Life at home didn't change. Ijeoma still ruled with sarcasm and manipulation. She mocked his therapy sessions. "So you've joined those weak men who cry about their feelings?" she would scoff, as though the very act of healing was an offense to her authority.
The emotional abuse became more apparent once Emeka's eyes were open. He noticed how she insulted his efforts, controlled the finances despite his earnings, and used intimacy as a weapon. The compliments were gone, replaced by criticisms so casual they felt like background noise. She belittled him in front of the children. She questioned his competence. His masculinity.
He tried to talk. She laughed.
He suggested counseling. She refused.
"You're the problem, Emeka. You're the one who's too sensitive."
In front of friends, Ijeoma was radiant—charming, poised. No one would believe she could be cruel. People admired her. Some even envied Emeka for marrying her. He began to feel like a stranger trapped in a beautifully designed cage. The most dangerous kind—the kind people praise.
He began documenting things. Not for revenge, but clarity. The gaslighting was too much. He needed evidence—for himself—that he wasn't imagining things. Voice recordings. Journal entries. Therapy notes. He had to create a map of his own reality just to navigate it.
He noticed the fear in his children's eyes when voices were raised. The way they tiptoed around their mother, the way they clung to him when she left the room. He realized the abuse wasn't his alone to endure—it was soaking into his children's bones, teaching them what love was not.
At night, Ijeoma would climb into bed without a word, her back turned to him like a wall. Intimacy was not just absent—it was weaponized. She rationed affection and used silence like a whip.
One evening, after a particularly tense argument, Emeka stood in front of the bathroom mirror and asked himself, "What am I still doing here?" The man who stared back looked older than his years. His eyes were hollow. His shoulders stooped. Not from age, but from carrying the weight of pretending.
He didn't answer the question.
But something inside him whispered: Soon.