A pastor and his wife rescued a young girl from her abusive mother, and they raised her from the age of eleven till she graduated from the university. She met a guy and fell in love with him On her wedding day, her biological mother came to the wedding with touts and caused all sorts of trouble She didn’t allow the wedding to proceed until the pastor and his wife paid her off Her grouse was that they dared to hold her daughter’s wedding without inviting her. Her daughter didn’t want her there because she was married to one of the chieftains of the motorist association, and when she goes anywhere, touts accompany her and her husband. After her mother left, the pastor and his wife called this lady and told her to do everything to keep her mother away from her matrimonial home. She said she had heard and even swore she would limit every form of contact with her mother. She got pregnant and delivered a baby boy. Her husband’s mother came over to help her care for the baby. Two weeks after this, her mother arrived at her house, packed the mother-in-law’s things out of the guest room into the sitting room, and moved in. When her husband returned home from the office, he found his mother huddled at a corner in the sitting room while his wife, her mother, and his wife’s younger brother sat at the dining table having a meal. His wife said she didn’t know how to tell her mother she was not welcome in her house. She said she just wanted her mother to experience spending some time with her grandson. The husband had to take his mother to a hotel that night for the sake of peace. When he got back from the hotel, his wife’s mother got into a quarrel with him for bringing his mother to care for her daughter instead of calling her when her daughter delivered the baby. The quarrel was so much that he left the house that night to go sleep in the hotel where his mother also slept. The marriage became a war zone from the moment her mother got into the house. Things were said that shouldn’t have been said, and the daughter sided with her mother.

The genes spoke so loudly that the husband left the marriage. Why do the children of abusive parents have such a strong tie with them? Why do abusive parents have such a strong hold on their children? There is a second case from Ajegunle, Lagos. A woman who had five children for four different men. Her first daughter lived with her for the first seven years of her life because the man who impregnated her mother wouldn’t claim the child. Eventually, the man came around and paid her mother off to keep away from the girl He said he knew she would turn her into a prostitute if he left his daughter with her. The woman collected five million naira and signed a contract not to get in touch with or contact the daughter in any way.

This daughter grew up with her rich father He ensured she attended the best schools until she graduated as a lawyer and secured a good job. She then told her father she wanted to study for her master’s abroad. Her father told her he had done the best he could and would like to focus on training her younger one, whom he had with her stepmother. Unsatisfied with her father’s response, she went looking for her mother She found her mother in squalor. Her stepsisters on her mother’s side were all sleeping with men for money and had been doing so for years. Her stepbrothers on her mother’s side were both drug addicts and petty thieves. What she saw was enough for her to flee the scene and never return. She didn’t. She embarked on a redemption project for her mother, cleaning up the house, buying furniture, kitchenware, food stuff, TV, and everything to try to make her mother and siblings’ lives presentable. She said she kept comparing them to her step-siblings from her father’s side, and the difference was too glaring.

She stayed with her mother until she spent all the money in her savings and could barely afford to keep together enough money to transport herself to the office daily. She forgot that the pig and the pigsty are siamese twins; where you find one, you must find the other. When her mother noticed she was financially broke, she started suggesting to her that there are some men in the area she could befriend to make some money to make things easy for herself. She went to her father for help, but he refused to help because she broke the one agreement they had from when he took her in. Which was for her to keep away from her mother. So she took her mother’s advice and began to spend her extra time with certain kinds of characters. All the decency her father tried to inculcate in her quickly gave way to rot. It was as if there was an identity in her that needed to be expressed in its fullness, She degenerated so quickly that she became a pro call girl within a year. It took her two years and a new job to realize that living in Ajegunle and the company she was keeping would ruin her destiny. She cleaned up her act, moved to another part of Lagos and joined a church. She was determined to do better. She met a man who loved her enough to overlook her past and marry her.

After the wedding, she and the man went on a honeymoon abroad, When they got back home after the honeymoon, her mother came to visit them briefly and left. A day after her mother left, her husband forgot a document at home and had to rush home from the office to pick it up When he got home, he found the door to their flat ajar and caught his wife’s mother and younger brothers ransacking the house They were looking for money He wanted to raise an alarm when one of his wife’s younger brothers hit him on the head with an object. His wife returned home to meet her husband’s lifeless body in the sitting room. Why can’t dead cats be left alone? Why can’t everyone learn from Abraham that cutting off some people is the only way to move forward and forge a fresh path for the coming generation?

PS: People who are unfit for marriage are the ones who cry the most that they want to get married. It is quite ironic that people actually see marriage as a medicine that could repair their flawed nature or make them better people than they were while they were single. Many parents running about, praying for marital settlement for their children, also know that the reason those children are not married yet is because they are not fit to be married. Some go as far as to say they believe once their son or daughter, who is promiscuous, settles down, they believe the promiscuity will then stop. Most parents don’t tell their children the truth in love, and they should for the sake of their unborn grandchildren and their peace of mind in the coming days.

Broken marriages leave a huge impact on everybody! The most important decision you can make as an individual is to assess the home you came from, your background and the influences around you, and make up your mind if you want to protect your future from these same influences. If you know these influences are unhealthy, please cut them off once and for all without any sentiment. Congratulations to Sister Funke and Baby Olufire, I know the United Kingdom is treating you guys kindly. I will see you both soon.

-GSW-