SICK AND SAD-(FOR THE STORY LOVERS)

Please, help me! My father has ruined my only chance of marital bliss

Dear Taiwo,
Please, help me I need a solution to my problem and I need to sort myself out before I do something drastic to myself. I have contemplated suicide several times in the past week, but the thought of what would happen to my children if I left them stopped me each time.

If I commit suicide and leave these two children, I have asked myself several times, at whose mercy would they be? Would I leave them for my father and allow the same vicious cycle which destroyed my life to destroy the these children lifes? Would I do to them what my mother did to me?

I never knew my mother; I grew up to know my father as my only parent. When it was time for me to ask questions, my father told me that my mother left me with him and went away to marry another man. He never told me why she left him and, at that time, I also did not bother to ask why. I had no reason to because I felt grateful that, at least, daddy did not abandon me the way my mother did.

I also did not see anything wrong with the fact that my daddy did not marry another woman and he always told me that he had refused to take another wife because he would hate a situation where another woman would come into our home and treat me badly.

This, however, did not mean that he didn’t have women friends. When I became conscious of some vital things in life, I became worried about the type of women my father was keeping. I raised this with him once and he told me in simple language to mind my business, which I did.

When I was in Form Four, I was a teenager. I started noticing the way dad was always looking at me. Initially, I was not worried about it; but when I noticed that whenever he was looking at me he used to have an erection, I became worried.

I had no one I could confide in, because he made sure that I was not close to any of his family members. I hardly knew them, because my father himself was not close to any of them. And, of course, I did not have an opportunity to be close to them too. The only person I could have told then was my best and only friend in school, but I was also too shy or ashamed to speak about my father that way to my friend. On my 15th birthday, my father called me and asked if I had a boyfriend and I told him I didn’t have a boyfriend. He began to make an issue of it and I became angry. I didn’t know what happened afterwards, but I woke up and met myself on his bed, he had fallen asleep. I saw that I was bleeding and I realised that my father had deflowered me.

I began to cry and my noise woke him up. He begged me and asked me to understand that what he did was to show how much he loved me and I should understand that every father who loved their daughter would show their daughters love that way.

I knew deep down within me that what he said was wrong and it was a lie, and I vowed it would not happen again but whenever he came to me, I had no power to resist him. I did not know how some people got to know what was happening between my father and I, but on this faithful day, I was surprised when my friend asked me. I knew it was a shameful thing and I could not confide in her, so I denied it.

When we finished secondary school, my friend proceeded to the Kogi State Polytechnic, but I could not further my education, because my father had no means and financial power to send me to the higher institution. That was why I lost my only friend. I had to get a job at a clinic very close to our house, first as a clerk, but I later learnt and qualified as an auxiliary nurse from the hospital.

During my training, I met and became friendly with a youth corps member — a medical doctor who came to serve at the hospital where I worked. Maybe I would have been able to make something good out of my relationship with Emmanuel, he was a native of Oturkpo, but my father never allowed it. He did not give me a space and he was always hostile to Emmanuel whenever he came around to see me.

I didn’t know how Emmanuel too heard about my father and I, he confronted me with it and that was the end of our relationship. Although I denied it and tried to persuade him to accept my claim, he did not come back.

After my relationship with Emmanuel ended, I became very bitter and lonely, I had no friend and I was unable to mix with people because everyone in our town avoided me. I had no other life aside my place of work and my father’s .

About two years after I broke up with Emmanuel, my boss, the medical director of the hospital where I worked asked me out. He was a widow and I was happy he did. When I raised the issue of what people were saying about my father and I with him, he said he didn’t believe it was possible and that he was not bothered about the “rumour.” If he had not said this, maybe I would have confided in him.

When my father discovered my relationship with my boss, he raised an issue. I told him that if he tried to stop me, I would expose him to the world. Initially, he thought I was bluffing; but I shook him when I attempted to kill myself. Because I wanted to avoid him, I started staying away from home.

I asked my MD if I could stay over at the hospital sometimes, and I intentionally demanded that I be placed on perpetual night duty, which made staying at the hospital easy for me. When some of my boss’s family members knew of my relationship with him, they kicked against it. That was what delayed our tying the nuptial knot. His mother did not want to hear or see me at all.

In the process, I became pregnant and gave birth to a baby girl. I was lucky that my daughter was the exact replica of her father, but despite this, some people rumoured that she could be my father’s daughter. To the glory of God, my husband if I could call him that, was not bothered about what people were saying. He loved me and our daughter. And sincerely, before and during the pregnancy, I avoided my father like a plague.

As God would have it, I became pregnant again not long after the birth of my first daughter and my father was transferred from Okene to Lokoja by the firm he worked with. This development gave me some degree of freedom and I moved back to my father’s house. My husband was making moves to pacify his mother to accept me so we could be properly married. Moving in with him would have been easy if his mother and siblings were not living with him, helping to raise the three children left by his dead wife.

That was why I was delivered of my second daughter in my father’s house. Her birth helped to soften my mother-in-law’s heart a little , because she also looked a great deal like her father. Few days after the baby’s naming ceremony, my father came home. He looked sober (I forget to mention that when I started staying away from home, he began to drink excessively and recklessly) and he informed me that he had found a woman he would love to marry in Lokoja. I was happy for him and also pleaded with him to accept my husband. My father agreed that he would meet with him so that we could arrange our traditional marriage.

My husband was away from the country, so I telephoned to tell him of the new development, he was happy. He called to tell me later to go and see his mother so that we could set the ball rolling. When my father came back for the weekend, my mother-in-law came to see him, and we agreed for a date sometime in Febuary this year and I communicated this to my husband.

To my utmost surprise, when my father came home again after the meeting with my mother-in-law, he asked to have sex with me again.

I refused bluntly and he vowed to have his way. I made up my mind to avoid him at all costs. Taiwo, I did not know why the devil chose that very day 13th of Febuary to have a field day with me. My husband came to town without telling me, he actually had a good intention, he wanted to surprise the girls and I, but my father also came home with an evil intent. Unfortunately for me, it was my day off, I was at home when he came in I asked what the matter was, instead of answering, he made to grab me, as he came into my room. He began to struggle with me, my father wanted to have sex with me again or should I say rape . My husband came in and met my father and I struggling, we did not hear him come in because of the struggle. When he saw the scenario, my husband raised the alarm, which attracted some of our neighbours.

It was as if people were waiting for an opportunity like this to take on my father. Neighbours descended on him and lynched him, if not for my intervention, they would have killed him. He is lying critically ill in the hospital and my husband has called off our wedding. Not only that, he said he did not want to even see me or our daughters. In fact, he told some people that he was not sure of their paternity. It was after this that I learnt from one of my father’s brothers the reason my mother left my father; she caught her having sex with his own younger sister.

And, according to him, that was the reason my father did not have a cordial relationship with his family members. He told me that it was rumoured then that my father was probably using his sister for ritual purposes.

Was that his reason for sleeping with me too? Why didn’ t any body tell me this before now? What would I do? How do I want to convince my husband that I had not allowed my father to come near me since I have met him?

I want to be happy. I want a husband, children, and a happy home just like every other woman, my father has dashed my hopes.

As if this is not enough, I have become a laughing stock, everyone talks about me. I can’t go out without feeling that all eyes are on me. What should I do? Somebody, please, help me.

Esther, Kogi.