There Was Peace and Harmony in My Marriage Until I Got Promoted At Work

I’ve worked for nine years in the same organization in the same position. I got a promotion a few weeks ago, and this promotion has become the little fox destroying the vine of our marriage.

I was working here even before I met my husband. I met him through an errand I was running for the company. He asked for my number after transacting with me, and from the very day he had my number, he started calling, trying to be my friend, and later tried to make me his girlfriend.

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I remember that in one of our very first conversations, I expressed my frustration about my inability to be promoted at my workplace. I told him I was looking for another opportunity because it didn’t look like I was growing professionally where I was. He told me it was a good thing. At that time, I had worked for five years, and I had seen junior colleagues get promoted, even those I taught how to do their work.

Right after marriage three years ago, he started finding ways for me to secure a better job with a higher salary. He tried using his friend, and this same man he calls a friend tried to have an affair with me.

I didn’t hide it from him. I told him what was going on, and he said I was overthinking it. Maybe his friend was only trying to be nice. I wanted to get evidence to support my case, but that man hardly texted anything inappropriate. He only said those things unexpectedly when I was with him. After telling my husband, I thought he would confront his friend so I could defend my position in front of both of them. He didn’t do it until I pulled away from the said friend.

After that incident, he blamed me for not following up hard enough to get the job. I stopped looking for support from him and instead concentrated on my work.

I had an opportunity to travel to Nigeria with the owner of the company and two other colleagues. I didn’t deserve to be on that trip, but for some reason, four days before the trip, I was included. When I told my husband about it, his reaction didn’t reflect happiness but rather suspicion.

“Why did they tell you this late? Don’t they know you have a husband you ought to seek permission from?”

I explained everything to him, but he was still not at peace with it. He asked who I was going to share my room with. He asked about the relationship between me and the owner of the company who selected me. He asked if the man had tried making advances toward me. He even helped select the clothes I was supposed to travel with. He took away all my nighties and replaced them with jean shorts and bubu. He said, “You don’t know the people you’re traveling with, and you want to be in a nightie?”

While in Nigeria, he called me as though I had traveled with his eyesight. In the evenings, he called on video and asked me to give him a tour of my room. It was tough, but we came back a week later. A little over a month after our return, I got a promotion at work. The owner of the company was impressed by my numbers, so much so that he wanted me as part of his office team.

I told my husband, and he screamed, “I knew it. After nine years, you get promoted just after a trip with your boss. How poetic.”

I was shocked. That wasn’t what I expected to hear. I asked, “What do you mean? I impressed him on the trip. My numbers were through the roof.”

He retorted, “Yeah, you’ll impress him. Was it only your numbers that were through the roof?”

I ignored him, but the wound his words left went too deep. When I got my appointment letter, I didn’t tell him about it. He had to see it in my bag because he had been searching through my things for whatever he was looking for. He saw my salary, and that was the only thing that caught his attention because I’m going to earn more than him. He asked, “You really impressed that man. Can I also get the opportunity to impress him, or that role is reserved only for people’s wives?”

We’ve been fighting ceaselessly these days. He gets angry whenever anything related to my job comes up. The last time we argued, he said explicitly, “If I were you, I wouldn’t take this, knowing very well my husband doesn’t trust what I did to get the job.”

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I told him, “I would rather my husband leave me than lose something I’ve worked for nine years of my life.”

I don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow. Maybe one of us will get tired and step back, or leave the marriage altogether. And the person who needs to get tired and step back is my husband or I will be the one to get tired and leave the marriage.

—Belinda

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