When Priscilla*, 33, got married at 28, she believed she’d found the kind of love she’d always prayed for. Five years later, she says she’s leaving a marriage marked by abuse, infidelity and emotional manipulation. 

In this week’s Marriage Diaries, she shares how rushing into marriage because she wanted to be a wife before 30 changed the course of her life, why staying for the children cost her parts of herself, and why she no longer believes love is enough to sustain a marriage.

I thought marriage would give me the safe love I grew up watching

I always imagined marriage would be beautiful. To me, it meant finally having a companion. Someone I’d do life with. Someone I’d tell everything to without hiding anything. I imagined my husband and I becoming one person in the way the Bible describes it. No secrets or pretending, just two people moving through life as one.

But that picture of marriage didn’t come from the church alone. I grew up watching my parents love each other well. They have a good marriage. They’re open with each other, affectionate and never ashamed to show that they love themselves. Looking at them, it felt natural to believe my own marriage would look the same. 

Instead, it’s been almost the complete opposite. I don’t even call him my husband anymore. He’s simply my partner. 

For almost five years, I’ve carried the emotional weight of this marriage. Whenever we fought, I was the one apologising, even when I wasn’t at fault. I never liked keeping malice or proving who was right. I believed that if one person chose peace, the marriage would survive. But he got used to me always bending first.

Looking back, I think that was the beginning of everything. Slowly, the marriage became emotionally exhausting. Then it became verbally abusive. Eventually, it became physically abusive, too. Nothing about it resembles the marriage I once dreamed of.

I rushed into marriage because I was desperate to become a wife

If I could point to where everything went wrong, I’d say it started long before the wedding. I was 28 and had quietly placed myself under pressure to get married before turning 30. For reasons I can’t even place my hands on, I didn’t want to cross that age still unmarried.

I met my partner at a secondary school reunion party on the beach in September 2020. We’d spoken before, but that was the first time we met physically. He was charming at first. Everything about him matched the picture I’d built in my head. He spoke well and seemed caring. He claimed to own properties and have a comfortable income. His mother was a doctor and his father was a pastor. I looked at all those things and convinced myself I’d found a good man.

That same day, we had sex and I got pregnant almost immediately. Once the pregnancy happened, marriage felt like the obvious next step. And he was just as excited about the idea of spending the rest of our lives together. Before I knew it, we had our introduction in December. By March 2021, we were married. That’s how quickly everything happened.

The truth is, I didn’t know the man I was marrying. The caring, attentive person I met disappeared almost immediately after the wedding. I later realised many of the things he’d told me during courtship weren’t true. The financial stability, the properties, the image he sold me, much of it was fabricated.

Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if I hadn’t been so determined to become someone’s wife.

I didn’t know how difficult it was to leave a marriage

One thing marriage has taught me is that leaving isn’t as easy as people think. When you’re dating, walking away feels more straightforward. The stakes are lower. But marriage is different. Once children are involved, every decision becomes heavier.

People often say, “If you’re unhappy, just leave.” But where do you leave to? What happens to the children? What happens to the years you’ve already invested? What happens to the life you’ve built together?

Those questions can keep you in a marriage for longer than you truly desire. That’s probably been the biggest surprise for me. Before I got married, I genuinely believed that if a marriage became unbearable, you’d simply walk away. Now I know it’s rarely that simple.

Keeping quiet for peace slowly turned me into someone I didn’t recognise

My husband is a narcissist, and nothing prepared me for how to navigate marriage with someone like him. People prepare you for difficult in-laws or financial struggles. Nobody tells you what it feels like to live with someone who constantly makes you question yourself.

Very early in the marriage, I realised arguing achieved nothing. If he said black was white, you either agreed or prepared for another fight.

I remember one morning when we were heading to church and flagged down an okada. The rider mentioned a fare I felt was too expensive, so I tried to negotiate. Before I could finish speaking, my partner turned to me and shouted, “Is it your money? Who asked you to negotiate?”

I was shocked. Here I was thinking about managing his resources, but he embarrassed me over something so ordinary. Moments like that became normal in our marriage. I stopped expressing my opinions. I kept quiet because silence felt safer than another argument. But silence has a cost. All the anger I swallowed kept piling up until one day I couldn’t hold it anymore. 

I started shouting back and became extremely confrontational. I started responding to violence with violence because I genuinely felt I needed to defend myself. There were times we physically fought in front of our children. When I think about those moments today, I honestly scare myself. That wasn’t who I was before this marriage, but I had to defend myself. I had to.

Marriage made me lose parts of myself before I started finding them again

This marriage has changed me in ways I never expected. For a long time, I lived depressed, emotionally drained and constantly trying to manage someone else’s emotions while abandoning my own. Choosing peace came at the expense of my mental health.

Eventually, but as I mentioned earlier, it got to a point where I needed to defend myself from a narcissist who had taken my complete silence and patience for granted. I started choosing myself.

That sounds empowering, but I’ll be honest, it wasn’t beautiful at first. Choosing myself came with years of bottled-up anger. I became louder. More defensive. Wild.

Sometimes I still carry that anger. But at least now I’m no longer pretending that everything is fine. I’m slowly finding my way back to myself, even though I know there’s still healing left to do.

I’ve stayed for my children, but I know I can’t stay forever

The hardest compromise I’ve made is remaining in this marriage because of our children. There came a point where I told him I wanted to leave. I even asked him what exactly was left for me to hold on to, and he quite frankly admitted there wasn’t anything.

Outside the abuse, there has also been repeated infidelity. I’ve caught him naked with other women in our matrimonial home. I’ve gone to another woman’s house and found him there. In five years of marriage, I’ve discovered affairs with at least six different women. Those are only the ones I know about.

At some point, his cheating became so reckless that I contracted infections. There are moments when I look at my life and wonder how I got here.

For a long time, I convinced myself that staying was the sacrifice I had to make for my children. But I’ve reached the point where I know staying isn’t helping anyone. One day, these children will become adults and live their own lives. If I remain here until then, I fear there’ll be nothing left of me.

So yes, I’m preparing to leave. Not because I don’t care about my family, but because I finally understand that choosing myself isn’t selfish. It’s necessary.

Love isn’t enough, kindness is

If I could speak to the younger version of myself, I’d tell her one thing. Don’t rush into marriage because of age. Being somebody’s wife isn’t an achievement if you end up sacrificing your peace to get there. Take your time to really know the person you’re marrying. Don’t mistake chemistry or urgency for compatibility.

Because in the long run, you’ll find out that the butterflies won’t always flutter in your tummy. You’d find out that love isn’t easily reachable; you need effort to reach and nurture it. You’ll find out that just saying “I love you” isn’t enough to take you through life’s uncertainties.

You need kindness, mutual respect and safety. Love without those things eventually becomes another word people use to justify suffering. I’ve loved deeply in this marriage. I just wish I’d been loved the same way in return.

 *Names have been changed to protect the identity of the subjects.

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