Dear Cupids,
I've seen young women leave their marriages because of littlest challenges and I’m inspired to share my story to advise young couples, especially women.
I’m 55 years old today and I can proudly say I’ve known only one man all my life. I started loving my husband since the days of “no beasts”. In those days, friends and well-wishers envied us as “little couple”. I grew up with my husband. A lot of people said we were naive. They accused us of early sexual intercourse but I can say hugely that we never made love until we got married. We were like the cow and its tail.
In our teenage years, my husband would go to the football field as a young man to play football. You dared not hurt him. Any attempt to hurt him on the field attracted huge sanctions from me. I cannot count the number of young men I fell out with because of Jerry.
In 1978, I was just 15 at the time, my elder brother took me away after Jerry’s elder brother wanted to defile me. My family got to know about it and my brother took me away to Lagos. There were things that disqualified Jerry if we were to go by having the wherewithal of getting married. Jerry had absolutely nothing. He was 19 at the time. He hadn’t finished his secondary education. He had no job, no house, nothing whatsoever. When I was 19 years, Jerry still had nothing. Men of “timber and caliber “ were asking my hand in marriage. In fact, my brother had wanted to contract me with a very rich man—who died 3 years after I married Jerry—but I refused to marry him. To the glory of God, Jerry and I now have 6 children. We managed to build our home from nothing to something. We started from bottom all the way to the top.
After our marriage, Jerry got a job with NNPC--a well-paying job. Though, he was a casual staff, he earned well. Having worked with the company for several years, my husband(Jerry) was made a regular staff. His regularized appointment as a permanent staff was confirmed by his appointment letter. He was made a cashier in the same company. It was a moment of sharp turnaround for the family until the devil stroke through a woman. My husband was a Catholic before I took him to my church. He worshipped with us for 3 Sundays before he finally decided to join. In the church, he became a financial member. All the church needed was to ask for ecumenical support in cash and kind and my husband would donate hugely. I didn’t know that the woman who owned the church was observing my husband. She was studying my husband and my family with keen interest. She wanted to know what my husband does for a living, how his family was at the time, how he makes his money, etc. She also discovered how penetrable my family was, so she struck.
As an unsuspecting member of the church, I didn’t know what her motives were when she was becoming too close to my family. I took her as a spiritual leader who wanted the welfare of his members, so there was no cause for alarm. She got into my husband so much that my husband couldn’t do a thing without asking for her opinion. Later on, this woman seized my husband. Jerry stopped coming home. He was always in church after work. He didn’t bother to know how the children went to schools or how they were catered for. In short, he became irresponsible. “Woman of herself” had taken away my beloved husband. I cried! Friends and well wishers offered to take me to witchdoctors to seek revenge, but I stood by one thing: “vengeance belongs to God”.
I settled it on my knees. Though, it cost Jerry his job, not his life. The woman manipulated my husband as a cashier to bring her a huge sum of money, N20 million. Jerry sheepishly followed her command believing that the money would be used for business as the woman promised and the profit will be shared, while the capital,N20million, will be returned to the company. This devilish woman ran away with the money;put my husband in trouble. Company brought police and arrested my husband after laying him off from his job as a cashier. But, I didn’t stop praying. My husband was in prison for six months and I cursed that evil woman. She died a miserable death. Before she died, she asked friends and family to beg me for forgiveness. I refused to make love to my husband after he was released from prison. Our penultimate daughter is 11 years older than our last son. After several years of pleading with me, my children joined him to ask me to forgive him. I’ve forgiven him. Today, he’s a pastor and my family is happy again. Our eldest daughter just got married in March this year. We are one big family once again.
I want to advise young ladies, the power of love is stronger than hurts. What you’re passing through today is nothing to be compared to what others have passed through. Patience, love and prayers will solve all problems of marriage.
Hang on, stay close to God and reclaim what belongs to you--your marriage.
Mrs. Juliana from Benin.
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