By Nnenna Joseph
“He lives abroad”, Chigo’s mum said in coercion.
“I know mum”, Chigo replied but I am not willing to put myself through years of loneliness, feeling abandoned.
Nigerian-abroad marriages have remained an underrated issue of concern in the society. It is almost customary for Nigerian men living abroad to seek to marry women in Nigeria who they would predict to be more submissive.
In the long run, it was discovered that sometimes these women come over abroad and turn out to be their spouse’s worst fear – ranging from disobedience to cheating to taking custody.
These Nigerian men rolled their sleeves to devise another tactic; which is to marry the women and leave them in Nigeria, place them on an irresistible monthly payment, come home once or twice a year to do the husband duty, and keep this routine for as long as anyone can ever imagine. Usually, there is a promise of working papers for the lady to come over but this gets stalled for so long.
There are different diversions of Nigerian-abroad marriages which include but not limited to
Nigerian man marrying a Nigerian woman abroad
Nigerian woman marrying a Nigerian man abroad
A foreigner in Nigeria marrying a woman in Nigeria
A foreigner abroad marrying a woman in Nigeria
A Foreign woman abroad marrying a Nigerian man in Nigeria
A Foreign woman in Nigeria marrying a Nigerian man in Nigeria
There are numerous untold stories about the Nigeria-abroad marriages. This article focuses on the marriage arrangement between a Nigerian man abroad and his Nigerian wife based in Nigeria where he leaves her here for as long as.
Sometimes, this arrangement is made because the man has a family abroad. Oftentimes these women know that their husband has an entirely different family abroad and his financial survival depends on that union hence he, at large, has no intention of bringing his second wife over, she remains his Nigerian Wife as it is called.
Being the Nigerian wife in the Nigerian-abroad marriage arrangement, in the early 80s, was a thing of pride. In recent times, women have understood the major disadvantages as will be listed below.
Majority Of Marriage Certificates In Nigeria Are Fake – FG
Loneliness
One of the major challenges these women faced was loneliness in their matrimonial home. You are married but you do not wake up to your husband every morning. The loneliness and absence leads to depression, at important family events your husband is always missing. These women learnt to live their whole lives alone. Imagine how beautiful couples who eat together, bath together, attend functions together, stay present in each other’s daily activities, passing through challenges of life and businesses together- but they can only admire but never have that.
Topmost of all is going through pregnancy alone with no care or comfort from your significant other is an emotional torture.
Absence from the children’s lives
The men come home at most twice a year to do their duties, get the women pregnant and leave to come back when the baby is almost walking, leaves again to return when the child is already reciting nursery rhymes. In a year, the children spend less than one month in total with their father.
The love of a father is missing. Studies overwhelmingly reveal that children who live with a single mother score lower on measures of academic achievement than children living in two-parent families (Qureshi & Ahmad, 2014). Sometimes these lead to a number of juvenile delinquencies and vices.
Promiscuity
When these women cannot take the loneliness and sex deprivation they take on other men to fill the vacuum. Sometimes their bedmates fill the emotional vacuums as well.
Disappointments
Some men are not entirely honest with their Nigerian wife, they promise them to bring them over to the abroad but as the year wears on, disappointment sets in. the wife understands her husband has no intention of bringing her over. She gets disappointed, depressed, and wants out of the marriage but both families serve as a glue to hold her back for the sake of the children.
Total disconnection
In the worst-case scenario, the wife abroad finds out about the Nigerian family and threatens him with a divorce if he does not totally disassociate with them financially and otherwise.
Other times the man meets someone else, genuinely falls in love, and abandons his family in Nigeria to start a new one. The woman is left unhappy, devastated, confused, wondering what she did wrong. She is left to raise her kids alone.
Nigerian man says once you take most Nigerian women abroad the marriage is over. But for some Nigerian men, the goal is to get a wife to take abroad, a wife that meets a certain criterion. What criterion is that? For what purpose?
We will be discussing this in our next article ??????
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