I’M SHY TO CALL HIM MY HUSBAND

Our story is a real grace to grass story. Within a space of two years, we have lost so much and been stripped of so much. I’m shy of the man I call my husband today. This is not the man I got married to. I wouldn’t have married him if this was how I met him and this is how I feel about him now. I cannot share this with anyone I know that’s why I’ve brought it here. We’ve been married for 10 years. My husband was due for a promotion before the Covid hit and everything just went downhill. The company had to downsize so much that it affected some of the senior staff, including my husband. When he came to inform me about it, it felt like a dream to me. I’m a seamstress. I sew at home and take care of the children at the same time. I wasn’t doing it on a large scale because my husband’s job was sustaining all of us and he preferred that I stay at home and take care of the kids.

 

After he came home, he transformed our two private cars into taxis. He got one driver for one and he was driving one as a taxi driver. My husband would have applied for jobs if he had a degree but he only has an HND and it was through protocol that he got the job. He tried to apply with his HND but he wasn’t getting. Now, all his focus on is providing money for his family. He is stressing himself so much that he doesn’t care about his looks anymore. My husband has grown very lean and he has even grown old. He is 45 but he looks older. When he comes back from work and food is not ready, he will start shouting at me and calling me heartless but I try my best to cook every evening too. He said I don’t help him, but what can I do? I’m not the type who can hawk under the hot sun. I can’t do that.

 

My husband looks so wretched for my liking and I have told him many times. He doesn’t shave anymore unless his face is all hairy. He doesn’t care about cleaning his shoes. When he wakes up in the morning, he takes his bath and goes straight to the taxi. He doesn’t even care about how he dresses anymore. When I tell him, he says he is no more the corporate man I know and now he is a taxi driver and I should accept it. Being a taxi driver is not bad. I know taxi drivers who are very neat. My husband has just become someone else. He used to be a very neat man and it’s difficult for me to see him now and imagine him as the man I fell in love with. The driver for our second taxi was always giving us stories so I suggested that my younger brother should take over the taxi work and bring us sales since he wasn’t doing any better job.

It’s not as if I have taken my brother’s side, but my husband has been too hard on him. At least he is family. If he doesn’t bring sales on some days, my husband will get very angry at him. The last time, he warned my brother that he will look for another driver for the taxi. We have 4 children and he doesn’t even have time for them anymore. He leaves very early and comes when they are asleep and I’m always left with them and it’s not easy for me. I cannot attend gatherings with him like I used to because he will insist that he will have to go and work rather than going with me. Even when he agreed to go, he doesn’t dress well and everyone will know that he has lost his job and it has affected our finances.

 

My husband is always washing our dirty stuff in public. The way he presents himself outside makes me shy of him. Meanwhile many men approach me in my dms and even when I go out wanting to be with me and I am being tempted. How can I get back the man I married? What should I do? Because I feel like I married a different man.