Imagine the wife of a pastor leaving her marriage. It sounds scandalous right? Deliciously scandalous if I may say so myself. Can I leave my husband? That was a question I did not have to ask anybody before I knew what to do. I refuse to be bound with religious shackles in an abusive marriage.
Can I leave my husband? Ill-fated
There is a person you are never supposed to meet in your life but the funny thing is that when you meet this person, you fall in love with that person and end up getting married to such a person.
I was that unfortunate.
I got married to a wolf in sheep’s clothing.
My friend invited me to attend a service in her church. The pastor who gave the sermon that Sunday shared the word powerfully. I could not help but notice how attractive he was. I asked my friend about him and she told me he was their youth pastor. I liked the ambience of the church, the vibe and all. The church I had been attending was full of old people and it wasn’t really fun like that. I decided to start attending my friend’s church.
I have always been a church worker for as long as I can remember. I believe in being useful in the house of God. As I was an usher in my old church, when I joined my friend’s church, I did not waste time joining the ushering unit. I was active, dedicated and diligent. In six months, I rose through the ranks of a new usher to the assistant head usher. I was innovative and always brought new ways of doing things to our department.
Soon, I had to start meeting the youth pastor with the head usher to discuss our plans for the ushering unit so he could relay them to the head pastor who would approve them. This saw me having several meetings with the youth pastor who always seemed to welcome my idea. In another three months, I was made the head usher because the former head usher was transferred to another branch by her office.
Can I leave my husband? Irony of luck
Upon becoming the head usher, in six months, the ushering department became the best department in the church. The head pastor was soon asking other departments to be like us.
I had a platonic relationship with the youth pastor when he asked me to be his girlfriend and I accepted. He was a very jovial person, loved by all church members, cool-headed, kind, wonderful and disciplined. He was the dream of every woman, with a good attitude and a leader. I thought the same too, whenever he talks about relationships during our singles and relationship service, I would often imagine that the woman who would get married to him would be very lucky. I did not know I was going to be the lucky woman. Many ladies in the church were crushing after him but he paid them no attention. He later proposed marriage and I was ecstatic. People were congratulating me on my luck in getting married to a pastor, especially someone like their youth pastor.
He opened up to me about being unable to pay for the wedding because he does not earn much. I had to sponsor the major parts of the wedding, the wedding was not fully sponsored by him.
Bad news
After the wedding, I moved into his house and that was when I realized that my husband did not have a job. It’s his family that has been feeding him. I asked about the certificate that he claimed to have and he gave me a sob story about not getting it, I was later going to find out that he was a drop out. I was shocked and hurt at such dishonesty, yet, I took it in stride.
I was well off, I was the manager of a construction company. I had worked on my mindset as regards career and finance. As a result of that, I was an independent young woman with a good car and two pieces of land. The responsibility of providing for the household fell on me. That I was able to do, I did not have a problem providing. What I had issues with was that my husband would wake up in the morning and sit in front of the television.
A few months into our marriage, my husband had to go to a ministers’ conference in another state. He talked to me about it and I paid for everything. He asked me to loan him my car so he could transport himself there, I did and had to use public transportation to get to work. My husband came back, and after that, every two weeks he would go to one ministers’ conference or the other, all of which I had to pay for. It was eating deep into my pocket but I could not complain, he was doing the work of God. Slowly, I stopped using my car and started taking public transport because he seemed to need it to attend several meetings.
Can I leave my husband? Ministers conference
Nine months into our marriage, his phone started to ring incessantly. He would see the caller and cut the call. I noticed it but I kept quiet. One day, I called back three of those numbers only to discover that the ministers’ conference he was always attending was a guise to meet up with girls that he had been deceiving online, they were pregnant.
I was livid, and mad. I was the one handling the bill, taking care of a grown-ass man, fueling and maintaining the car he drives around town and this is how he pays me back, by lodging into different hotels with my hard-earned money and bringing women in for sex. I reported him to his family and my family. They gathered for a mini family meeting. Both families scolded my husband and proceeded to advise me on looking good for my husband, dressing more sexily and engaging him the more in bed. I was assured that if I do all these things, he would not cheat.
To stop a cheating man
I started doing those things, I went far as watching porn so he would not cheat. The girls he impregnated kept calling so he took some of the money I kept in the wardrobe and gave it to them so they could do an abortion. I was livid, I did not understand why my money had to clean up his mess. He took my car and tried selling it because he was owing some set of people money. I asked him what he used the money for and he said he had gambled. I had to sell my car and my lands because the debt he gambled away was too much. By this time, I was sad, depressed and had been diagnosed with a high blood pressure. I started to resent him because he was a wolf in sheep’s clothing.
Can I leave my husband? Oh pharisee
He would come to church and preach about being faithful, being a good husband, and being responsible yet he was none of those things. It was sickening to see such hypocrisies ooze from him. I reported him to our head pastor and he advised me to be patient and that my husband would change. I expressed my desire to walk away and he rebuked me; if I walk away, I would be destroying my husband’s ministry and spoiling the name of the church. It was difficult for me because I knew the sort of scandal I would be causing.
My husband took a particular loan that ran into a few million. He was unable to pay back and the loan sharks were on our necks. He had to sign an undertaking that he was going to pay. I was looking haggard from all the stress of running around to avoid him being jailed. He had become bitter because I was already nagging him to find a job.
Can I leave my husband? Departure
A few months after I had signed that undertaking, a few days to the end of the month, I woke up to the alert about my salary. I transferred seventy-five per cent of the money to the creditors. That amount of money, going out of my account was enough to ruin my mood for the day. I was angry and pained. I walked into the sitting by seven am in the morning to see that my husband was watching TV. I did not know what came over me; I went to the TV and disconnected it. I kept shouting that he should go and look for money. He was angry and we were yelling at each other. Then he slapped me, right there, it felt as if the scales fell off my eyes. I knew what to do. I wore my clothes and went to work.
Later in the day, I hired a truck driver, to pack my things and everything I had bought including the plasma TV. He was not at home. In four hours, I had cleared the house. Neighbours were looking at us they thought we were moving out and were congratulating me. I packed my clothes and moved out. The same day, I borrowed money from a friend and made the down payment for a two-bedroom apartment. If I stayed with him, it was only a matter of time before I died.
Within twenty-four hours, my husband found out that I had moved out. My phone kept ringing incessantly. I switched my phone off for the first time that night. I slept peacefully.
Can I leave my husband? Battles
Separating from my husband was hard. The head pastor was not in support of me, he reprimanded me and asked me to come back but I ignored him. Elders in my church were sent to talk to me, they continuously berated me for being a bad wife. My mental guards were up so no one could get through me again. My parents begged me to go back but I refused them, they were angry with me but I didn’t care. My husband’s family tried, but yours sincerely had made up her mind, she was not going to bow. When I sent the divorce papers to my husband, he came begging and crying in front of my office but I was a woman scorned. It was embarrassing that he put all my business out there in public. I had stopped paying the loan and they were on his neck.
The whole church found out, his sisters started an online campaign against me. They wanted to smear my name. His sisters kept laying allegations of me being a witch against me, that I was not virtuous, I was not submissive. They turned the narrative against me. The one that hurts was when they claimed I was cheating. They released pictures of me in lingerie I had bought during the time I was trying to stop my husband from cheating, I had taken that picture and sent it to him. Seeing my picture like that all over the internet was hurtful. They said I was the one who was cheating and my husband kept begging me.
A long walk to freedom
I braved it and moved on, I refused to explain unnecessarily to people that did not matter. I doubled down on working hard and got promoted. I invested my money wisely in business ventures that yielded profits. Within two years of leaving him, I was able to process my papers abroad. I moved abroad and was being paid in dollars. In three years, I had lots of investments, a grand personal house, an SUV, a Bentley, and a Tesla. My parents later came around and I took care of them properly.
There is nothing worst than being married to an abuser.
I don’t regret leaving that marriage.
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