“YOU PROMISED “A SHORT STORY BY TREASURE EZURUIKE

“YOU PROMISED “A SHORT STORY BY TREASURE EZURUIKE

Wife: Baby, please can I talk to you?

Husband: Sure, what is it?

Wife: It’s about my unemployment. I’m tired of staying at home. Not having one penny to my name. 

When we got married you promised to let me get a job once our last child started school.

It’s been 5 years since our last child started school and I have not gotten a job. 10 years after marriage I still don’t have a job.

I’ve gotten older and now I’m no longer within the age range to qualify for these jobs. What do I do now?

I regret meeting you when I did. Because of you, I went against my family. I turned down an M.sc abroad.

Got pregnant before marriage to force my family’s hand because I thought I was in love and you loved me.

You brought the idea of pregnancy and I bought it and after it, you tried to socially isolate me from my family.

You got me to resign from my job and abandoned me. You are not just wicked, you are evil.

I keep thinking if something happens to you what would we do?

I have no access to your funds. I don’t even know where they are. If you lose your job, there’s no backup plan.

I know life is fleeting and I may die first but my point is the children and I would suffer if anything happened to your job or you.

I need a job so I can earn money.

Husband: Are you wishing me death?

What do you mean by you keep thinking if something happens to me what would you do?

Wife: I already explained that life is fleeting and any of us could die. You know I’m not wishing you death. 

Please don’t turn the tables against me like you always do. I’m talking about a serious matter.  I’ve lost 10 productive years of my life. 

10 years of my life I won’t get back.

Husband: How is it my fault you don’t have a job? Have I stopped you from getting a job?

Wife: I just want a job. You made promises to me that you never fulfilled.

You asked me to send you my resume so many times but it never materialized into anything.

Husband: (Standing up) Nonsense go and get yourself a job. Am I an employer of labor?

Wife: You are not yet you helped so many of your friends’ wives secure employment.

They call me to thank you on their behalf and wonder why you haven’t found me a job.

I just lie to them that I’m not yet ready. I keep wondering if you used those resumes I sent to you at all. I wonder if you want me to get a job.

Husband: You can say whatever you like. Since you feel I never used your resumes and don’t want you to get a job, go and get yourself a job.

You keep talking trash and being ungrateful despite how I’ve provided for you all these years.

Wife: Provided for me how? Did you place me on an allowance or pay me any salary?

Husband: How have you been able to get by all these years if I don’t pay you a salary?

Wife: My parents and my siblings have been providing for me. I’ve been reduced to a beggar since I got married to you. You just made me false promises you never kept.

Husband: Your parents and siblings have been providing for you? So I’ve never provided for you? I’ve never bought you clothes or changed your hair?

Wife: I’m so happy you never give cash. You prefer bank transfers. Please can you request a bank statement of all your transactions to me?

Or better still go to your email and type in my name and go through the transactions.

Pay attention to the narration on every transaction to find out if there are anyone that didn’t have school fees for children, children’s school accessories, children’s shoes, and clothes. It was always children’s this or that.

I took my time to go through all those electronic bank statements the bank usually sends at the end of the month.

I wept after going through it because I never saw any money you sent to me for my private use. I was 22 when I got married, now I’m 32.

Which establishment is employing a 32-year-old woman with rusty experience? You did me a bad thing all because I was submissive to you.

You had no plans for me. It’s obvious from your reaction. You expected me to just sit here and continue to beg.

This thing most of you husbands do asking your wife to leave her job to take care of the children is unfair.

You continue your job and expect her to leave hers. Forgetting that time waits for no one.

The older we get the more our chances of getting paid employment reduces.

Even business that is the next option, where have we seen the capital, to begin with?

Not everyone is cut out for business, so what do we do?

You expect us to waste the productive years of our lives just because we got married and had children for both of us. The next thing would be feminism. I don’t know what is feminism here?

How can I be happy at 32 with nothing to my name just because I got married? I can’t even speak in the presence of my course mates.

What would I say? I can’t contribute to anything they are contributing to. How can I contribute when I can’t even afford data at 32.

My family sees me as a liability and it’s not that I’m lazy.

It’s because I listened to “leave your job and look after our children. I’ll support you throughout that period and help you get a job once our last child starts school.”

Our last child started school 5 years ago and I’m still sitting at home doing nothing. Every day I remind you of your promise to get me a job. You tell me how you are working on it.

Working on it for how long? Till I turn 40? And remain a fool forever?

Husband: (Going through his emails searching for bank transactions between him and his wife. Looking for one he sent to her but found none.)

Why didn’t you bring it to my notice that I wasn’t giving you any money?

Wife: Why didn’t you bring it to my notice that you had no plans for me when you asked me to leave my job 10 years ago?

What kind of question is that? Do you mean as an intentional husband who is concerned with his wife’s progress I should have told you?

I should have said, “honey, is there a reason you only send me money for the children and never send me anyone for myself”?

Do you think it’s easy to go from earning money to begging for it?

Husband: Well that’s your cup of tea. Since you’ve figured me and my plans for you out, there’s no point in explaining anything to you.

Because of your impatience you’ve missed out on the great plans, I had for you.

Wife: Great plans indeed. Who said anything about a great plan? 

Get me a job as you got for your friends’ wives.

You have the connections but they fail you once you see my resume.

You keep giving one excuse after another.

Husband: Am I your father? Is it my responsibility to get you a job?

Wife: (Shakes her head) I’m glad this conversation has taken this turn because it has revealed to me that my suspicions have been right all along.

The way you are responding shows you have no good intentions for me. You keep building your friends wives, neglecting your own.

When the tables turn it’ll be your wife you would expect to assist but yet you’d rather she remained dependent on you and a beggar. It’s not your responsibility indeed.

You are not my father. It is well with my soul. Thank you for ruining my life.

Husband: Suit yourself, now you know the truth (he said walking away, leaving the house)

Wife: (Takes a few moments to calm herself)

Mum told me I was making a mistake leaving my job but I didn’t listen to her.

She told me it’ll be difficult to get back into the labour market because of my age and all the skills I had would have become rusty. It turns out she was right.

I’ve nothing to my name other than being a liability to those around me. I have to do something about it.

I’m not getting any younger. If anything happens to my husband my children and I would suffer.

I don’t know what he has or where they are. Someone else would just inherit them.

Now he has made it clear he has no plans for me. I’m on my own and I must take action.

(Picks up her phone to call her mum)

Good afternoon mum.

Mum: Good afternoon, how are you doing today?

Wife: Sad mum.

Mum: Why?

Wife: I spoke to my husband about my unemployment status.

He just hurt my feelings by letting me know he has no plans for me.

I wasted the most productive years of my life mum, because of this marriage (sobbing)

Mum: I’m so sorry about that. This is not the time to cry over spilled milk.

I hate to say I told you so. I was once like you so I’ve seen things and have more experience. Your father was very supportive. 

When I wanted to quit my job when the pressure got too much for me because I was combining the home front with work.

He refused to let me leave my job. He didn’t ask me to, I just got tired of it all.

I didn’t like the idea of a stranger taking care of our children. Your father approached our parents for some help.

We reached a compromise of hiring paid help while either of our parents supervised. He didn’t want to stress them to do all the work.

So he got paid help while our parents kept an eye on our children until they got a little older.

I know that all couples don’t have that option but they can always work something out.

That asking women to resign their jobs and be at home for close to 10 years is wickedness.

Especially when the husband has no plans for her. Some men have plans, they provide for their wives.

She doesn’t lack her basic needs and she also has some money to spare.

They upgrade themselves academically within that period and emerge a better version of themselves when childbearing is over.

In your case, you didn’t get any money or upgrade yourself. I’m really angry about it. You had a promising future but now what can we say about it?

Don’t lose hope, it’s not too late for you. You only need to take the bull by its horn and retrace your steps.

I know it would be said that I’m giving you bad advice but if anything happens to your husband’s job or him you and your children would suffer.

Wife: I’m very bitter mum.

Mum: Bitterness won’t solve anything. You need to take action.

Wife: I need a job mum.

Mum: I have been offering you jobs for years. Hopefully, you would take the ones available now.

Wife: I’m ready to accept a job now. It’s better than sitting at home doing nothing.

Mum: I hope your husband would let you work while under his roof.

Wife: He told me to go get myself a job.

Mum: What if he says no after you get the job? I wouldn’t want him to reject the children for you.

That would be too much responsibility.

Wife: What are you suggesting?

Mum: That we establish a business for you and someone else to run it for you.

Wife: So I can be ripped off?

Mum: No, we have to be tactical about this. I know your husband doesn’t want you to get a job.

Don’t tear your home apart because of a job after you’ve endured all these years.

You would go out to the business every day under the guise of learning the ropes.

The money would be collected electronically and there’ll be hidden security cameras there. They would be reviewed weekly.

I have learned my lessons from different businesses I’ve run.

Even with these checks and balances these people still rip you off, just not like they would have if cash was collected by hand.

I offered you this option at the beginning but you turned it down for reasons best known to you. Marriage is not the end of your life.

Imagine if your father and I didn’t have plans for ourselves and depended on you, we would have died of hunger.

A woman must work because she has responsibilities to her parents and family that raised her.

If her husband doesn’t want to, he should fill the void created by her stopping work.

I can’t emphasize this enough. A woman is not just for her husband. She has a family. Marrying her doesn’t mean turning her life on its head.

Thank God your other siblings have been able to support you alongside us. It’s time for you to become financially independent.

Not to rock shoulders with your husband but to become a plan B in case of any eventuality. No one knows tomorrow.

Wife: Okay mum, I’ll accept whatever plans you have. I’m slowly slipping into depression.

Mum: There’s no need for that. Where do you think your father and I got the money to support for 10 years from?

Wife: I don’t know.

Mum: You see that business your younger siblings run with me?

Wife: Yes

Mum: We started it because of you. After I gave you the idea and you turned it down. I spoke to your father and siblings.

We pulled resources together to start it because the worst thing that would happen is you and your children living from paycheck to paycheck.

I don’t want to say from hand to mouth because it’s just demeaning.

Wife: (Sobbing)

Mum: There’s no need for all this. When a person wakes up it is their morning.

You can take a horse to the river but you can’t force it to drink. We couldn’t force you to do anything because you weren’t ready.

While you had second thoughts we stepped in to hold the fort for you. You know in our family we don’t abandon each other.

You need to stop being angry at your husband, it’s not worth it. Stop saying you’ve no penny to your name because you do.

What is required of you is to learn the ropes of the business.

I know that business has never been your thing but now that’s the only option available if you want to remain married.

You can still pursue your dreams at the right time. Right now you need money.

Wife: (Still sobbing)

Mum: You need to take it seriously because I’ll like to move on to other things once you learn the ropes.

Wife: Thank you, mum.

Mum: Don’t thank me. Thank your father, siblings, and especially your children who motivated us all to take action.

If it was just you I doubt we would have paid attention because you are just so stubborn and don’t listen.

I told you not to marry that man because it was clear he didn’t have good intentions for you but you called our bluff and ambushed us with a pregnancy before marriage.

Tying our hands, because you knew your father would not want the shame. I was willing to bear it but he wasn’t. You deserve to suffer but your children don’t.

Wife: Mum you are so harsh. I thought he loved me.

Mum: You hurt my feelings marrying that boy who had no plans for you. Yes, he had money and connections but have you felt the impact of any of them?

You had a promising future and job we got you but you threw it all away.

Your husband disarmed you by asking you to resign from your job just to look after your children who weren’t even born.

You were just pregnant. The mistake has been made, it’s now the remedy.

I need to go now. Show up at the mall if you want to. I’m fighting for your Children’s future.

We’ve set up educational funds for them just Incase disaster strikes.

We won’t let them suffer but you can lie on the bed you made for yourself.

Wife: (Sobs as the call ends. She curses the day she met her husband)

Husband and wife lived like strangers.

The wife starts leaving the house to the shopping mall run by her family.

Husband: Where exactly is it that you go every day? I don’t see you at home anymore since we had that fruitless conversation.

Wife: I just roam the streets looking for a job. It’s better than sitting here sulking.

Husband: Good for you. At least now you know that getting a job is difficult.

Wife: Whatever.

(Wife continues to learn the ropes of the business and enrolls for a Master’s degree)

(Two years later)

One morning, the husband woke up to the news of the sudden death of his friend. 

His wife didn’t have a job or run a business.

His wife did not know any of his Bank account details or any business he ran.

The husband’s friends had to bear the cost of his funeral.

His wife is devastated. ” I told him to let me get a job or run a business but he refused.

I feared that this would be my fate but I was told to be obedient to my husband and believe he would provide for me and had all these plans.

I have just sat at home for 15 years without a penny to my name.

Now, who would train my children? Who would pay the rent? Where would we live?

My husband had lands, he hid all the documents from me.

Now he has died and left me with 5 children. How would I train them?

It would never be well with you in your grave she screamed” as her husband’s friends looked on.

His friend’s family had nothing to fall back to so they suffered. 

Friends of the husband tried to provide for his family for a while but at some point left them to their fate.

His wife and children became homeless, and the children dropped out of school.

Husband: (Made a U-turn. Wants wife to work)

(At night)

Please, I’ll like to talk to you.

Wife: Reluctantly sits down with a frowning face.

Husband: First of all I’ll like to apologize for the way I have treated you for the past 12 years.

I met you as a promising young woman but put out the fire. I had no plans for you when I asked you to leave your job.

Wife: Hisses

Husband: I regret not making use of all those resumes you sent to my email. I feel worse getting my friends’ wives’ jobs and neglecting you.

The way we have lived like strangers in the last two years has been so difficult to take in.

Wife: Please go straight to the point. All these stories you are telling are of no use to me.

Husband: I’m sorry, please forgive me.

Wife: Keep your apologies to yourself and go straight to the point. You are sorry for the way you have treated me.

Yet after I made it clear you didn’t provide for me you continued on that path. Sending just money for our children abandoning me.

Now you’re saying sorry like it can undo all the things you’ve done to me.

Husband: I don’t want to fight with you. I know I’ve done things I can’t take back. I was taught a practical lesson when my friend died.

The way his wife was abandoned showed me what would happen if I died suddenly.

Wife: Long hisssssssss

Husband: I know you are very upset but please hear me out. His wife didn’t have a job like you.

Her husband wasn’t open to her about anything he had but his family knew.

They’ve claimed all those properties and cash in the bank while his children are out of school. We recently set up a fund to get them back in school.

I know if my friend can see what is happening from his grave he’ll be rolling over with rage. I don’t want that to be me.

I don’t want to die and all I have would be taken by other people and my family suffer.

I want to get you a job and get you in the know about every property I have. Life is so uncertain.

Wife: So it’ll take your friend to die suddenly and you watch his wife suffer with her children for you to realize I was right two years ago when we had that talk?

It’ll take such a dramatic event to convince you?  Without something dramatic, you won’t learn a lesson? 

I wonder why some of you men are like this, waiting for a dramatic sign before making a decision. Now you want to get me a job at 34.

Get me on board to know about all your investments after 12 years of marriage. I’m suddenly important.

You are tired of punishing me and teaching me a lesson?

Husband: Babe, please.

Wife: Keep your hands off me. You are one of my biggest regrets

Husband: Shocked.

Wife: I regret meeting you when I did. Because of you, I went against my family. I turned down an M.sc abroad.

Got pregnant before marriage to force my family’s hand because I thought I was in love and you loved me.

You brought the idea of pregnancy and I bought it and after it, you tried to socially isolate me from my family.

You got me to resign from my job and abandoned me. You are not just wicked, you are evil.

You knew you had no plans for me, yet you made me get pregnant with your child just to marry me.

You made me send you my resume for 10 years and you had no plan to get me a job. How can I forgive you?

You made me waste the most productive years of my life. At 34 you want to get me a job.

For 12 years I have begged the same family I disgraced and you tried to socially isolate me from, for money to survive.

Yet you have the money to take care of me and the connection to get me a good-paying job.

I regret marrying you the way I did. You have wrecked my life.

Husband: I’m so sorry, I don’t know what came over me.

Wife: How would you ever know? I don’t want your job, keep it to yourself or give it to one of your friends’ wives.

Let me be. I can’t accept help from anyone who has mocked me because it’ll choke me in the end.

You made me all these promises and never kept anyone.

If you’re so worried about your family suffering in the event of your sudden death.

You can set up a fund for your children so they don’t ever get to suffer because it is only them you care about, I’m irrelevant.

You can write a will that would protect your children in the event of your death.

I don’t want your money. I’m not qualified to have it.  You’ve made it clear this 12 years and I’ll like to keep it that way.

Thank God I’m almost done with my master’s degree. I’ll go look for a job myself.

Husband: My God! You’re so bitter towards me. Am I that bad?

Wife: You robbed me of my youth that I’ll never get back.

You made me pass on opportunities that would have catapulted me to the top. You can’t undo those things so yes you are that bad.

If you got me a job 2 years ago when I complained I would have let go but instead, you mocked me and abandoned me like you had been doing.

This talk is over. I’ve not left this house because of our children. Just avoid me.

Husband: I said I’m sorry.

Wife: Well I am not and your apology is not accepted. sorry, doesn’t cut it.

After ruining my life you are suddenly apologetic (wife walks away)

Husband: That was intense. I never expected such a reaction from her. She turned down the job offer.

I’m trying to make amends and she’s not willing to accept it.

I can’t ask her family for help because I haven’t spoken to them since I married her.

I’ve got my work cut out for me. I’m so scared about dying and my family suffering.

It’s just so scary. I regret all my decisions. I hope I’ll get the opportunity to correct all the mistakes I’ve made.

© Treasure Ezuruike