“I no longer call it noble”

A Nigerian lady, Ogechi Laura Amajuoyi, has opened up on her experience in marriage, saying she eventually felt she was valued only for having children.

Amajuoyi shared the account in a Facebook post, reflecting on her relationship with her former husband, her three pregnancies and what she described as a lack of emotional and physical support throughout the marriage.

She met her former husband in February 2016 and became pregnant three months later. At the time, she claimed she did not know his age or that he had previously been married and divorced.

She eventually married him and went on to have three children while pursuing her education.

‘I carried all three pregnancies alone’

Amajuoyi described her pregnancies as particularly difficult because she received little or no support from her husband or his family.

She was still a student at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka (UNN), when she became pregnant with her first child.

“My first, I carried while I was still a student at UNN, tummy growing while I kept up with my regular school activities. It’s thanks to my mother that dropping out never became the answer,” she wrote.

Her second pregnancy came during her final months at UNN in 2018 and around the period she was preparing for the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC).

The third pregnancy came after she spent a night outside following an argument with her husband. She recalled discovering that she was pregnant the following morning.

Looking back at the three pregnancies, Amajuoyi said she went through them without the emotional and physical presence she expected from her husband.

“Three pregnancies. No husband rubbed my feet. No husband massaged my tummy. No husband showed up for any of it,” she wrote.

‘He was in a hurry to leave’

Amajuoyi also recalled what happened after the births of her first two children.

Her former husband visited her at the government hospital in Enugu but, in her account, did not stay for long.

While husbands were not allowed to spend the night in the hospital ward, she recalled seeing another man stay with the mother of his child and wished her own husband had shown similar concern.

“I remember wishing my husband had cared enough to do the same. But mine was in a hurry to leave almost as soon as he arrived,” she wrote.

She alleged that he would leave to spend time with friends after visiting her and the newborn.

“He’d go meet his friends, the same crowd that regularly kept him out until two in the morning, that’s a story for another day, and go brag to them that his wife had just given birth, while I was left to handle the entire aftermath by myself,” she stated.

She recounts dispute over children’s names

The mother of three also expressed frustration over her former mother-in-law’s involvement in naming her children.

Amajuoyi claimed her former mother-in-law believed she had the right to choose the names of all the children she carried.

She particularly objected to the name given to her last child, “Ifunanya,” which means love in Igbo.

The woman claimed the name was also associated with another woman with whom her former husband had allegedly been involved.

Amajuoyi had previously complained to her former mother-in-law about the alleged affair. However, instead of holding her son accountable, the older woman reportedly told her about a similar experience in her own marriage.

For Amajuoyi, the response highlighted how unhealthy marital patterns can be passed from one generation to another.

‘That’s how the cycle stays a cycle’- Woman Says

Reflecting on her experience, Amajuoyi argued that children can learn unhealthy relationship patterns by observing their parents.

She suggested that women who spend their marriages tolerating irresponsible behaviour from their husbands may unintentionally contribute to a cycle in which their sons grow up seeing such behaviour as normal.

“That’s how the cycle stays a cycle. Not because anyone is forced to keep it going, but because everyone around it agrees to call it strength,” she wrote.

She also shared her view that remaining in a troubled marriage at all costs is not necessarily better for children.

“There has never been a point in my life where I believed a toxic two-parent household does more for a child than a peaceful one-parent household,” she wrote.

Amajuoyi ended her post by reflecting on the sacrifices she made during the marriage.

“My name is Ogechi Amajuoyi, and this is one of the sacrifices I carry that I no longer call noble,” she wrote.

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