WE’VE BEEN MARRIED FOR ONLY EIGHT MONTHS BUT MY HUSBAND HAS RAN BACK TO HIS PARENTS

He was living in his parents’ house when we met. I didn’t have an issue with that because love is still love no matter where the man lives. When I had to visit him in his house for the first time the question I asked was, “Won’t your parents do anything to me?” He answered, “Do I look like a small boy whose parents can manipulate his life? At worse, they will ask you questions. If you’re not comfortable with those questions, then we can sneak in. They won’t know you’re there.” 

So the first day, I sneaked into his room. It was around 8 pm. Immediately after I entered his room, his father came to sit in front of his door scrolling through his phone and playing music from his little radio. I was already in so it didn’t bother me. An hour later, this man was still there. Where he was seated, he only had to raise his neck to see through the window of his son. I wasn’t comfortable. I told him, “We should have greeted him first. Now that he’s sitting there, how can I go out?” He assured me, “Don’t worry. He sleeps at 10 pm. When he leaves, you can peacefully walk out without him seeing you.”

Soon it was 10 pm. This man was still sitting there. I started feeling uncomfortable. It was beginning to look like something intentional. I told him, “Let’s go. I will great and pass.” He answered, “No you don’t have to. Wait for a while. He would soon leave.” By the time he was leaving the front of the door, it was almost 12 am. When I left his room I told myself, “This won’t happen again. Next time, I will meet them face-to-face. After all, I’m not a kid.”

The advantage you get when you date a man who lives with his parents is that he can’t hide anything from you. If there are other ladies in his life, he would find it difficult to introduce you to his parents. He didn’t have that difficulty when the day came for him to introduce me. We walked alright to their hall and I greeted his parents. His father asked, “Is this the lady that sneaked in the other time? Young woman, you think I didn’t see you? You young ones are very funny. You think you’re smart.” My face dropped. I couldn’t look at his face. He said, “Look at me. What’s your name?” I answered. He told me, “We are not flesh-eating humans so you don’t have to hide from us. You’re always welcome.”

The next time I went to his house, I met his mom too. She was also very receptive. His senior siblings had married and had left the house but I met all of them as time went on. They were all kind and receptive. We dated for a year and decided to get married. He asked me, “Would you be comfortable living with us?” I asked him, “Who are the ‘us’” He answered, “Me and my parents of course.” I told him, “I wouldn’t have any problems when it comes to that. But do you think it’s the best idea? We’ll marry and still live with your parents? Don’t you think it would take our sense of growth and maturity away from us?” He agreed with me but was worried about what would happen to his parents when he finally leaves.

I told him, “They know that time would come for you to leave them too. I believe they’ve made provisions for that. Your parents are not weak. They can take care of themselves while you are away building your own family. We can visit them at any time you want us to visit them so no need to fear.” He didn’t say anything again. Silent means consent. When we were about to marry he brought up the topic again. “My only fear is leaving my parents behind once I’m married. I’m not comfortable at all.” I told him, “Then talk about it with them. Know their stand before we make the final move. It will help set your mind free once you know what they also think.”

Days later I asked him, “What happened when you talked to them about it?” He answered, “They are fine. We don’t need to worry about them.” Half a year later, we got married and moved in together. There was a place we wanted to rent but the landlord disappointed us. He took our money and later gave the room to another tenant. By that time, my husband had moved in with me. We had to pursue the landlord everywhere before he finally gave us our money to us. The next move was to get a new place. I left everything in his hands to get it but as time went on, he talked less and less about it until he stopped talking about it.

I asked him, ‘What happened to getting us a new place? Are you still out there looking for a new place? His answer was, “Something came up so I spent the money. I have to work for a while to be able to save something for rent. Come to think of it, this place isn’t bad? We are just two. Our parents aren’t coming to live with us so we can manage until we raise the money for a new place.” I wasn’t comfortable. The room we were in was too small to make us comfortable. Luckily for us, one of the tenants in the house was moving out. He was living in a two-bedroom apartment. I spoke to the landlord about it and he agreed to give it to us. We only had to top up a little to have it.

When I spoke to him about it he said he didn’t have the money. I was the one who was not feeling comfortable so I went into my savings and paid the rest of the money to the landlord so we could move in. He wasn’t happy about something. He was very quiet often than normal. While packing out of the old room, he didn’t contribute. On weekends when we had to do the packing, he’ll tell me he had to go and see his parents. I would seek the services of the neighbourhood guys to help me lift the heavy things. One day, he went to his parent’s house and returned to see that I’d moved everything to the new room. He didn’t make any comment or ask how I did it. 

His behaviour was getting me worried so I started asking questions. His default answer was, “I’m cool. You don’t have to worry about me.” We’ve been married for eight months. One Saturday, I saw him packing his clothes into a small bag. I asked if he was travelling and he answered, “No, I’m moving back to my parents’ house. I’m not comfortable here.” His answer threw me off balance. “Am I the problem,” I asked him. “Am I doing something that’s making you uncomfortable? You’ve been quiet for some time now. Can we talk about it?” He kept packing his things and ignored my question. When he was done, he got up and started leaving.

The whole thing looked strange to me. I felt he needed some time off to think about something or he missed living with his parents so he was going to see them and come back later. Two weeks later, he was still there. I asked him, “When are you coming back?” He answered, “I don’t know. Maybe I might not come again. I like it here.” 

I called his mother and discussed it with her. She told me, “Talk to his father. He knows what is going on because he talks to him more than me.” I called his father and discussed the whole issue with him. He said, “He hasn’t said anything to me. He’s his own man so I can’t dictate to him. When he’s tired of living here, he will come back home so don’t worry. It’s been a month and I’m worried, especially when he’s not saying anything to me. I go to their house and he won’t even look at my face. He would talk to me like he was talking to something disgusting that he wouldn’t like to watch. Whatever question I ask, he gives me straight answers. 

In the last conversation we had, he made it definite that he was no longer coming back. I called my parents and told them about it. They are saying I should rather leave the house we rented and join him there. If my husband told me he wanted us to go back to his parent’s house, I would have followed him. Yes, I would ask questions but in the end, I would do what a wife would do and follow him but this man tells me nothing. I don’t know what’s in his head. I don’t want to go and live with him there for him to treat me the way he treats me when I visit him. It hurts that he doesn’t tell me anything. It hurts more the way he ignores me. 

Do you think it’s a good idea for me to join him there when he hasn’t asked me to? The way his parents are behaving towards me is also suspicious. They don’t care at all about what their son is doing. It looks like they support him but are scared to tell me they support him. It’s also one of the reasons I don’t think going to live with him there is a good idea. What do you think?     

—Afeafa,