eye and still thinks he has the license to cheat on me?
DBM: Awo
Awo: What?
DBM: This is your anger speaking
Awo: He has hurt me. I will hurt him back
DBM: Treat yourself kindly and consider walking away from what you know isn’t the right thing to do
Awo: What would you have done if you were in my shoes?
DBM: I don’t know what I would have done
Awo: He has a beautiful family with me, and he tells his mother all the time. Why would he risk so much by cheating on me?
DBM: Do you know his motivation for going outside the marriage?
Awo: He says it started when I distanced myself from him for a year after poking my eye.
DBM: He could have found a better way to deal with your silent treatment. I know a lot of guys who have told me that, they can still love their wives and want to have sex with other women.
Awo: And they feel they can get away with it? How inconsiderate can a man be, huh? Don’t you people feel guilty?
DBM: Even if there is a feeling of guilt, it wouldn’t be because of the stray sex. Your husband probably has been contemplating on the consequences, like you finding out about it someday.
Image Credit: Diva Plavalaguna
