I can’t go back to Eleanor. I love my kids but going back as a husband is completely out of question. I am not the husband she used to know. Maybe I never was the husband she ever knew
Agreed we have had our share of marital squabbles. We have had our share of happiness too but it was never satisfying. Not entirely Eleanor’s fault, though. I have a part to play here.
I have finally come to look at myself in the mirror and take responsibility for the total breakdown of my marriage and the best way I knew to trigger it was asking Eleanor to quit her job. I knew that would never happen. She would never leave her job. That was the one hope I had for me to make my exit from our home and it worked.
Yes, I hate the fact that everyone blames Eleanor for the breakup of our marriage but she can handle it better her than me. She is a strong woman,
I have heard stories of how they all think she is manipulative, bossy and mouthy because she brings in the dough. What woman in a position like hers won’t be any of these and more? In truth, I found it appealing but these aren’t the reasons behind our breakup, even Eleanor doesn’t know it and I dare not tell!
The reason we are separated today is my uncle and he has been dead for close to 15 years now. My uncle, whom my parents named me after, Uncle Tunde lived with us when I was quite young. He never got married, he lived freely and died alone.
Uncle T, as I often called him had been abusing me since I turned six since we shared the same room. It started with subtle things, rubbing his crotch, then sucking his penis, then he mine, then his fingers in my anus using baby oil, then to full blown anal by the time I was about 12years old, I think. All these happened right under my Christian mother’s nose and my father’s fierce authoritarian rule and both of them didn’t suspect a thing!
I am bi-sexual. I swing between guys and girls.
Thanks or not to my Uncle who woke these deep stirs in me.
Maybe I was born this way, maybe Uncle T planted it in me. Whatever it is, I can no longer stay with Eleanor. To continue to do so will be to jeopardise her life and those of my children but I will get to the jeopardy shortly.
I hid my orientation well enough while at the uni; I can get it up for any girl just by thinking of the tight ass of a boy I admire. No problem with that. I dated the fine girls but mostly played with them after a few occasions of sex. That way, no one would call me okobo – ‘the one who cannot do.’ They would leave once they saw I was not the stud they wanted.
But girls constantly leaving worried my mum, she would have died a thousand deaths if she found out back then. She would have fasted for more than the mandatory 40 days. She would have brought in more deliverance ministers to cast out the devil in me, she would have made me go to the different churches she visited, especially when at close to 37 years I was unmarried. She would have made me live through hell.
So I hid it. Then came Eleanor. She seemed quite content with the occasional sex, she also wasn’t too keen on it herself so it worked for both of us. The kids tumbled in and after three children, I decided there was no more need to pretend at sex. I simply found my highs outside. I found the one off DJ, the couple of times plumber guy. I found a university undergrad in the estate that was really into experimenting with stuff. We had good times when he came home on holidays but these kids can be very unfaithful. I didn’t want to risk contacting anything from him, so I decided to look elsewhere for a more stable partner. They were many but they were also not ready to be faithful, sticking to one partner …until I met Eddy.
We met at one of those events Eleanor forces me to attend. A gathering of professionals somewhere in GRA, Ikeja. It’s been a crazy relationship. I never let Eddy meet Eleanor, no. I wanted to keep both of them separate. Maybe it was a good thing I did. I don’t know. Three years after meeting Eddy, I tested positive for HIV.
I was devastated! I loathed myself. I cursed my uncle, I cursed Eddy; I cursed the stirring in my loins every time I saw a new man I wanted. I cursed the god of my desires.
Eddy left soon after blaming me. He said I contacted it and infected him. I know he is lying, we both know who gave it to who.
I took to sleeping in the guest bedroom. I ate outside my home, I befriended artisans in the estate. I kept far from home for some time to sort things out in my head. There was no one to talk to. No one I could trust to be open with.
Except of course my doctor who quickly advised I began treatment in earnest. He also encouraged me to tell Eleanor.
Never!
That’s when I knew I had to move out of my home. I knew I had to protect my immediate family. You can’t avoid having sex with your wife for five years even if she is the type that doesn’t like sex. No you can’t and when you do, you can’t wear a condom knowing she is on IUD.
It’s either she finds out and makes a mockery of you or you find a way to disrupt the whole setting and walk away.
I chose to disrupt things and walk.