I used to wonder why some people endure abusive relationships till I read this story by Jude Idada... and it made sense.. its a long and interesting read.
... We all believed my aunt was trapped in a loveless and abusive marriage.
And because we did, there was no opportunity we didn't seize to tell her how wise and expedient it was to leave her husband.
Three children in tow.
She would weep and tell us how hard she had tried to leave, and how the thought of leaving the children behind was too much to bear.
At the beginning and a long time after that, my father had offered to use his legal chambers to fight for custody of the children on her behalf.
My aunty will thank him profusely and promise to follow up with his offer.
She never did.
Her husband was a military officer.
And was never in want of top positions, in fact, he was a darling of the then military head of state.
It was one state military administrator after another. They even sent him to the United Nations and to ECOMOG.
He fed fat from the coffers of the nation.
Yet, my aunt's tale of woe continued in the midst of the fineries she wore and the luxury she lived within.
My father on his part stopped listening to her, whenever she came visiting and regaled us with lamentations, my father will quietly take his leave and retreat to his bedroom or the upstairs living room.
Then there was a coup d'etat.
A new military government came to power.
My aunt's husband lost his patronage.
And was posted to a far-flung military position, somewhere up north in the middle of nowhere.
In two weeks, my aunt was at our house in Lagos.
With the three children.
She wanted out.
My father wanted no part in it.
My mother was livid.
How could he abandon family at such a perilous time?
My father was cool when he responded to her as we drove to a family friend's birthday party that day.
"Some people use pity as a weapon of manipulation. And use love to blackmail. I will not be an enabler of such an abusive person."
My mother was even more furious.
She made clear her feelings.
My father retained his cool and retorted.
"Some monsters are created by their victims. But the one will call a victim is actually a fellow monster. And that which we accuse the monster of, we do not know, that it is a creation of both monsters."
The more he spoke, the more infuriated was my mother.
"She knows that the whole country see her husband as a monster, so she feigns victimhood to curry sympathy. But that which he is, she also is, but she is smarter than him. She uses him and uses us also who empathize with her feigned situation."
My mother went silent.
"My dear, your cousin is not being abused. She is simply a user. And you are allowing her to abuse your emotions and concern. She has come now because her husband is no longer in a position of power and wealth. Can't you see that what was keeping her in that marriage wasn't fear for her kids, but the power and money that she got from the marriage?"
My mother was still silent and looked out of the car window.
"I saw it in her eyes. Her duplicitous nature. There was a coldness in it. And I realised that she was the true abuser, and he a partner in the abuse. She played you all. Now she is here acting out her fall back plan, and you are her willing puppet. Let her go find someone else to use. Not me and hopefully not you."
He reached over and held her hand.
"Trust me on this. Tyrants like this are usually married to tyrants. The ones who are not, leave their partners a long time ago, because the burden of conscience is too hard to bear in a relationship where one person wants to become a monster for power, and the other doesn't want to."
My mother still looked out of the window.
"Don't you see how she continually attends the NAOWA meetings and events? Don't you see how she name drops and still visits the houses of the powers that be? Your cousin is restrategising, and she is positioning herself in the new scheme of things. She has used her husband to get where she is, and now that he has no value to her, she is using us as a witness to the abuse she had endured so that she is guiltless enough to latch onto another opportunity?
He sighed.
"You see her as a cousin, and it is beautiful how you feel for her and are concerned about her. But she sees us all as pawns. People to be used. She cares only about herself. She is a sociopath. If you keep enabling her, then you are as guilty as herself and her husband for the way they have treated this country and its citizens."
My mother looked back at my father.
I recognised the look.
It was the one she gave him when he won an argument, and she saw the reason in his position.
My aunt stayed with us for a while longer.
Her husband called a number of times and then came visiting twice.
He wanted her to come back.
She didn't want to.
My father made himself scarce.
My mother simply nodded her head as they both made their case to her.
There was no empathy.
Only diplomacy.
My aunt noticed the change in my mother.
She asked her what had happened between them.
My mother was tactful.
But my aunt was smart.
She moved out without complaining again.
A new house.
Children in new schools.
She at all the 'IT" parties.
Then fortunes changed for her husband.
He had somehow warmed himself into the new leadership of the country and was appointed a military administrator of an oil-rich state in the Niger Delta.
My aunt was back with her husband in days.
A first lady once again.
We saw her smiling coquettishly on the 9 .p.m network news as she stood by her husband during the commissioning of a project in the state.
My father looked over at my mother.
It was the - I told you so - look.
My mother shook her head and let out a weary sigh.
And said.
"May God help us all."
My father smiled.
"He has already helped us. We are the ones that have refused to think or see. That believe that the only test of victimhood is only by the words from the mouth of the complainant and not the perusal of their actions. That think evil is only of the ones who are not of our blood, tribe, race, religion or sex. And let our emotions rule our head, instead of the other way around."
We turned to him.
"God did not create anyone as a pawn for another person's benefit. We are the ones who choose to live as pawns out of mental, tribal, emotional, psychological or religious slavery. And we are the only ones who save ourselves."
We stared at him that day in the living room.
Amazed that he had seen what we had not seen.
Even though we all were looking at the same woman.
I had a father.
source: https://www.facebook.com/jude.idada/posts/10155587725781068 |
