Why Get Married: Men Lie Women Cheat!

Friday, December 22, 2006

I need my space

So when "Passion" my therapist gave me this log in information I thought she was insane. Why? Well as others have stated it seemed really wierd for me to pour out my feelings about my life to strangers. But apparently so many of her patients do it and it is a form of release so I have decided to jump in and contribute my own knowledge to or shall I say my own life to this growing montage.

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Looking back now I feel like I was destined to marry my husband. Even though while growing up I would never have guessed it. I am the last of eight children. My father had four wives and managed to have at least two girl with each before he died. My mother was the last wife and after my father's death she was thrown out of the house before I was born.

She lived on the streets for four months before she finally made her way to Ibadan. There she had me in the basement of her landlords house. Fortunately, the wife of the landlord happened to be a nurse/midwife. My mother who was only twenty at the time along with my sister who was just two were taken in by this Seventh-Day Adventist couple. The husband (who i called daddy for many years) was a medical doctor and his wife the nurse worked for university of ibadan teaching hospital.

Anyway, my mother was thier house help and my sister and i were treated like thier children. Even though they had children of thier own (three boys) they never treated us like we were imposters. In fact I didn't know that my mother was my mother until the kind Dr.'s family moved away to Lagos. I remember crying that my parents were abandoning me. It was then my mother explained that she was our mother not the woman we had been calling mommy. And that the kind Dr. was not our father.

I was only twelve and my world shattered.

At fifteen I started working with my mom in her shop. She had begun to sell imported clothes and had learned how to sew very well and so we (my sister and I) after school would earn our keep helping my mother around her shop. We would braid hair in the front and she would work in the back. My sister entered U. I with flying colors and quickly began studying hard. She was very smart and got excellent grades. I was also brilliant and rose to the top of my secondary school graduating class. needless to say I graduated with high grades and also got into university. I choose to attend school in Lagos.

In Unilag. I was very focused and didn't have time for boys. Unlike my other friends who constantly slept with professors and messed around with all the small boys on our campus, my professor's respected me because i studied hard and was very hardworking and the little boys on campus feared me because I didn't give them face. I was later duped "ice-queen" because I wasn't willing to mess myself with anyone.

In my last year of Law school at LASU, I was walking to my hostel when a car pulled up next to me, this fine guy got out and asked if I needed a ride. Even though it was hot and I had just blasted one exam I had my pride and said no. The idiot went and parked the car and came to join me in my stroll then he said "if you prefer we walk, then we will walk". I tired and sticky and didn't want company. But he invited himself so I chose to ignore him

He introduced himself as Seun and he asked me my name. I didn't answer he started telling me his life story. How he was working with one merchant bank and was on his way back to his house and decided to cut through campus (probably looking for those skanky girls to sleep with was my thought) as a short cut and then he came upon me and he just had to talk to me. I still kept quiet. But he seemed to be doing enough talking for both of us. I arrived at my dorm and he said he would see me tomorrow

I didn't say anything just kept on walking

The next day I arrived from class in the evening only to see this man waiting for me at my form with flowers. What was going on here? I accepted the flowers and then asked him what he wanted. He thanked me for indulging him the day before and said that he enjoyed my company.

I decided to amuse him and see how long it would take for him to leave when he realized I was a virgin.

I didn't mean to fall in love...

But fall in love I did

I fell in love with him so hard, it was not even easy. And Seun knew it. I didn't tell him but you could tell by my actions and my behavior i was obssesed with him. By the time I graduated and sat for my final exams, we were already planning our future together. He had been promoted to a Director of one of the branches of his company and i was now a lawyer.

I went away and did my NYSC and throughout the whole time I was away, Seun was writing me everyday and sending me things. We had our disputes but he never cursed at me or hit me or even raised his voice. I was happy I had waited to be with someone this special.

When I returned I got offered a job with the Magistrates office in Lagos but turned it down because I found out my mother was dying fo cancer. I returned to Ibadan where my sister was working as an Intern (medical dr.) and worked with a company in Ibadan and we took care of my mother. She died in August a month shy of my sister's wedding. That was the hardest part for my sister. She got married without my mother there.

Anyway, I returned to Lagos a year later and since Seun and i were still in a relationship we decided to move in together.

We got married in May of the following year and I was immediately pregnant. Things began to chance when Seun started coming home late. I noticed but didn't really think anything of it because i realized that men sometimes need thier space.

Finally after our first child was born (a boy) Seun told me he had to tell me some bad news. I thought he would tell me he was getting a divorce from me, but no, He said " I have been diagnosed with HIV". You can imagine my shock and horror. I was so scared. He said he had been cheating on me while I was pregnant and he had contracted the virus. I was hurt but then I was scared because I didn't want to have Aids or the virus. I quickly went and got tested and I was pronounced negative.

Seun died five years later of full blown AIDS. I lost all love and respect for him but I still treated him lik my best friend. He betrayed me but I still cared enough to stay with him till the last day. His parents didn't believe thier son would die the way he did.

Well, you might be wondering why I started by telling you about the good Dr. and his Wife, I married thier son.

That is right. Seun was the last born son of the good Dr. We all didn't know it, niether Seun nor I knew and he never met my mother. By the time I met his parents my mother was dead and well, I didn't recognize any of them. Seun was only five years older than me and he was away in high school when his parents left so I didn't remember him either.

His mother brought over an old album and in it were pictures of my sister and I with my mother. I asked her if she knew these people and she spoke so wonderfully of my mother I cried and told her that was my mother adn that little girl was me. I showed her a picture of my mother and sister and I infront of the family house with her the day before they left. She and i spent the better part of the day crying over the time lost and the pain of loosing Seun.

I came to the U.S. two years ago with my son to start a new life. I got a job with the Nigerian Embassy and I am happy to work in N.Y. it is a different world but it reminds me of Lagos. I miss having Seun here to talk to but I don't miss being afraid that I would die because i kissed my husband today or that my son would catch it because he skinned his knee and daddy put a band-aid on it.

i know it must sound ignorant to people now that I say it but that is how I felt. It is easy to judge people's reaction to HIV and Aids from the outside but living with it every day in Nigeria where there is little or no medication and education about it is very different.

I am not dating and only met "Passion" through a friend. Hopefully my story can help you in your own life. Seun isn't here today because he cheated on his wife. Men be careful! and Women always protect yourselves! I am fortunate you may not be...

Posted by Passion :: 1:39 AM :: 6 comments