This article is part of Had I Known, Zikoko’s theme for September 2025, where we explore Nigerian stories of regret and the lessons learnt. Read more Had I Known stories here.
When Gozie*(41) decided she was going to marry Charles, she never imagined the decision would change her life forever in the worst ways possible.
In this story, she shares how she fell into a whirlwind marriage with Charles, and silently suffered financial, and emotional abuse, miscarriages and betrayal, all because she wanted to be a good wife.
This is Gozie’s story, as told to Betty:
On a sunny February day in 2015, I woke up to call my husband, Charles*. I wanted to remind him about his flight back to Nigeria I had booked for him. He didn’t pick up. I tried to dismiss the growing worry in the pit of my stomach, but it grew with every unanswered call.
Not long after, one of his friends called with words that left me in a dizzying spell.
“Charles stabbed himself five times. He’s in the ICU.”
Frantic, I hopped on the next available flight to the UK, hoping I wouldn’t arrive too late. On that long flight, my mind roamed freely, perching and turning over the lies, frustration and chaos that marked our relationship from the very start.
***
I met Charles in 2004 through a friend who was dating his cousin. During a visit to her, Charles tried to move to me. I had an immediate dislike for him.
My friend’s boyfriend was abusive, and I worried that the other members of his family, like Charles, would share similar traits.
My instincts signalled all the signs of a red flag. How I wish I had listened.
At first, I refused to have anything to do with Charles, I didn’t like his vibe, but my friend kept urging me to give him a chance. I eventually gave him my number to keep the peace. We chatted occasionally, but that was all to it.
In 2004, he left Nigeria for a master’s programme in the UK, and I breathed a sigh of relief. I thought fate had helped me remove him from my path.
While he was in the UK, I heard he got entangled with a white woman and eventually married her. I didn’t care. He wasn’t my cup of tea.
I moved on with my life after that and dated other people.
***
Fast forward to 2010, six years after my encounter with Charles, he resurfaced on my radar.
One random day in April, I ran into Charles’s brother during an outing. We had a nice chat, and I thought nothing of our interaction as we went our separate ways. But he must have told Charles he saw me because, a few days later, Charles called out of the blue.
I’d just left a bad relationship during the period, so naturally, I was emotionally vulnerable. Charles noticed this and used it to his advantage. He managed to get under my skin.
It was a whirlwind of events. One minute, I didn’t like him, and the next, we were speaking every day. Charles told me he ended his first marriage and confessed how much he missed me since we last saw each other. Not long after, he brought up marriage. I was inexperienced with men and their deceits, so his mention of marriage made it easy to fall headfirst.
When I told my family, they pushed back hard. I was the lastborn, and they all treated me like an egg. They didn’t want me to go off to a different country to get married to a man they barely knew. I had visited the UK for holidays in the past, and my family encouraged me to visit him in the UK to be sure that he was being honest about his promises.
With a heart full of hope, I packed a bag and went to the UK to see Charles in August 2010. I remember him excitedly meeting me at my hotel with a gentle smile on his face.
I was 26 at the time and had never had sex. I refused to get into sexual relationships with anyone who wasn’t my husband because of my faith. But things got heated with Charles, and we had sex. In my mind, sex sealed our fate and meant we were committed forever.
He proposed in September 2010, and despite my family’s loud reservations, I said “yes”.
I doubted my choices a lot during the wedding preparations.
First, there was the case of friction with his family. Where my family made things easy, Charles’s family were the opposite.
We did a small traditional wedding in January 2011, but there were fights about where to hold the white wedding. We planned to do a more elaborate ceremony in the East later. However, due to some issues around misappropriation of funds, we moved the wedding to Ogun where we lived. His mother insisted on the East and swore she wouldn’t attend if we held it elsewhere. We privately decided that we’d have our white wedding in the UK instead and keep it an intimate affair.
I wanted to back out of the wedding then, but I told myself it was too late. Moreover, I’d given my heart and body to Charles; I wanted to hold true to the vow I made to myself. So, I swallowed my doubts and kept quiet.
We moved to the UK that same month. I had just finished my NYSC, and I wanted to stay back in Nigeria to get some work experience, but he convinced me to move. He promised to pay me a stipend until I found a job. His offer delighted me. In that moment, I felt like he wasn’t a bad choice after all. He was a good man, my good man.
After we moved, my belly was initially full of the butterflies of newlywed bliss. We weren’t rich, but managed. He also reneged on his promise of a monthly stipend, but I didn’t complain. Soon, Charles started broaching the topic of expanding our family. Sure, it was the natural next step, but I wanted us to have our white wedding before we brought a baby into the mix. So to avoid stories that touch, I used birth control. The only person I confided in was my sister, but she must have mentioned my reservations to her husband, who insisted that a baby wasn’t a bad idea. So, I stopped using birth control.
I got pregnant for the first time in 2011. Unfortunately, I miscarried shortly after I found out. It was a devastating loss that left me sad for months. But we kept trying and had a lovely baby girl in 2012. I thought her birth would bring us closer, but it only worsened our fights.
Charles suddenly wanted a white wedding again, but nothing like what we had previously agreed on. It had to be on his terms alone. When I refused, we settled for a small court wedding in the UK with no fanfare. The whole thing left a bitter taste in my mouth and further stretched our already strained relationship. But I told myself marriage was about compromise, especially since I now had a daughter to think about. But as time went by, the cracks in our marriage only widened.
Charles never cared about my health. After my miscarriage, I noticed a clicking sound in my head. It bothered me for months until I took a trip to the hospital. Doctors discovered an enlarged pituitary gland. I was afraid something would happen and I would leave my husband and daughter alone in this world. I couldn’t bear the thought.
I had several hospital appointments, but Charles never once followed me. He always had work excuses, but they never stopped him from sparing the time for his favourite football games.
It made me feel like I was unimportant to him, but anytime I tried to speak to him about it, it ended in fights. . I eventually stopped asking and faced it all alone.
I considered leaving, but I couldn’t stand the shame of facing my family. Afterall, they warned me. In February 2013, I finally got a UK residential permit and landed a nice, cushy job that helped us at home. That was when Charles started mounting pressure on me to move back to Nigeria. I resisted at first because the UK had the best care for my condition. Charles insisted, because he needed to have control over my actions and because a part of me wanted to come back to Nigeria too, I agreed to move back.
I returned to Nigeria in 2013 while Charles remained in the UK.
***
Charles lived in the UK while I stayed in Nigeria with our daughter for two years. Somehow, the distance between us calmed the hateful fire that always blazed when we were together. We still fought, but less frequently. I foolishly thought this meant our relationship was getting better.
Then, in early 2015, Charles started talking about visiting Nigeria. I booked the flight like I always did and looked forward to our reunion.
In February, when it was just a few days to his travel date, I called to remind him. I didn’t get a response at first, but I chalked it up to work. However, when I tried to call later and still couldn’t reach him, I got worried. That was when his friend called to tell me he was in the ICU unit of a hospital.
“How? What happened? Where?” I fired through the other end of the phone, but I was met with silence. When he finally spoke, he said Charles had stabbed himself because he was having terrible problems at work.
The news broke me. Even though we had our history, he was still my husband. I dusted my passports and planned an impromptu trip to the UK.
Charles was barely alive when I found him. He made his attempt at our home; he did it at a friend’s place. Like a devoted wife, I stood by his side and remained in the UK to care for him while he recovered. This was in addition to caring for our daughter and taking responsibility for the upkeep of the home while he was down.
Charles refused to return to the agency he worked at after he recovered. It didn’t matter that they called him back, he insisted he wasn’t happy there. While I understood his concerns, I was also scared of what his decision meant for our finances. My work was inconsistent, and we had a daughter, how were we going to survive??
In September 2015, Charles decided that we should move back to Nigeria, and I agreed. Managing on the little money I made wasn’t sustainable.
Sadly, moving back is a decision I still regret.
In Nigeria, we moved into a twin duplex he built in Ogun state and we tried to build our life up again. Charles started several businesses and we were back to fighting all the time. Shortly after the move, I got pregnant with our second child.
I wasn’t happy about the pregnancy.
I didn’t see myself as one of those women who kept having babies while in bad relationships, but abortion wasn’t an option for me. I decided to see the pregnancy through, after all, I thought it would be nice for our daughter to have a sibling.
The pregnancy was very difficult; it took a huge toll on my body, and this meant several hospital visits. Still, Charles remained unsupportive, just like the first time. All he did was complain about how expensive my pregnancy was. He threw a fit every time I asked for money.
His reluctance made me miss important follow-up visits that would have ensured the safety of my pregnancy.
At eight months, I had a stillbirth. A boy. The hate I had for Charles calcified at that point.
Our son’s death was avoidable, and it broke me into pieces I’m still gathering together today.
It wasn’t that Charles didn’t have the money for the hospital visits, he just didn’t want to spend it on me.
We buried our boy in our home that year with great sadness. But it was as if Charles didn’t think that was enough suffering.
In 2016, he told me he was going to sell the house because he needed money.
His words felt like another punch in the gut for me. I cried and begged him to sell any of his other properties and leave us in that one. I just wanted to remain close to my son, but he refused. He wouldn’t budge, no matter how hard I tried to make him see reason. I begged any of his relatives who might listen, but they didn’t care. They supported Charles when it mattered, as long as it didn’t affect whatever support they got from him. Charles eventually got his way and sold the house,
It felt like losing our son all over again.
As he hadn’t put me through enough torture, Charles resurrected the idea of a white wedding again. I felt blood rush to my head the day he brought it up. He couldn’t spend his money to save our child, but suddenly found the will to do so on a white wedding? Over my dead body.
I refused and made it clear he wasn’t my husband. That has been one of our biggest issues since 2016, but I refuse to shift my position. That ship has sailed.
These days, he goes around with his side of the story. How I’m an evil woman and how his family agrees that I’m a bad wife.
It is ridiculous because that man is the green snake hiding in plain sight on a green lawn.
He’s made sure I remain financially dependent on him. Every time, I get a job or try to start a business, he sabotages it.
In 2021, we had a huge fight because he told his aunt that I was frivolous with money. This is a man who starves me of funds to care for our daughter, yet portrays me as careless.
At a point, I involved my older sister. But she belongs to the generation that believes it’s better to endure a bad marriage than leave. She turned me away when I tried to squat with her till I figured out something better. That rejection hurt. I had to move back in with Charles. I didn’t do so without a plan, though. Since 2021, I’ve been saving up without his knowledge. Every naira saved is a step closer to freedom for me and my daughter.
Soon, I’ll have enough money to rent my own place and pay for my child’s needs. I’m counting the days until I can throw Charles’s wickedness back in his face.
***
Marrying Charles is the worst decision I’ve made in my life.
He suffocated every joy I had. Sometimes, I can’t recognise the woman in the mirror. I used to be, strong, confident, in control.
Charles warped my understanding of who I am. But I know better now.
I’ll keep my head down and save as much as I can. Then I’ll leave him in the dust of my rearview mirror forever.
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