'My father made me marry a man I don't love'

Nkarenyi Ukonu - Nigeria

Olachi was the apple of her father's eye. Being the first and only girl amongst four boys, her father, Sir Louis Ukaegbu, never hid this fact-Anything or person who touched Olachi indirectly touched him. He gave her everything she wanted- she attended the best of schools and he spoilt her rotten.

The only thing that brought a semblance of balance to Olachi's life was her mother, Lady Cecilia Ukaegbu. This, her mother did with quite a bit of caution for she dared not incur the wrath of her husband in trying to inculcate discipline in her only daughter. Olachi equally loved her father and did everything possible to always please him-she must not fall short of her father's expectations.

But despite all the affluence she was exposed to, she grew up to be a beautiful, loving and respectful person. She was humane, always thinking about the welfare of her fellow human beings.

She had hoped to work for a few years after graduation from the university before finally settling down but her boyfriend of four years, Uche quickly proposed marriage to her on the last day of their youth service year. She had no doubt in her mind that Uche was the one but she didn't expect marriage to him to be so soon. She, however, gave in and made the necessary introductions to her parents. While her mother was over the moon, her father's elation ended the moment Uche stepped out of the door. He told her point blank that she couldn't marry him.

Not that Uche was below the standards expected of him; after all he was a handsome and industrious young man with an enviable parentage. Her father told her that he had someone else in mind, who, he wanted her to be married to; a young man whom he claimed was like a younger brother to him, someone he took under his tutelage when he was still in paid employment.

Now the said man, Simon, had risen to an enviable height in his career and had grown to become a fine young man-envy to not a few women. Olachi was heartbroken; she couldn't understand why her father would prefer she married someone she felt nothing for. She tried to dissuade her father from carrying out his plans but her pleas and that of her mother's fell on deaf ears.

Due to her overwhelming love and respect for her father, she eventually succumbed to her father's insistence on marrying this Simon she had never met but only heard about. She had a hard time trying to convince Uche that they needed to go their separate ways, she loved him no doubt, but her father's opinion was superior to whatever argument she may want to put up.

After weeks of pleading for his understanding, Uche reluctantly severed his relationship with Olachi. She eventually met with Simon who was nothing like her Uche, what with success and affluence written all over him. But she willed herself to love him for her father's sake.

They got married less than three months after and settled down to the business of marriage. Simon was as cold as steel to her even though she tried many times to pull him out of his shell. He was emotionless and hardly ever displayed any romance with her. She laid complaints to her father on several occasions until finally, he told her never to come to him to complain about her marriage but to make it work. Her mother was helpless and could only advise that she endured with Simon since they were only getting to know each other better.

Unfortunately, five years after enduring an eccentric man for a husband, they were yet to produce off springs. Several trips to the doctors had given her a clean bill of health but not Simon, who refused to go anywhere near a hospital much less a doctor! When she accused him of deliberately refusing to have children, he beat her silly.

This pattern continued each time she tried to complain about his insensitivity on several issues; each beating always left her with a very visible scar. One of such beatings landed her in the hospital and rather than reach out to her parents, it was her brothers she turned to for consolation. So aggrieved were they at what Simon had turned their sister into that they in turn beat him thoroughly.

Simon went to Olachi's father to report and rather than listen to both sides of the story, her father blamed his sons for taking the law into their hands. He asked them to allow the couple sort out their disputes themselves since no third party mediated in his marriage of over thirty years to their mother.
Everything anyone else said made no sense to him. As soon as his daughter got discharged, he told her to keep a rein on her tongue and to quit provoking her husband so she wouldn't ever find herself on the hospital bed again.

It has been ten years of hell rather than a blissful marriage and they still do not have children. Olachi is tempted to leave the marriage, not minding what her father would say in order to save her life and make something meaningful out of it. But she is hampered by her religion which doesn't allow divorce except to faithfully work at making it work. She wondered how long she was going to continue to condone the evil Simon was perpetrating to her, before her sanity snapped