Every week, 91大神 spotlights the unfiltered stories of women navigating life, love, identity and everything in between.
What She Said will give women the mic to speak freely, honestly and openly, without shame, about sex, politics, family, survival, and everything else life throws our way.
The subject of today’s #WhatSheSaid is Stella*, a 37-year-old woman from Rivers State. She talks about a childhood that taught her to survive before she even knew she needed to, a whirlwind online courtship that led to a wedding within six months, and the slow, devastating unravelling of a man she thought she knew.
Tell me about yourself. Where did you grow up, and what was your childhood like?
I’m Stella, I’m 37, I’m from Rivers State, and I have always lived in Port Harcourt. School took me away for a while, but I always came back.
My childhood was good until my parents separated when I was 15, and then life became something else entirely. Before that, though, we were comfortable. My dad is not a rich man, but he made sure I never lacked. He would buy me something every day after work, no matter how small, just something to show he was thinking of me. Our house was always full of people because there was always food. People were always coming to eat. That was my childhood before everything changed.
What happened when your parents separated?
Here is the thing: when they separated, I was actually happy at first. I always knew my mum never loved my dad. She married him so her siblings could have something to eat, and she passed a lot of that anger onto us. So when she finally left, part of me felt relief.
But that relief did not last long. My lastborn sibling was only six months old when she walked out. She did not come back for us. She just started travelling to other states, living her life, and she has never cared since. The only time she shows up is when there is something to get from me.
Then, about a year after she left, my dad remarried. His new wife wasted no time. She made him take me out of the house and sent me to live with his brother. That was when real suffering started. My uncle and his wife took me on as their house help. The maltreatment became too much, so at 17, I ran away from that house and moved in with my maternal grandmother.
At 19, I started selling okrika clothes, which people now call thrift. By 22, I had saved enough to get my own single-room apartment, where I shared a toilet and bathroom with other tenants. I lived on my own from 22 until I got married.
What kind of person did all of that make you?
I have always been a happy girl, somehow. I love to play, I love to laugh, I love being around happy people. I know that sounds strange given everything I have been through, but it is the truth. Life has been a great teacher, and even though I have been hurt by people I trusted, I never gave up. God has been faithful, even when things were hard.
I have always been the romantic type. I love love. And if you know what I have been through, you know what that means. I had four partners before my husband. My first relationship lasted eight years and seven months, and that man made me feel less of myself every single day. By the time I met my husband, I was completely done with long courtships that led nowhere. I said to myself, forget it. Let me try something different.
What did your life look like just before you met him?
I was 36, living in PH, working. Not yet where I wanted to be, but moving. I work in the children’s department at my church, and I have always loved children. I celebrate my birthdays with them. My friends and family all know it. The whole essence of getting married for me was always to have a family, to have children of my own, to see my own offspring. That was always the dream.
How did you meet your husband?
He messaged me on TikTok, and that is where we shared contacts. The very first message he ever sent me, he called me his wife. Just like that.
What was that early period like?
It was beautiful, honestly. He told me he loves the things of God, and I do too, so that mattered deeply to me. We prayed together every morning and every night, even while he was still away at work, and he was the one who initiated it. He sent me messages without fail every single morning and night. I asked him once how long he planned to keep doing that, and he said forever. He still does it today. He has never missed a single day.
He told me he does not drink alcohol because of a health condition. He made me believe that whenever there was conflict, he preferred to talk things through and never go to bed without resolving it. That made me feel safe. That made me think, this is a man I can trust.
Walk me through what happened after his first text and how it led to a wedding.
We were talking online for three months while he was still away at work. Before he came back, I told him I thought we needed to slow down. I said I wanted us to spend maybe a month or two in the same space first, going on actual dates, properly getting to know each other. He got angry. He asked me if he had ever been bad to me, and I said no. He said he loved me, he knew what he wanted, and I should trust him. He said he believed we could make it work.
Considering his age, he is 42, and the fact that I was also ready to settle down, I accepted. I believed we could make it work.
We met in person for the very first time the day he got off work. The next day, we went on a date, and that was when he proposed. He said, “Please be my wife; it would make me the happiest and luckiest man.” At first, I was scared, and I told him that. He promised to make me the happiest woman.
I said I know marriage is a good thing and I am happy, but a part of me is scared because I know how emotional I am. My fears were greater than my joy in that moment. But I said to myself, I have heard stories of people who meet online, fall in love, get married, and it works. Mine would not be any different, especially because of the God factor. So I believed.
. I met his family a week after the engagement. When he introduced me to them, everyone loved me. His friends, too. Nobody said anything discouraging. He kept saying, 鈥淲hy can’t you see that this is meant to be?鈥 About a month after the engagement, we got married.
Tell me about the wedding. How did that day feel?
It felt special. I was happy seeing people come out to celebrate with us.
But my mother made me sad. She acted like a complete stranger. I had given her money to buy clothes since she rejected the outfit I had already bought for her. She did not buy anything. She showed up in a wrapper she had bought in 2000, when she was still married to my dad. I ended up giving the outfit I had bought for her to my dad’s younger sister, one of the people who actually took care of me when I was little.
My dad and my elder siblings, though, were the happiest. That made me so happy and teary. That part I will always hold.
When did you first sense something was wrong?
The morning after our wedding. I was on the same bed with my husband, practically naked, and he was masturbating while watching pornography. I was right there. He preferred to do that rather than be with me.
I felt disgusted. Would you be happy seeing your partner do that when you are right there?
What She Said: The Day My Husband Asked for a Divorce Was the Best Day of My Marriage
Did you say something to him about it?
I did. But things just kept unravelling after that.
He drinks heavily, and whenever he drinks, he says whatever he wants without caring how it affects me or our marriage. He makes me feel like he’s disgusted by me. We always quarrel when he is drunk. This is the same man who told me before we married that he does not drink at all.
And there was something else happening underneath all of it. My husband barely even kisses me. When we first met, he told me he loves all of that, the romance, the kissing, all of it. But this is the first relationship I have ever been in where the man does not kiss me or want romance at all. He just wants to go straight to the point. I have never gotten an erection from him just from being close to him, even when we cuddle. My exes were never like that with me.
I spoke to him about it a few times, and he kept telling me I love sex too much. That is not true. I actually have a very low libido. In my previous relationships, my exes constantly complained about it. But with my husband, something shifted in me. I had never gotten wet during sex before, but with him, I would get wet just from cuddling. So I knew it was not about me.
And yet he was the same person who, when he was drunk one night, told me he did not find me attractive and that he regrets marrying me and wants his bride price back. Rather than getting mad, I almost found peace. Because he had finally said out loud what I had been sensing all along. It also explained why he was seeing other women..
What do you mean?
I hacked into his phone. The reason I did it is that from very early on, he was always on his phone. The moment he woke up, he went straight to his phone. When I asked him to come and pray with me, he told me to pray and leave him alone. This was the same man who used to initiate our prayers when he was still away at work.
I found messages with numerous women, along with pictures. Even in the days leading up to our wedding, he had been sleeping with different women. While I was the one begging him for intimacy.
I was filled with so much anger and disgust. Especially when I saw the pictures of the women. It made me sick. Dey no even fine reach me. All I could think of was evil.
What did you do with that?
I told my family and his as well. I told him to leave the house, which he did. I sent his clothes home to his family and told them to instruct him not to come back, because at that point, I could not trust what I was capable of feeling.
But I want to be honest about that period, because it was the darkest period of my life. I have two older sisters who were not yet married when I first got married. In my community, people had already been saying things about my family, calling us cursed, using it to humiliate my dad at gatherings. When I started to see that my marriage might be falling apart, the weight of what people would say became unbearable. I almost did not survive that period. I was so afraid of the shame that I nearly cut my wrists with a knife. I thank God for his mercy and grace for still being here.
If you are reading this and you are in that place, please do not do what I almost did. No marriage, no shame, no public opinion is worth your life. Please reach out to someone. In Nigeria, you can call the Mentally Aware Nigeria Initiative on 08091126655.
What made you come back from that edge?
God. Just God. And eventually, the anger helped, too, because it was louder than the shame.
When his family saw that I was serious about leaving, and when he saw that I meant every word, he got scared. He kept calling and begging. His family and some elders held a meeting. They called me on WhatsApp, and I spoke for a long time.
Weeks passed, and after much begging from everyone, I told them that the moment this man married me, God made him the head of our home. But since he has refused to act like the man that he is, this marriage will continue on my terms and conditions. If he agrees, fine. If he does not agree, it is way better for me, because this is not how I envisioned my marriage.
The next day, they called back and said he had agreed to do whatever I wanted.
If you鈥檇 like to be my next subject on #WhatSheSaid,
What were your terms?
I wrote them down and sent them over. We signed the agreement with a third party, their king, as a witness. Everyone in that room scolded him. Not one person supported what he had done.
I told them clearly: any day he deviates from any of my terms, the marriage is as good as over.
How has he been since?
He stopped drinking. He joined a department in the church. We pray together as a couple again. He has taken the things of God very seriously since then.
When he came back home after we were separated, he had lost so much weight. He looked so pale and sick that it made me cry. I gave us a second chance, knowing that we never actually dated before the marriage. Some of these things were probably always going to surface eventually.
I still have trust issues. He changed the password on his phone after I gave it to him once. I have decided not to let that consume me. I also have my own plans, and those are between God and me.
I know he is probably still cheating, even though I have not caught him again. I know that if I went through his phone, I would find things. But I have decided not to go looking. I told him that he alone will expose himself to me, and that will be the total end.
No one will cut my life short simply because he has refused to keep his penis in his pants. It is very easy for people to say “leave” until it is their turn and they find out they cannot. I know there is no perfect person out there. I pray for my marriage to work out fine.
How do you carry all of this day-to-day?
I channel my energy into building myself. For myself, for my unborn children, for my family. I do not let it consume me anymore.
I come from a polygamous home, and I have hated that reality my whole life. I promised myself and God when I was young that I would have all my children with one man. That has not changed. I want to have my own children. I want to see how beautiful and handsome they will be. I want to see my own offspring grow.
One thing I will never do is cheat. In all my relationships, I have never cheated, not once. I have always believed this: if you are not happy, please leave rather than hurting someone. I believe that even now, even while I am the one still trying to hold things together.
If you could go back to the version of you who said yes to him, what would you tell her?
I would tell her to stand her ground about taking things slow and getting to know each other properly before marriage. Marriage is a long ride.
I would tell her to ask more questions. About him. About his family. Before you sign up for the whole thing.
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