By Sunmola Olowookere

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A marriage of almost three decades has hit the rocks. The husband was still puzzled at the development. His wife who had bore him five children and had been with him through the thick and thin of raising their children had left him high and dry as soon as their youngest gained admission into higher institution.
For two years now, she had moved out of their matrimonial home and had not looked back once.
The man who was in his early sixties had to move on with his life as a bachelor but he was always eager to tell anyone that was ready to listen to him that the wife had been planning to leave him before which was why she opted out of the marriage so easily.
The man was a strict husband and a disciplinarian who ruled his household with a rod of iron. His children feared him and his wife too was very careful around him. He could fly off the handle at the slightest provocation.
Many times, he had chased out his wife from their home and the woman would have to involve their family members before the issue could be resolved. Sometimes it would take weeks before she would be allowed back inside the house.
The children too were not spared. Whoever among them erred, he or she would be shut out of the house for days and the poor child would have to sleep outside in the cold until their father’s wrath would subside.
The children and their mother had learnt to tread carefully around him especially when he had something bothering him. He never trusted his wife and he often accused her of having illicit affairs.
On the fateful day, the drama began simply enough. The wife had gone to a meeting with her club women. The husband came in the evening and was shocked to meet his wife absent at such an hour.
It was almost two hours later that the wife all decked out in party fineries came in. As soon as she entered, her heart sank as her husband was tapping his foot in a manner which showed that he was trying to control his anger. He was very hungry and that compounded his anger.
None of their children were at home and he felt that he could not demean himself by entering the kitchen to cook when he had a wife.
As the wife greeted him, he thundered “where are you coming from?” The woman was shocked at her husband’s reaction and her bag dropped to the ground as it slipped from her nerve less fingers.
She tried to explain “i told you yesterday that I would be going for a club meeting………”
He cuts her off angrily “liar! I don’t recollect you telling me anything like that. Even if you told me, did I not order you not to have anything to do with those wayward women again?”.
So saying, he landed a resounding slap on her cheeks and she fell to her knees. She began to apologize profusely but the man was now livid as he brushed past her.
Her entreaties that she did not mean to disobey him as she could not recollect him asking her to stop going for meetings fell on deaf ears.
He told to get her things together and leave him and that the only difference this time around was that she had to give him space for six months so that she would realize the error of her ways.
Her heart sank and she had to involve their neighbours to beg him but he was adamant and he threatened that if she refused to leave that night, then he might kill her before daybreak.
The neighbours were alarmed and they advised her to stay away that night. She slept in one their neighbours’ house and the next morning, she packed her belongings and left before her husband who left early for his place of work would come back and meet her.
The strange part is that the women who was sent out for six months had refused any avenue of reconciliation with her husband and it was now two years since the unfortunate incident.
Rumours are rife. While some felt that the husband got what was coming to him as he had been too high handed. Other felt that the wife was a promiscuous woman who had been seeking means of deserting her husband.