What’s it like to survive a marriage where you have to endure disapproval from your spouse’s family, especially in a family-oriented society like ours? That’s been the fake* reality for the past decade.
She talks about enduring hatred from her in-laws, how she believes her past miscarriages were related to spiritual attacks, and how she is coping with her situation.
As told by Bolwatife
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There is a popular proverb among Nigerians. “You don’t marry the man, you marry the family.” This means that for a marriage to work, approval is needed from the family, especially the in-laws.
When I got married in 2014, I didn’t get permission from my husband Yinka’s family, but I didn’t think it would be a big deal. After all, Inca* claimed that he loved me and that I didn’t need his family to be happy together.
Interestingly, I knew about the Inca family long before I got married. My mother and Inca’s mother were friends. My mother sold women’s shoes, and Inca’s mother was a good customer of hers. As a teacher, she was always buying shoes.
Every time I got home from school, I would help my mother at her store, sometimes following her to drop off shoes at customers’ homes. That was how I met Inca. I was 12 and he was 14 and he was my first love. I remember writing his name on my hand with a biro and immediately rubbing it off so his father wouldn’t find it.
However, Yinka and I became friends four years later when we met again at the same university he attended. My mother has told his mother about my university admission and both mothers should help him secure off-campus accommodation as they know the area well. I decided that it was.
I still liked him and I think he liked me too. We hung out regularly. By our third year of school, we officially started dating. He graduated a few months after we started dating, and it wasn’t until his graduation party that his mom found out we were dating.
His mother had brought a cooler of food for a party, which is typical for college graduations, and I was running around helping share the food and taking pictures. Of course she knew me. But she realized that my ups and downs were more than friendship. That night she called Yinka and asked if we were dating and he said yes. Her reaction was: “Omo Igbo? Why? “I’m not even Igbo, but I guess she means we’re all the same to her.
Inca thought it was a joke and laughed it off. She also did not pursue the matter. She probably thought it was just cheating. But when he “officially” took me to her a year later in 2011, she realized he was serious. That’s when the problems started.
The problem is that Inca was the last of five children born. Additionally, he is the only boy and his father died when he was a baby. His mother had a hard time raising her children, and for some reason, his marriage from another tribe, specifically the Igbo, meant that he would not “eat the fruits of his labor.” I thought it meant something. According to her, Igbo women only know how to eat their husband’s money, lack respect, and do not allow male family members to come near them.
Of course, I didn’t know at the time that these were her reasons. I understand now because it has been repeated several times.
She had a bold frown on her face throughout the first visit. This was the same person who had extorted money from me when I was a teenager. After Yinka and I left, she called him and told him to end her relationship. He told me about it and I innocently thought I had to show her how hardworking I am.
I decided to visit her every weekend to help with the housework. On her second visit, she asked me if she had anything to do with her mother at her house. No one had to tell me to stop going.
His sisters also ignored all my attempts to approach them. I called them, texted them on their birthdays, visited them to help at big events, but it was clear that they hated me. Even then, I didn’t think the disapproval was serious. My parents loved the Incas and our mother still talks about them often.
Inka proposed in 2013.
On the night of the proposal, his mother called me and told me that marriage was impossible. It turned into a shouting match and that night I got a call from her mother asking me to give her ring back. That night was very dramatic. How many women have you heard of who cried the entire day of their marriage proposal?
Yinka had to discuss the issue with her mother’s pastor. The man spoke to her and told her to go ahead with her wedding plans. Yinka’s mother respected the pastor and remained silent. My parents were another matter. They couldn’t understand why I wanted to die there if the man’s family didn’t want me.
In the end, we had a wedding because I was pregnant. Me, my mom, and my husband kept my dad quiet about the wedding. Because my father never allowed the wedding to take place.
My husband’s immediate family did not attend the traditional wedding ceremony in my village. In attendance were his uncle and people from the church. On her white wedding day, her mother-in-law brought her own live band and divided her reception venue in two. On one side our DJ was playing music and on the other her live band was playing. The DJ just had to take the cue and stop the music. Yinka’s sisters and mother also refused to dance with us when it was time for my husband’s family to dance as a couple. Instead, their friends sprayed them with money and they went dancing in front of a live band.
Inca kept telling me to calm down. They did the worst thing. ”
I have to thank my in-laws for bringing me closer to God because two days after the wedding they started attacking me. I dreamed that one of the Incan sisters hit me with a cane. When I woke up in the morning, I had abdominal pain, and 3 days later I had a miscarriage.
I thought it was a coincidence, but I had three more miscarriages over the next three years, but always after a dream in which I met someone from the Inca family. When I noticed this pattern after my third miscarriage, I told her mother about it, and we started visiting a pastor and participating in prayer. I prayed, oh. Almost every weekend I would go to some church for a wake or deliverance session.
I have two children now, and in both cases I fasted for almost the entire first three months of pregnancy. I didn’t tell Inka until the third month because I didn’t want her family to know. He didn’t even know the spiritual battle I was facing. I only told him about his first dream. His answer was, “Are you saying my sister is a witch?” So I just prayed and focused on winning the battle.
Even now, his family still appears in my dreams from time to time, and I always give them something warm. I don’t joke about prayer.
We moved to another state in 2019 and now we only see each other at family events and get weird looks and teasing comments. I only care about myself.
I won’t even tell my husband. What good is it if her husband starts fighting with her family? Doesn’t that prove why they hate me in the first place?
I’m curious about the reasons for the attacks and hatred. It’s not that the Incas were millionaires. He is just a public servant and I contribute equally to the cost of the house. Sometimes I try to convince him to send me money so that I’m not the only one “stealing off his money.” But you are of no use in the eyes of those who have already decided to hate you.
*Names have been changed for anonymity.
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