Christa went along to marry this man and together, they built an empire.... He managed to establish a hospital in a remote village in Delta state Nigeria. Prior to this, residents of this village would have to travel far to the city to get medical attention but now,the whole village came to him instead.. he became nothing short of a messiah....
With the tremendous success of the hospital, he began opening branches in different rural neighborhoods for people who couldn't afford to travel long distances to go to hospitals in the city.... Eventually and over a period of time, he and his wife had managed to open several hospitals and pharmacies all over southern Nigeria... They were wealthy!!
Of course!! as is synonymous to the African culture, the husband took on the responsibility of seeing some of Aunt Christa's family member's through school... He even offered jobs to most of them in some of his numerous hospitals and pharmacies. A huge part of her family which had come from abject poverty now depended on Christa and her husband for their welfare...
Many years had passed and their marriage had produced two lovely kids...Then Christa decided to bring home her 18 year old niece from the village to train in school and help around the house as well...
Yes!! Yes!! You guessed right!! no surprise when our dear 'Unattractive but wealthy Doctor husband' started sleeping with this girl and he was at it for a while too before they got caught...
Now, how the cat was let out of the bag, i have no idea, but what i do know is that a lot of mayhem erupted from this shameless act.. The family was greatly disappointed and enraged at their son-in-law who had 'taken advantage of' and slept with Christa's NIECE!!!!
They called family meetings and repeatedly rebuked him for his actions.. Finally, the reaction we've all been waiting for... Christa's husband became angry and demanded some respect from her 'ungrateful' family members.. He would not take their insults anymore and as a matter of fact, was ready to MARRY the niece as a second wife if it was such a big deal...
WHAT??!! Christa couldn't believe her ears and neither could the members of her family who vehemently refused that he marry the little girl..
When it became apparent that they weren't going to give him their 'blessings', he went ahead to marry her anyway without their consent..At this point, the hurt and angry Christa who would not be a 'fellow wife' to ANYONE...especially not her own niece, decided to pack her things and leave...
Things went downhill from then on..
The 'husband' stopped paying the fees for her family member's whom he'd been training and he also fired each and every one of them from the job's he'd given them. He withdrew all favours and completely turned his back on Christa and all of her family..
Christa was completely helpless..No home, no money, no job...Nothing!! Yes....it's true that she and her husband had both worked for everything he owned but that didn't change the fact that she knew little about all the documents to the Properties, Cars etc which were all in his name by the way... She didn't even have a bank account of her own because she'd believed that since they were husband and wife, then they were one and as such should operate a joint account...
Now, she had access to NOTHING at all.... where would she start from?? Where??? after all these years???
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Three years has passed since that incident and Christa as well as her ever supportive family are knocking on our dear husband's door and begging him to 'forgive her for leaving' and take her back. The suffering has been over-bearing and she has had to swallow her pride with a big glass of water...
Aunt Christa is my dad's Friend's cousin. (Hope I'm not confusing you) He told me this story yesterday and what immediately came to my mind was the thought that the importance of female empowerment cannot be stressed enough... If i was her,I'd be damned if I'd ever go back begging... I'd rather die than beg that fool after everything he did... but that's what Christa is doing right now and lets face it, so many factors are against her... Age, the ever deteriorating economy of Nigeria and most importantly, the will to start over..
We as women should learn from the mistakes of people like Aunt Christa.... we should learn to empower ourselves financially so that in the face of an event like this, we wouldn't be helpless.
It's not surprising how most women who even have jobs don't really have anything to show for it except a nice wardrobe, car and fancy things.Don't leave the money making decisions to your man to decide neither should you depend solely on him to survive..Anything can happen... Divorce, or even death of a spouse and then where does that leave you? and your kids if any?
For those of us who aren't married, the same thing applies to us. Even though we have boyfriend's that are willing to take care of us, we should be able to stand on our own two feet and be independent.
I know a girl who didn't wanna leave her boyfriend after all his physical abuse, cheating and ill-treatment, just because she depended on him for a lot of things... Money-wise i mean.
If men can do it, why can't we?? #Food for thought
Later Luvs...Kisses!!
F.
