I have seen and read too many strange stories to know that what happened to me isn’t strange and should not even be treated as a family matter.
My husband is a very traditional man; he believes in family, the extended family for that matter and I do not begrudge him.
If he wants to flood the whole of our five bedroom bungalow with his relatives, I have no problems with this, I only ask that he should remember that me and his children come first above the rest of his extended family and because I do not have that assurance, that is why I am crying out to the world, save me!
So this is what happened.
My husband, like I said has family members who just show up at our house, “their brother’s house” without notice and stay for extended periods. I learned early in our marriage not to ask questions like;
“Why didn’t you inform me you were coming?”
“How long will you stay?”
My husband said it was rude to ask such questions and so, I just tell them, “Welcome my in- law, how are our people at home?”
Even when they leave, many times, I don’t get told when they are leaving. I would have cooked or prepared something for them and later be told by my husband that they had left or would be leaving that very day.
So when my husband went home last year and came back with his nephew, I didn’t ask questions. He was the one who informed me the boy would be living with us on a permanent basis and that he would go to school too. The boy was 16 years old and I was told he had been expelled from SS2 class for bad behaviour.
Now, everyone in my husband’s family also know he is a strict person, a disciplinarian who never spares the rod. So we have had a few cousins, nieces stay with us for my husband to “straighten,” them out and they would often go back to their parents after a few weeks of “discipline” from my husband.
It is this same strict discipline that my husband use to handle our two children, a boy and a girl. My daughter is 10 and my son, 8 years old; in fact, they are very scared of him.
Anyway, this nephew came and at first, he was a model child. I even began to feel sorry for him that he was a misunderstood teenager. I wasn’t told the real reason why he was expelled and so I was deceived at the beginning. He was obedient, would ask me what I needed to get done and would carry out his chores. He would help my children with their homework and all…I just assumed he wanted to show gratitude to my husband, his uncle.
Many times I would hear him playing with my children in their room or even outside the house and I began to think that I may have misjudged him…
Until a few months after, my daughter, who was usually very lively, very talkative too, began to withdraw from me. Like I said earlier, she was scared of her father but more open with me but when she began to keep to herself, I thought it odd. Then again, I just thought, she was growing up. I probed after a while and she said she was ok.
I knew something was off but didn’t get the details until I got a call from her class teacher, one young lady my daughter wants to be like.
The teacher invited me over to school citing strange behavior she noticed concerning my daughter.
I was in school that very day because it was also something I had observed and when I asked my little girl, like I said before, she said she was ok.
I found out my daughter had been sexually molested by my husband’s nephew! He had done it several times! No, he didn’t penetrate her, he had asked her to sit on his lap, grinding at her, he had asked her to hold his penis and rubbed her face in it! He had also asked her to put it in her mouth, to which she refused…he was slowly grooming her for the final act!
I almost passed out.
Thankfully, my daughter wasn’t in the classroom when the teacher spoke to me about these things happening in my household that I had no idea about. I was so ashamed of myself. I mean, how could I be totally oblivious of what was going on with my own child and there I was patting the goat on his head, telling my daughter to always obey him because I thought he was a model child!
I hated myself that my daughter couldn’t approach me to tell me what she had been put through in a house where I thought she should feel the most protected.
Anyway, I thanked the teacher and took my child home. I told her I was sorry I didn’t see her misery and that I would do something about it. Guess what she said to me?
“Mummy are you sure you’re not mad at me?”
I said, “Dear Lord, I can never be mad at you my darling, this is not your fault! I will make sure he leaves the house”
Then she asked, “Will daddy not be mad at me?”
“No! Never!”
Anyway, I assured my daughter she would be fine that the boy would leave our house…
My husband came home and I told him everything, I was bitter and demanded for the first time that his nephew had to leave our house immediately!
You know what happened?
My husband was quiet for a long time.
I expected anger, I expected him to shout, to rage and to immediately call the boy, who at that time had also come back from school, to beat him or send him packing immediately!
He sat there quiet, shook his head a few times and said, “This is the reason he was expelled from school back at his parents place, they caught him fondling junior students and a few had reported him to their parents.”
I was beyond shock, “This is the monster you brought into our home! He has to leave immediately!”
He just replied, “I will handle this!”
Hummn, days later, with the boy still living with us…my husband said we should thank God he hadn’t penetrated our daughter, that now that we knew, he would ensure that it never happened…he said he couldn’t send him away and that this was a family matter and that I shouldn’t discuss anything further with the teacher, who was constantly asking me if we had provided a safe environment for our daughter and if the boy was out of the house.
I told her we were working on it but you know children, my daughter told her the boy still lived in our house.
I felt hopeless, angry, sad that the one daughter God gave me, I couldn’t even protect her from this animal!
Yes, my husband confronted the boy, slapped him a few times and that was all. He warned him that if he tried it with our daughter, he would personally kill him…but is that all a father should do for his daughter?
Yes, he spoke to our daughter and assured her it would never happen again but I feel he should have done more. He should have helped her feel protected by first sending the boy away.
When I told him I had never demanded he sent any family member away but that our daughter was traumatized, still seeing the boy in the house, knowing he knew she had reported him to us…my husband said, “…traumatized is for oyibo people, African children do not suffer mental trauma. This is a family affair, we handle it as a family…”
What family?
Who’s family?
I was pained!
I have failed my daughter once, I have no intention of doing so again. True I have no idea how I would cope if I leave my husband…because I feel my daughter, though may not exhibit any outward pain right now, I have read enough to know it could affect her in future.
When I told the teacher I was helpless to help my daughter, she advised me to go to them at Alausa…state government, she said they would help us there.
I am going there tomorrow, if this marriage ends let it end!
(Series written and edited by Peju Akande and based on true stories)