Posted by Chioma Anyagafu on
IT is a common place saying that love is blind. But I want to add that that is not all. A man or a woman in love is not only blind, he/she is deaf and dumb as well.
IT is a common place saying that love is blind. But I want to add that that is not all. A man or a woman in love is not only blind, he/she is deaf and dumb as well.
And you know why? Whilst everyone around sees something wrong in that relationship, the man/woman sees nothing wrong and that is because he/she is in love. Therefore, he/she is both blind, deaf and dumb. And like another saying goes, there is a price for everything. For being in love, for being blind, deaf and dumb, means that someday, somewhere, a price must be paid.
But that does not mean that love does not make the world go round. That does not mean that love has ceased to be the music of the soul. When there is genuine love for a man or woman who appreciates it and appreciates the lover, the world really goes round. A man or woman in such a relationship glows. People love all the time, even when they lose some of the times.
Wisdom demands, however, that one should beware of dogs! Wisdom also demands that one should beware of frogs and all the ‘ugly' James and Janettes. The reason is simple. If you are not careful, you will become a victim of love.
In this edition, our respondents share their ugly experiences in the hands of sons of Adam and daughters of Eve. Read and learn from it. Buy wisdom and sell it not.
He tricked me into borrowing for him: Gladys, 38
Life is full of wonderful experiences. I became a single mother and a victim of circumstance all in the name of love. My ex, Daniel, and I were in the same university but he was two years ahead of me. I came from a relatively well-to-do family and he has a humble background. But he has everything I needed in my man. He was seemingly kind, caring, intelligent and I learnt so much from him. He was a medical student while I was a nursing student. And because of the longer period it takes to study medicine, we graduated together.
His determination to succeed in life encouraged me a lot and I aspired for the top. I went for a course in midwifery afterwards and because of my family background, I was able to get a job in an oil company while Daniel struggled to get something doing. Because he encouraged me a lot in school, I was determined to encourage him reach the peak of his career and so I was giving him money from my salary to enable him do a specialist course.
When he became a gynaecologist, I took a loan from my firm which I gave him to open a hospital of his own. He rented a place, bought some equipment and employed some doctors and nurses. He became the medical director of the hospital.
By then, he was known to everyone in my family but they didn't know I was giving him money or that I took a loan to support him. He was supposed to pay it back but he never did and for one year, I didn't earn a salary because I was paying back the loan. I had also moved in with him at that point and we were live-in -lovers. Then I became pregnant and he came and did the traditional introduction to my family in preparation for the marriage. But the marriage never took place. I had the child in his house and when I was paying back the loan I took to help him establish his hospital, he began to change. I suspected it was because the money was no longer coming from me and he needed time to stabilise the hospital.
I could not go to my parents or siblings for help because they knew I had a good job. Besides, the family was not happy that I went ahead to get pregnant without properly getting married and they told me in clear terms that they didn't like Daniel when he came for the introduction. My mother asked me again and again about him and demanded that my family be given time to make enquiries about him. But I was a woman in love. I was blind.
Before I knew it, violence crept into the relationship. Daniel would beat me blue and black at the slightest provocation and he carried on in the house as if I was not there. Other women were coming in to see him. Some were sleeping over and he was dating both single and married women. He had no class where a female was concerned. Anything could go and the hospital he started became a slaughter house where he slept with small girls and perform abortion indiscriminately. At a stage, he started sleeping in the hospital and I hardly got to see him. I started going to check him in the hospital and even offer helping hands on weekends.
He didn't like that and asked me to stop coming. I did for a period. But I made the mistake of going again another time after close of work and there, I found a neighbour's maid balanced firmly on his laps and he was fondling her. I was shocked and I told him his life history. He descended heavily on me right there in the hospital and taught me a lesson or two about violence. Well, my elder brother saw me and the black patches all over me and called in the police. I almost felt sorry for him as he went on his knees, calling my name and begging me but if you look at my swollen face and the bandage and crutches I wore and used for months, you wouldn't feel sorry for him.
Besides, our neighbours, whose maid he violated, got to know and that complicated the issue. Well, to cut the long story short, that marked the end of our relationship. Daniel later got a job in Dublin where he is based now. Our son is eleven years old and I brought him up single-handedly. The other day, I had a call and was surprised to hear Daniel speak. He said he wants to come back and the question that fell from my lips was if he was coming back to finish me. You can never tell, he might have qualified as a professional boxer as well. He said he has changed and turned a new leaf. What really amazes me was that he said he never got married because he believes we belong together. If I believe that, I would believe anything. How could he have been alone all the years he was in Dublin with the track record he kept in Nigeria? Once bitten, twice shy. To stumble twice over the same stone is a proverbial disgrace. So, I'm being really careful.
I sent her abroad, I never heard from her: Jim, 40
Marita was highly recommended to me by my elder sister. She was a relation of my sister's husband and she was close to my sister who loved her and nurtured her for me. She was slim, tall and fair. We are almost the same height and I am 6ft 3 inches. We were well suited and I really loved her and admired my sister's taste of a woman she wanted me to marry. That was how we began.
Marita was spending time with my sister most of the time and because my sister was like a mother to us, I respected her every wish. So, I fell for it when my sister asked me to begin to take serious responsibility for Marita. I am a businessman and educated. I even have an MBA before I ventured into the business of importation. My route then was Dubai and Germany but now, I have expanded to other areas. I wanted Marita to have quality education and my sister encouraged me to send her abroad. It was convenient for me because the money was there and I travel a lot as well. And so, I made arrangements and had Marita enrolled in a university in Maryland, USA.
Initially, she was lost and uncomfortable in her new environment and I stayed with her for three months and then, handed her over to a Nigerian couple and came back to Nigeria. Before I knew it, I was hearing less and less of her.
She always gave excuses for not being around whenever I called the Nigerian couple she lived with and I understood because of her busy schedule as a student. At a point too, my business began having problems and I decided to stay home in Nigeria to pay more attention to it. I was sending money regularly to Marita and she only called to acknowledge receipt of the monies sent.
My sister had also began to complain of not hearing from her ever since she travelled and suggested that I pay her a surprise visit. That was three years after and I accepted. My business had stabilised once again and I needed a holiday. And so, I made preparation, bought expensive Nigerian clothes and had them sewn in Nigeria, bought and processed local food and off I went to Maryland, to the house of the Nigerian couple. But they were no longer living in the place.
A friendly Togolese directed me to a school where I could see the wife of the Nigerian. I moved into a middle-class hotel and the next day, was able to trace the wife of the Nigerian but she told me she was no longer with her husand. She was almost hostile to me and when I enquired of my fiancee, she said my fiancee left with her husband and abandoned her and her two daughters. I was furious. I pleaded with her to help me trace them and she said they moved to Chicago and she didn't have the details.
She even accused me of deliberately bringing a beautiful girl from Nigeria and conniving with her to steal her husband and threatened to call in the cops. I tried vehemently to reason with her but as they say, hell hath no fury like a woman scorned! But my own fury was unmatcheable. How could Marita steal my heart, my hard-earned money and take off with another man, another woman's husband? Of all the men in America, it was the husband of her benefactor that she chose.
No need to tell you that the holiday was a nightmare. I came back to Nigeria feeling very sick and my sister was shocked. She took me to Marita's parents in the village and they looked lost as I narrated my ordeal in the hands of their daughter. Her mother told me Marita sent them a letter that I was the one who abandoned her and that she was suffering in America and decided to get married so the man would take care of her. She even showed me her wedding photograph and a photo of her new-born baby. I was shocked. It was indeed the husband of the woman that she married.
Painfully, I explained to Marita's parents what really transpired and they were shocked. Her father said he would talk some sense into her, as if talking sense into her would change what has already happened. My sister was stupified by the experience and it took me a year or two to recover. I had already vowed never to have anything to do with any daughter of Eve again because of my bitter experience in the hands of Marita.
I couldn't trust another woman for a long time but I guess, God has a way of healing broken hearts and he sent me an angel to console me. In Angel, I learnt to love and live again. In Angel, I learnt to trust again and in Angel, I found a real soul-mate. She is a woman who makes no demands, who only seeks to please and who always tries to understand why I feel the way I feel towards women. And she is a woman who has a lot of patience and has also felt emotional pain and abandonement. And she taught me to love again.