By Sunmola Olowookere

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Tomilola is the wife of a rich man who owns the most beautiful house in our neighbourhood. The couple are both in their 40s and people often marvelled at how they made their wealth.

Many women in our neighbourhood are jealous of the wife and wished they were in her shoes or that their husbands were rich too. Her husband riches enhance her beauty and she simply glows from the expensive hair do, exquisite jeweries down to fashionable cloths and impeccable foot wear.

Her husband is a cocoa merchant while she operates a supermarket which he opened for her.

She dresses well and she drives a jeep. Their wealth is more evident on her as she wears expensive jewelries and cloths. Many women in our neighbourhood tried to be close to her but they quietly rebuffed. She simply kept her distance from anyone that might want to come close.

However she was polite as she kept her distance from people around her. This  made her neighbours to tag her as proud despite the fact that she was always polite to people she came across. They took her quietness for aloofness and soon everyone learnt to stay on their lane.

Had they been allowed to come closer to the family, they would have realized that the’ happy family” facade that the couple presents to the world is a charade.

The husband is a wife beater who beats his wife and children at the least provocation.

The wife who was ashamed pretended that all was well and never let on that she was a punching bag for her husband. Her children go to a good school and her husband takes care of all her needs, hence she persevered. In the  abusive relationship

None of her neighbours or family realize what she was going through because when her husband beats her, she would only grunt in pain so that the neighbours would not hear her cries.

Her children would whimper in fear and unhappiness whenever their mother was being beaten. To the outside world, the  husband was a doting father and husband. After each beating, he would cry when he sees his wife’s battered face. He would be remorseful and he would make all efforts to appease his wife. After much pleading and gifts, she would forgive him. Everything would be fine until the next ugly moment and the beatings will start all over again.

Their secrets became exposed one day when he hit her on the head and she slipped to the floor in a faint. All his efforts to revive her failed and he had to cry out for help. He was beside himself with worry and he could not help spilling the beans on how he beat her to stupor.

Her children were whimpering in abject dejection and fear. They were inconsolable as they thought their mother had died. She was rushed to the hospital where she was revived. The neighbour were shocked at such a goings on.

It was only then that she called her family members and shared her experience of violence and abuse with them. They were so angry that they forcefully took her home with them as soon as she was discharged from the hospital.

The neighbours were amazed that such a thing had been going on under their noses and they were not aware. This was a family that most residents look up to with envy. People realized that they kept themselves and refused people to come near them because of the turbulence their marriage was going through. As fate would have it, all is now out in the open and the idol which they had placed on a pedestal seemed to had a feet of clay. The wife’s family members are still livid and scandalized at the trauma their daughter went through.

As the man runs up and down seeking the face of his in laws with hopes of settlement so he could take his wife home, many have come to the realization that the rich also cry.