Tonight on #WHISPERS with Sunday Sonar Imonah (@FirstSonar) AKA #RadioBoyfriend.

Our Discussion: "Student Bride"

A previous story was what encouraged me to share mine, I am Loretta, 29 years old, living with my husband and 2 kids.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0uVJ4m-LXU

There is a practice common to where I come from, where working class single, separated or divorced men, young and old troop to schools mostly higher institutions to scout for partners.

They quickly engage any lady that agrees to date them and if her family agrees, they marry her even before she is done with her schooling, if you have ever seen women going for their service with pregnancy then you may have just seen a lady that has been engaged and impregnated by her man.

Some men do this to prevent their wives from extra marital affairs at the camp, sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't because some guys like to date pregnant women as strange as that sounds.

Many parents support this system because they see it as a way to get their daughters married on time, to financially stable men and not stay single for long. Sometimes, in order to persuade parents to agree to the usually rushed union, some men offer to take up the girl's studies, this usually work like magic and the girl is given out sometimes under duress.

The unions that result varies from home to home however there is a prevailing problem in many of such unions, the men are very controlling and over protective, going by how they met their wives, you can tell they're not very open to the idea that a woman should have a choice in certain things.

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on #WHISPERS with Sunday Imonah (@FirstSonar) AKA #RadioBoyfriend & Adeola Tosin Segun-Ajileye
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I happen to be one of such brides, picked directly from school and forced by my family to marry a man I hoped would be good to me. He took over the cost of my last year in school and even tried to get me pregnant before service but I refused, this didn't go down well with him and he used my family to persuade me to agree but it didn't work.

He grumbled all through my service year and stopped me from working when I finished, in fact I gave him my first 4 years and had 2 kids, within that period with little or no spacing, my kids were back to back.

When I suggested family planning, he nearly attacked me physically, asking me who I was keeping my body for.

I started work in my fifth year and that's when I began to meet other people, prior to this period I was always indoors and couldn't go out, everything was monotonous and I was very unhappy, my husband is not romantic at all, he doesn't even add creativity to our sex, he just mounts and gets off whenever he likes, it's not fun for me at all because many times he leaves me bruised and says nothing when I tell him, instead he threatens to return me to my parents, which would be very disgraceful.

I remember the first time he slapped me, it was after I had gone out to greet him and carry his bag, it was just after my service year, I was still feeling like I was in love, I kissed him in public and he waited till we got inside and landed me that slap that reset my brain to the reality of what I had gotten my self into.

I waited till after my first child before I began talking to my family, but I was seen as not being patient, my mother scolded me so much that I stopped sharing my challenges with her.

I joined a support WhatsApp group a colleague introduced to me but the women in the group are as challenged as I am, 2 of us have died mysteriously within a year during the covid-19 period when no one could go out and we suspect domestic violence led to it or worse, suicide.

It's been 7 years and 2 years as a working class mom, the distraction helps but I am still mostly in various degrees of depression, my two boys have seen him hit me many times and no one believes me when I complain because he denies when approached and punishes me afterwards, I'm trapped.

I use religious activities as a cover by doing as much as I can via voluntary work but whenever I get back home I just become depressed again. I tried counseling but all they do is try to cover up for him by telling me to study more instead of talking to him as well.

I feel powerless and I'm thinking depressing thoughts, is there hope for me? I wish I knew more about marriage at the beginning, I would have held my grounds and not accept marriage to him.

I don't want to do anything that would be tragic. For the sake of my children and for the sake of my life I need your advice, I'll be in the comment section thanks.

#Host:
Let's help her...

� What are your thoughts?
� What should she do at this point?
� What about the kids?
� How can she please him?
� Do you think she has a chance?
� What do you think the major problem is?
� What is the best approach for proper counseling and intervention?
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