Voices

She:

It was a voice that taught her how to respond to her husband’s meanness

“don’t be a floor mat” it said

“Stop taking this nonsense from him”

“fight back”

At first, she didn’t know how

Her husband felt to her like a wrecking train

The type that can only hurt others but couldn’t be hurt

“What can she do?”

She stopped cooking for him

He didn’t even notice

She couldn’t believe it!

She told another voice

“Imagine this! I have not cooked for my husband for two weeks and he didn’t notice”

The voice couldn’t believe it

The voice said ‘That means he had been throwing away all the food you cooked for him in the past, or maybe he was giving the food to the security men at his office. If he had been eating your food every day, he would at least pay attention when such is not available!

She agreed with the voice

There seemed to be no other viable excuse

Another voice asked her if her husband was sleeping around, she said No!

"He will surely pay attention if you stop having sex with him!"

She moved out of their matrimonial bed!

Her husband didn’t say a word!

It hurt her deeply!

"How can someone be so selfish?"

A whole human being leaves your bed and you didn’t even give it a second thought?

Another voice said “He doesn’t love you at all, why stay in such a loveless marriage?!”

One day at the salon, a voice described how she stirred her husband to jealousy

The voice said “her man was always forming hard guy

So, she got herself a bestie

A guy she can talk to about anything and everything

Though she knew the guy may want to get under her skirt

It was all part of the game

It wouldn’t be real if the guy didn’t have any hope of hitting the spot

She was the one who knew she wouldn’t let him get there

The guy saw a free goalpost and wanted to play a penalty

She took the ball like a good goalkeeper and kept teasing him with it

Every evening from 10pm till 1am, the guy would be on the phone with her

It lasted for only a week before he husband blew up

She didn’t expect it

He accused her of cheating

She accused him of emotional abandonment

He swore she was a slut

She swore no other man had ever slept with her

He swore it was emotional cheating

She asked him what he had been doing with her own emotion

They reconciled inside each other

Nine months later she had a baby girl

He stopped toying with her emotions after then!”

She decided to try it out

If he shows a little jealousy, it means there is a little hope for their marriage

She bought an earpiece and started talking in amorous voice to an imaginary guy anytime her husband was at home

She would coo and schedule imaginary dates in her husband’s hearing

Her husband didn’t react

One day she went to work, returned home later in the evening only to discover the house was empty

Her two children and her husband had vanished!

At first, she thought they went to buy something or they went for a drive

By midnight she was halfway to crazy central

What happened!

She called everybody she could call

Nobody knew their whereabouts

She could barely sleep all night
Early the next morning, she went to the police station

Her younger sister and some family members came to join her

They called and went everywhere they could think of

Nothing!

She went to her husband’s office

He had resigned!

She couldn’t believe what was happening

Not even for a second!

She ran to church

“Pastor, pastor, I am finished!”

She told her tale to the pastor

The Pastor was as dumbfounded as she was!

Where could her husband and three children disappear to?

All the clothes were at home

The other two cars were there

They disappeared with only one car and the clothes on their back!

It was while they were with the pastor that she received the call

Somebody from the international airport said a man told him to call her by 4pm

The car was at the airport’s parking lot!

The owner of the car had traveled abroad!

She ran to the police station

The police called the phone number

The caller was an airport staff member

They got to him

He explained that the man and his daughters boarded a flight the previous night and the man begged him to call a certain number by 4pm the next day so that the owner of the car can come and pick it!

That was all he knew!

Her husband left the key in the exhaust as usual

They opened the car, there was nothing in it indicating where they went

The policeman said the car was an evidence that needed to be taken to the station

She laughed and told him to go to blazes!

The policeman still wanted to exploit her situation

If the car got to their station, she would have to pay them something to get it back

She drove the car home

And waited!

Suddenly the voices were silent!

Her brother, sister, friends, colleagues, strangers, parents and “loved ones”

The only voice she heard from then on was hers

Weeping, crying and gnashing her teeth in regret

He:

It was the voices that thought him to be smarter than she was

He knew her type of woman

Needy, clingy, emotionally unstable, always trying to suck a man dry

She had always been like that but what she did the last time really broke the camel’s back

They finished making love and he slept off

She took offence

“That’s the problem with you men, you use someone to get your relief and off you go into dreamworld”

He was very stung by her words

She knew he was tired before she started touching him in sensitive places

He could have pushed her away!

He didn’t because she would be crying “You rejected me” the next morning

She managed to get it up and did his best to make sure she came before he came

How come he couldn’t sleep in peace again

Her words stung him so much he lost his sleep entirely

She needed to be reined in!

He made up his mind to express his displeasure to her about her words when he came back from work the next day

That very next day she refused to prepare his food

He couldn’t believe it

She offended him and she was still the one taking offence

Because he dared to “try” and sleep off after they made love, she started denying him food!

WOW!

He got home that day and met her in a warlike posture

He wanted to talk before but her posture says “She was spoiling for a fight”

He went off to his room!

She stopped cooking for him from that day

He called her mother to report

Her mother sided with her daughter

“My daughter is what you have made her, if you treat her right, she would treat you right”

The shrill voice of her mother pierced his very soul

He spoke with his own mother

She told him not to give in to his wife’s manipulations

“Eat out” said her mother “After all you don’t eat so much”

He started eating out

All that while they were still on speaking terms

He was tired of the cold war and was willing to compromise when she moved out of their matrimonial bed

He couldn’t believe it!

Because he slept of after making love to her?!

She denied him food and now she had moved out of the bedroom?

A voice told him she was cheating on him!

“what was it she said again?”

(“That’s the problem with you “MEN”, you use someone to get your relief and off you go into dreamworld”)

He married her a virgin!

Who were the other men she was comparing him with?

Oh! That was why he was no longer able to satisfy her

That was why she felt he used her!

Oh God!

How could he be so stupid?

She had been sleeping around all along!

The realization hit him like atomic bomb on Nagasaki

He knew there could never be an alternative explanation

He thought about his children

Were they really his?

For how long had she been cheating?

He got their hair samples and sent it in for DNA test

The test results came in and the children were confirmed to be his

He felt guilty immediately

This nonsense cold war between the two of them must stop

It is breeding too much distrust and pain

Plus he spent quite a lot of money on the test

A lump sum he could have saved and put to better use if he hadn’t started listening to strange voices

He got home that day with the full intention of apologizing

Then his wife upped the game

She was always on the phone, talking to one guy or guys

Every night till very late,

Every dawn until he leaves for work

She was having an affair or affairs and she didn’t even have the decency to hide it

He thought about the whole thing

A voice said: Would you trust her to raise your daughters with her obvious moral deficiency?

She understood the issue

But what could he have done?

Then a voice reminded him his children were American citizens

He had American visa

He made the necessary arrangements

Resigned from his job

And took his daughters far away from her to protect them!

Who wouldn’t do the same thing in his shoes?

PS: It took four years to reunite this family

FOUR YEARS!

Four years of pain, bitterness, anger, malice, frustration, unforgiveness, mediation, travelling, counselling, compromise, oath swearing, depression, loneliness, sadness, darkness, dark thoughts, condemnations and eventually healing and understanding!

Stop piling grudges and hurt

Stop keeping account of each other’s wrongs

Stop trying so hard to see who would hurt each other the most

Stop listening to strange voices

Stop playing stupid pranks on each other

Stop being so sensitive

Stop insulting and demeaning each other

Stop accusing each other falsely

Forgive each other

Forget wrongs

Love each other

Never neglect the Holy Spirit in your personal walk with Him

With the Holy Spirit actively at work in your life

You'd be unable to live in unforgiveness for one minute