Caught between monster husband and loving friend

MRS. Sola Odulaja was a lonely and unhappy housewife and mother of four kids. She was well educated and had a warm and charming personality before her marriage to Kola Odulaja.



Kola was a loving and caring person and no one doubted he would be a loving husband and a caring father as he indicated this through his behaviour. His parents-in-law were happy to have him as a future son-in-law and congratulated their daughter for keeping her eyes open and choosing well.

Sola equally congratulated herself for choosing well from the multitude of men that besieged her for marriage and looked forward to having a blissful marital life. Even her friends envied her for making what they called the optimal choice. But little did she know that she was in for a life of pain and misery and that the angel she thought she was getting married to was in fact a wolf in sheep‘s clothing.

However after marriage, things literarily and practically changed. Kola became a world heavyweight boxing champion in his own house and his unwilling opponent was his wife. He beat mercilessly at the slightest provocation and would thereafter lock her up in the guest room as an extension of his punishment up to two days at times giving her only water.

At times on the third day, after he must have come back to his senses, he would unlock the door, kneel in front of her, beg profusely for forgiveness, promising never to lay hands on her again and not to tell anyone what happened.

He would then promise to make it up to her and fulfil his promise by giving her loads of money to go to any country of her choice and indulge herself in a shopping spree. And Sola always forgives him, accepts to go on the shopping spree and subsequently keeps her mouth shut over the abuse.

This continued for a while unabated. He never allowed her to work, preferring she stayed at home to take care of the domestic front. But surprisingly after the birth of their fourth child, and a prolonged period of pleading to be allowed to get busy outside of the house, Kola finally granted his wife her request and opened a large supermarket for her in one of the busiest areas of the city. But it is still close to their home.

Sola‘s joy knew no bounds when her request was granted, but it didn‘t mean the beatings would stop as she still got them in doses and more if she got back home a bit late even if it was a few minutes after the stipulated 7 pm time he recommended.

To make it a bit easier, she employed a sales girl, but she threw herself into her work, swearing to make it a success. And a success she did make of it as she within a year of starting the business had expanded and was searching for a property to house a branch of it. She planned that this time, it would be on a much larger scale, making it a departmental store where household goods, toiletries, provisions and even jewellery and clothing would be sold.

But her husband wasn‘t happy with her expansion drive and made it known to her in clear terms. He expected her to be contented just managing the supermarket he set up for her. He didn‘t expect her to be this industrious or to even make a success out of the business.

But after a lot of pleading he eventually succumbed. But he assured her not to expect him to help out with a dime. He didn‘t care how she did it but he didn‘t want to be involved. And so Sola went cap in hand in search of capital to add to what she already had to expand.

Her dad stood as surety for her for a bank loan she eventually got from his bankers. The extension fully set up, she felt the need to give it the much needed publicity to drive the business and in the process of looking out for various options for advertisement, she remembered Dotun Akinmolaran. He was a media consultant whom she met in the bank manager‘s office on the day she finally secured the loan.

Dotun was the bank manager‘s friend and had gone visiting him when Sola came in with her dad to sign the necessary documents for the loan. The bank manager had introduced Dotun and what he does to Sola, knowing that she might likely require his services. She immediately searched out for his call card, called him and set up a meeting between both of them.

They met and with Dotun‘s expertise, both the old and the latest addition of the business assumed a new dimension. The business boomed much to the surprise and consternation of Kola. He couldn‘t comprehend what was happening and when he asked his wife how she did it, she innocently and joyfully told him who did it all.

Rather than share in his wife‘s joy and happiness, Sola got the beating of her life for daring to engage a man to work with her for the public relations aspect of her business. There were a lot of female media consultants too, so why couldn‘t she look for one to work with, why a man?

He concluded she was cheating on him with the media consultant and threatened to close down the two outlets. It took the timely intervention of elders from both families to make Kola shelve the idea of closing the business but he never forgave his wife for taking their problems to ‘outsiders‘ as he called them.

Once a week, Dotun would stop by the shop to see how business was going and to assess how well his work had transformed into their vision for it. On each occasion, he would stay back after making his assessment and generally chat with Sola.

Dotun knew Sola was a troubled and unhappy woman despite her success and prodded her to unburden what was gnawing at her. Everything just tumbled out; she didn‘t leave out any detail to Dotun, who was by now shell shocked at what he was hearing. His anger at her husband was so visible that if he could wish for his death by just getting angry, he wouldn‘t hesitate to do so.

The unburdening sort of drew Dotun and Sola together albeit, unknowingly to both of them. They became drawn to each other by a common problem. Dotun was also married but was equally having it rough at home with his wife.

He wasn‘t violent with her though, they were slowly drifting apart and were both not willing to make things work or try to bring back the spark that was there in the early days of her marriage, back. Sola who was never allowed to keep friends after her marriage as Kola saw it as a taboo so she found more than a friend in Dotun. It didn‘t matter that they were married to different people, the attraction they felt for each other was so strong that it would require an engine driven saw to cut it apart.

They finally acknowledged that they were both in love, but the fear of Kola wouldn‘t allow them to proceed further. Dotun‘s wife had heard about his relationship with a married woman and wished him all the best. She wasn‘t going to fight to have her man back, if it was what he wanted and would make him happy, so be it. She had her own life to live.

Meanwhile, Dotun was mounting pressure on Sola to tell her husband about him and ask that the marriage be severed so she would be able to live a happy life, she had a right to be happy and didn‘t bargain for what she was getting in place of happiness.

But Sola couldn‘t bring herself to tell Kola; she was simply scared of what he was capable of doing. Each time she thought about it, it would send cold shivers down her spine. Unfortunately, Kola found out. He was driving by one of Sola‘s shops when he saw her hugging a man just by the building‘s entrance and then saw him off to his car.

Kola immediately swerved in the direction of the shop and blocked the entrance with his car thus making it difficult for Dotun to drive off. What happened thereafter could only be imagined. Kola got home and packed just a small bag containing a few of Sola‘s stuff and kept them outside the gate of their home and declared her persona non grata in their home.

If you were in Sola, Dotun and Kola‘s shoes, how would you advise them to resolve their issues?