My wife reported that I beat her. Nobody is asking me why I did it.
My neighbours called the police when they heard her screaming and the police charged me with domestic violence. They said under the Lagos State law, domestic violence is a serious case.
I said, ok, “I have never raised my hands against my wife before, won’t you people ask me why?”
Nobody listened to me.
Since you are ready to hear me, let me state my case.
Agreed, we had been having issues in our marriage, we’ve only done eight years of marriage and we had been having issues. Our issue is lack of issue, o.
You see, my wife and I have had previous relationships and we had children with our former partners. Then when we both got married, we agreed to have at least one child together.
We tried for three years and couldn’t have a child together. The fault was not mine, neither was it my wife’s because as I said before, we had both had issues from our previous relationships. She had one, I had two.
Shouldn’t we just be grateful to God and enjoy our lives?
But my wife wanted an issue between us.
So, she went to see the doctor after like the third year of our marriage. She was worried and crying that she was unable to have children for me. I told her then that having a child together would have been good but if we cannot for whatever reasons, it was still ok. We would never be seen as a childless couple with three hefty children between us.
But you know women, my wife was going from one doctor to another, trying one concoction after another and quarrelling with me if I did not cooperate in bed.
I told her at that time that I was getting older. I was tired from work and maybe having a child is not a good idea again.
As a man, nearing 50, after a while, I wasn’t keen on having a child again. I tried to tell my wife that, but it always ended in a quarrel.
I mean, if she got pregnant, I would be in my 50s and by the time the child is old enough to appreciate a father, I would be in my 60s…already too old to be attending primary or secondary school issues. So, I begged my wife, let’s train the three we have, God forbid anything happen to them, we will be seen as parents of three healthy children.
Iyawo no hear, all she was saying was that she just wanted another child and though she was almost in her mid-40s then, she was still crying like a woman who never had a child.
She finally got pregnant. Even though I was not happy about it, especially after I had thought she was on some family planning method, it turned out that she wasn’t. Of course, we quarrelled over this. For almost two weeks, I refused to eat her food or even sleep on the same bed with her. But after some time, I reasoned that the baby was mine after all, so even though I was upset, I had to calm down.
Thankfully I had settled with her when a few weeks later, she lost the pregnancy. I will tell you the truth, while I felt sad for her, inwardly, I was happy.
You know women, now. She started another round of fighting with me. She said it was because I didn’t wish the baby to be born, and that is why the child went away. I was shocked at her attitude. I told her, you will soon say I used juju on you. I mean, true I didn’t want the burden of an additional child, but I didn’t kill the baby.
I tried to reason with her, but she was beyond sense, so I left her and went about my way. She refused to have me touch her and I left her to herself.
After a few weeks, I tried again and that was when she went for my thing. I thought she wanted to play with it as she often did but she tricked me. As soon as I relaxed and put my head back, she put it in her mouth and bit me!
She swallowed me whole and bit me!
Who does that?
I screamed and thought I was going to faint. I tried to kick her off me, but her teeth gripped me, so I begged her. I was begging her. What did I do to you to deserve this? If you don’t want to do, you will say, you don’t want to…I will go elsewhere…why this?
She said since I had told her I didn’t want to have children, what did I need it for?
I think losing her baby had made her mad.
If I screamed too much, our neighbours would hear and they would know what we cooked that got burnt, so with a lot of restraint in my voice, I was shaking and begging.
When she let me go, I went mad! I attacked her with the same force she attacked me…that is why neighbours called the police.
So tell me, if you were the one, what would you have done?
(Series written and edited by Peju Akande)