Dear Agatha,
Going through your response to the worried cousin’s letter to you, I hope she would be smart enough to heed to your advice. Sincerely, it is the most practical thing to do, especially as her own husband has told her to stay off.
She would be overstepping her bounds if she interferes more than she has done. I strongly suspect the lady in question’s immediate family, including her mother, is aware of the situation in her daughter’s home but decided to look the other way because of the money and prestige of the family their daughter married into.
And if the mother isn’t bothered about the life of her daughter, why should the cousin cry more than the woman who carried her in the womb for nine months?
Though very pathetic but it tells the story of how low we have gone as a people. These days, money and affluence are what matters most to people than the real thing. If the parents of this girl place more emphasis on money what then is the business of this cousin of hers?
In addition, the lady at the centre of it all isn’t a young girl who doesn’t know what she wants. She certainly knows what to do if the situation becomes too unbearable for her. No amount of fear should keep her in that place if she actually wants to leave. Denying everything she told this cousin of hers shows that this cousin is on her own and could easily be accused of spreading falsehood about her cousin’s home out of jealousy. This could destroy not only her home but split the family as well.
She should please stay out of her cousin’s marriage no matter how much she finds the situation unpleasant.
There are some situations in life that do not need the prompting or support of anybody to decide on. Her cousin doesn’t need her to end the marriage. When she is tired of being beaten, humiliated, embarrassed and dehumanised she would end it herself money or not.
Agatha, please keep up the good job. Nobody but God can repay your selfless service to humanity.
Thank you.
Bill Douglas.
Dear Concerned Cousin,
I feel compelled to share my experience with you on this issue. It would help you understand a lot of the things Agatha told you better. Going through her response to you, I see plenty of wisdom from someone who may have gone through all the shades of experiences in life. In deep retrospect, I have come to see life as a big school.
I share my experience with you as a mother to a daughter. I hope your cousin gets to read it too.
As a woman and mother, I appreciate how you feel but like Agatha advised don’t get involved in another woman’s marriage. I have been married for almost 35 years and have experienced all there is to experience in marriage. I have seen the best and worst sides of it. After battling my own problems for this long, I have now come to a point of enduring every situation that crops up with dignity of an old person.
Your cousin’s marriage is a reflection of my own 35 years ago. The first year was the most beautiful when I had my only child of the union. It was as if the birth of my daughter changed him from a loving man into a living monster. He found every excuse to beat me. He didn’t care who the audience was, he would do what he wanted to do to me, including forcing me to sleep with him.
It was so horrible but I couldn’t quit because my parents didn’t support me at all. Being very rich, he could buy my entire town. He didn’t deny me money. Gave me everything money could buy but what I needed the most, he denied me. A friend of mine from my childhood who tried to play the heroine died in the process of helping me and the worst thing is that I couldn’t do anything to help her.
I still feel guilty anytime I recall that I was the one who caused her death. She noticed the several bruise on my body and that I wasn’t happy. She pressured me into telling her about my husband and home. Just like I feared, she didn’t like and tried to make me leave but I wasn’t ready for it. Violent as the marriage was, I was getting used to the money, affluence and prestige of being married to this particular man. My parents and siblings all liked his money. It was a different world from that of wants I come from.
So when my friend blew the lid on me and my husband came after me with his belts and pistol, I had to deny my friend; accused her of being jealous of my success and wanting to destroy my home as a result of it.
Then I didn’t know how far my husband would go in ensuring he kept me. Despite how I treated my friend, she still kept coming to me and actually came with the police after she found me in a pool of blood almost dead from a knife stab inflicted on me by my husband.
She contacted the police after she took me to the hospital. At the hospital, before the police came, my husband had come to warn me to keep my mouth shut or my parents would pay with their lives.
So when my friend and the police came, I lied that I inflicted the cut on myself to get the attention of my husband. My friend didn’t believe what was happening.
As if that wasn’t enough, I told her to stay out of my life; that she was a bad influence on me. I remember my parents calling her all sorts of names.
She was strangled to death in her apartment two weeks after. My husband told me several months after that if I didn’t want to end up like my friend, I should reconcile myself to being married to him.
From that point on, I accepted to make the best of my marriage by refusing to bother with what was happening. Over the years, he also changed and is now more bearable to live with but my friend is dead for not heeding the warning to stay away from my business.
Today, he too old to do anything for himself and relies on me, the same woman he took delight in beating and humiliating to get things done for him. Sometimes when the bitterness comes I feel like neglecting him but it is a cross I have carried for 35 years so where would I dump him now? I hope this story of mine makes sense to you and all the other young girls experiencing what your cousin is going through and for those who refuse to respect the sanctity of other people’s marriages.
There is so much wisdom in what Agatha told you. Please mind your business and allow your cousin work out how she wants to live her life.
Patience.
Posts
