This is Bolanleā€™s Story As Told To SofiyahĀ 

My dad was probably the first person to introduce me to the idea that women have their own agency, and I learned what that looked like by watching how he treated women.

My dad is a retired diplomat, and both of my parents were civil servants. Heā€™s often posted to different countries, so my mum would sometimes take a break from work, and we would all travel with him. This meant there were periods when she didnā€™t have her own source of income and was financially dependent on him. Not once did I ever see him use that dependence against her. He was always respectful towards her, and I also watched him advocate for women to have the same opportunities as men during his career.

Before what happened to me, I had never experienced gender-based violence and didnā€™t really understand it outside of the context of a husband abusing his wife. I knew that violence against women existed, but I had never personally experienced it or seen it happen around me.

I had always been cautious with people I didnā€™t know, though. I think women have to be alert because of the society we live in, even though we shouldnā€™t have to. If someone comes to my house to repair something, for example, I wonā€™t let them close the door. I donā€™t care how many mosquitoes come inside; the door is always going to stay open. Iā€™m constantly aware of my surroundings and conscious of the people I allow into my space.

It was this mindset I had when I hired my former driver. He had only been working for me for about two weeks before the incident, and I was extremely busy because Iā€™d just moved into a new apartment and was opening my salon. There wasnā€™t really much of a relationship between us beyond the normal driver-employer dynamic, although I had already noticed that he had a slightly condescending attitude towards me.

It was the kind of attitude Iā€™d experienced from some Nigerian drivers before, where you get the sense that theyā€™re wondering, ā€œWho is this person? Why does this girl live alone? Where does she get her money from?ā€ I wasnā€™t sure it would work, but I desperately needed a driver at the time, so I decided to give it a try.

Then one day, I discovered that he had been stealing from me.

I had left some money in the car and counted it, only to realise that some of it was missing. When he came the next day, I told him my money wasnā€™t complete and that I couldnā€™t have someone who had stolen from me working for me, so I would have to let him go.

Instead of addressing the missing money or even apologising, he just asked about the money he was owed for the work heā€™d done. I told him I would send it to him that day because I didnā€™t want to escalate the situation. I got into my car and started driving out of the compound with my windows down because Iā€™d just turned on the car.

As I was leaving, he started shouting at me to give him his money before I went. I reminded him that Iā€™d already said I would send it, but he kept shouting, and then he suddenly lunged through the passenger side of my car.

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His body came into the car, and he was on me, so I started freaking out and trying to get him off me. I had already driven halfway through the gate, so I stopped the car and tried to push him away. I canā€™t remember exactly what happened, but I remember getting myself out of the car and eventually getting him off me. In that moment, I was completely terrified. 

What made it even more traumatising was the actions of the security guards. They were right there, but they didnā€™t even make any immediate move to come and help me while I was being attacked. It took them a while to intervene, and when they finally came over, they were telling him to calm down. They were bystanders to the attack, and that stayed with me because I couldnā€™t understand how they could see someone physically attacking me and not immediately come to my aid.

I had only just moved into the apartment, so I didnā€™t know them, but I shouldnā€™t have needed to know them for them to help me. If you see someone attacking another person, you should be concerned. As security guards, their responsibility was to protect the people in that compound, but they didnā€™t do that when I needed them to.

I eventually got back into my car and drove away because I didnā€™t feel safe staying there. I remember immediately sending the driver his money afterwards because I was panicking and just wanted to move on. I had my hands full with the salon and my new apartment, so I just wanted to put it behind me.

A few hours later, someone called my phone and threatened me, saying they knew where I lived and that I had better pay the money I owed him. Thatā€™s when I really started panicking because I realised the situation wasnā€™t over.

The person who called wasnā€™t even the driver. It was someone else, and that made the situation feel even more sinister to me. I had never been so scared in my life. I remember standing outside my salon and crying because of this. 

The moment I informed my dad about the call, he called the police, and they immediately went into action. We reported the case, and within about two days, they tracked the driver down and arrested him. He was charged in court, and the police followed due process. He spent a day or two in a cell before he was granted bail, and once the court granted him bail, there wasnā€™t much I could do about that.

The frustrating part was what happened afterwards because the Nigerian court system is incredibly slow. The first court proceeding took place a few months after the incident, but the case dragged on, and then COVID-19 hit, creating a massive backlog in the court system. There were huge gaps between court dates, and eventually, the case just died. 

I was disappointed that we couldnā€™t go through the full process, but I wasnā€™t interested in revenge. I believe strongly in consequences because I think thatā€™s part of what makes a society function. If there is a law, it needs to be enforced, because when there are no consequences for peopleā€™s actions, people become more willing to do whatever they want.

At the same time, I had to learn how to forgive him for myself. As a Christian, I had to get to a place where I could release him from my heart while still believing that he should face the consequences of his actions. Two things can be true at the same time.

The aftermath affected me more than I realised. I donā€™t think I slept in that apartment for about three weeks after the incident. I was extremely nervous because I knew he knew where I lived and that he was out on bail. For about two years after the incident and throughout my time living in that apartment, I didnā€™t have a driver. It was only after I left that place that I eventually became comfortable enough to employ a driver again.

Looking back, I also understand my dadā€™s fear about me moving out. When I first told him I wanted to leave his house, he actually said no, which surprised me because he wasnā€™t usually like that. At the time, I didnā€™t understand what he was trying to protect me from, but after what happened, I realised he understood some of the vulnerabilities that come with being a single woman living alone in Nigeria in ways I hadnā€™t considered.

When I eventually started hiring drivers again, I became much more intentional about who I allowed to work closely with me. If I sense that a driver is condescending towards me because Iā€™m a woman, I let him go immediately. I understand that someone might not be comfortable working for a woman, but they canā€™t work for me because Iā€™m not going to manage that behaviour anymore.

The interesting thing is that I donā€™t think I fully processed what happened when it happened. I compartmentalised it as, ā€œThis person is just a mad person,ā€ and kept moving because thatā€™s what you do when youā€™re trying to get through life. There are so many things to deal with as an adult in Nigeria that sometimes you donā€™t even have the space to process your trauma.

It was only recently, when I shared the story publicly, that I realised I hadnā€™t fully processed it. I had to ask myself whether I felt safe and what feeling safe actually looked like for me, and I realised that my level of caution had become much higher.

The experience also gave me a deeper level of empathy for women who have experienced violence. Iā€™ve always been an advocate for protecting women and using my platform to speak against violence, but experiencing something like that yourself changes the way you understand it. I was also lucky because it could have been much worse. I could have been killed or ended up in the hospital, and in that moment, I had to fight for myself and fight for my life.

I also find it interesting that I didnā€™t initially identify what happened to me as gender-based violence. I just thought of it as a Nigerian man being a mad person, but when I look at it now, I understand the gendered element more clearly. There are things people feel comfortable doing to women because they donā€™t see women as equal to them, and Iā€™ve experienced situations where a man is being aggressive towards me, and another man has to intervene.

Thatā€™s why I think we have to keep having conversations about equality between men and women, even when people are tired of hearing them. When I shared my story on Twitter, some of the responses were genuinely disheartening: people asked what I had done, claimed there were two sides to the story, and outright gaslit my experience.

It made me realise that there are still people who donā€™t think what happened to me was wrong, and those are the people we need to have these conversations with. The conversation is actually very basic: men and women are equal, women have the same rights as men, women deserve to be treated with respect, and women have the right to their own lives and their own agency.

Weā€™ve not even crossed that basic point yet. You can meet a 19-, 20- or 21-year-old boy who will tell you that men and women are not equal, and I always wonder where he learned that. Youā€™re 20. Youā€™re not 40 or 50. What year are we in?

There is still so much work to do, which is why I donā€™t think we can afford to stop talking about these things. People are learning and unlearning things they thought were normal, and theyā€™re questioning things theyā€™ve said and done, and that matters.

For me, it all comes back to what I learned from my dad and mother. A woman should have her own identity; she should be able to work and earn her own money; and she should be able to make decisions about her own life without that making her less deserving of respect. Iā€™ve always known that because I watched my dad live it, but this experience showed me how important it is toĀ keep insisting that others understand it, too.

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°Õ³ó±šĢżĀ is returning on August 22, 2026, in Lagos! Come learn from finance experts and industry leaders, and partake in unfiltered conversations about building wealth and diversifying your income stream in a country like Nigeria.Ā Real stories, expert advice you can actually use, and a community ready to build wealth together.Ā .

What She Said will give women the mic to speak freely, honestly and openly, without shame, about sex, politics, family, survival, and everything else life throws our way. 

The subject of today’s #WhatSheSaid is Suoyo*, a 55-year-old consultant and entrepreneur. She talks about a childhood that ended without warning, parents who chose silence over justice, a marriage that showed her a different kind of cruelty, and the truth that was living in her parents’ house for years before she understood what she was looking at.

Trigger Warning: This story contains accounts of sexual violence, domestic violence, pregnancy loss and child sexual abuse.

Can you tell me about yourself?

My name is Suoyo*. I am 55 years old. I am a marketing consultant, I run my own business, and I live with my best friend, which sounds like an unusual arrangement for a woman my age, but it is genuinely the most peaceful I have ever been in my life. One more thing, I have a daughter. 

What was your childhood like?

I was an only child, which in a Nigerian family, at least in mine, means you are surrounded by everybody else’s children all the time. Both my parents came from large families, at least four or five siblings each, and there were always cousins, relatives, somebody’s somebody passing through or staying for extended periods. I grew up used to a full house.

My parents were educated people. They valued education above most things, and they made sure I had every advantage they could give me. On the surface, we were a functional, respectable family. That was always the most important thing to them. How ā€˜peopleā€™ saw them. 

What do you mean by that?

Well, when I was 14, I was raped by my uncle, my father’s brother.Ā 

I will not go into the details of what happened. I think the trauma I endured and the years Iā€™ve carried it are enough for one lifetime. What I will say is that the person who did it was someone who was supposed to protect me. Someone who was in my parents’ house, in my life, as a trusted figure. And when my parents found out, they did not go to the police. They did not confront him in any meaningful way. What they did was manage it. They sent me away quietly, far enough that nobody in our community would notice, and I had the baby there. A beautiful girl.

It was one of the most difficult periods of my life. I was living with very distant family that I didnā€™t know and though they did not treat me badly, they were not always kind or understanding. I was a young girl whose world had been ripped out from under her. I was pregnant and barely allowed to leave the house. I was very depressed and almost never laughed. I hated the child I was carrying but I also weirdly started to care for her at some point. All they saw was an irrespossinble teenager who was paying for the decisions she made. My parents never told them the truth.

And after all that, they took the baby from me and told me she had been given up for adoption. I was 15. I did not know how to fight that. I did not know I was allowed to. It was just the next step in my life that my parents had decided for me.Ā 

After about a year, they put me back in school. It was a boarding school, about 2 – 3 hours from where they lived. Life was supposed to continue.

How do you continue after something like that?

You just do, because the alternative is not continuing, and at 16, I did not have the freedom to fall apart. I finished secondary school. I got into university. I made a friend there who became the most important person in my life, a woman who has been in my corner in ways I cannot fully articulate. She paid for things when I had nothing, she showed up, and she was simply always there. I graduated, did my NYSC, and got a job. Eventually, I started my Master’s. I was a functioning adult in society. Whether I was happy is a different question.

I carried what happened at 15 in complete silence for years. I had no romantic relationship that lasted because I never fully trusted any man. Something in me was always slightly removed, always watching, always waiting for the version of the person they were hiding. I did not know at the time that I was doing it. I just knew that nothing ever quite stuck.

Did things ever change?

Yes but not in my favour at first.Ā 

It was about three years after I graduated, two years after NYSC. I went home to visit my parents, and there was a young girl there I did not recognise. This was not unusual. There were always people passing through, cousins, relatives, someone’s child being looked after for a while. She was eventually introduced to me as my cousin, Bellema* and I accepted that without a second thought.

But something about her pulled at me. I found her a little annoying but also charming. By the time I left after that week, I was fond of her.

What happened to her after that?

A few months later, my parents told me she would be living with them permanently. Again, I did not find this strange. They had taken in other children before, helped raise cousins, that kind of thing was normal in our family. Over the next two years, I thought of her often. Whenever I visited, I brought her something. Eventually, I got her a phone. I watched her grow, and I felt something for her that I could not name. I just thought I was attached to her because she was a sweet child. Around this time, my parents introduced me to someone.

Who?

I was 31 now. They made it fairly clear that marriage was the expectation. I was not opposed to meeting him, and in the year or so that we courted, I genuinely liked what I saw. He was kind, patient, and tolerant. He did not try to make me smaller. He never said anything that suggested he thought a woman should stop working or shrink herself after marriage. He was the opposite of everything I had been bracing for. I thought I had been given something good.

We got married. Some months later, he began to show me who he actually was.

What did that look like?

It started with what he called standards. What a married woman should wear. How long she should be out of the house, even for work. The food, which had to be freshly cooked by my hands every single day, whether or not I had had a fourteen-hour day, whether or not we could afford to pay someone else to help, which we could. It was about control. It was always about control.

And then about a year into the marriage, he started hitting me.

What did you do?

I told my parents. My mother told me to endure as a woman. My father said nothing. I stopped telling my parents after that.

My best friend from university was the only person I spoke to honestly. She had been telling me to leave for a long time, and I could not, because of my parents, because of what leaving would have meant in terms of their approval and their disappointment and all the things I was still, at 32, 33, 34, trying not to lose. She came to the house more than once to shout at him and take me away for a few days. She was the one who took me to the hospital.

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Why did she need to take you to the hospital, and how many times did that happen?

Three times. I got pregnant three times during that marriage. I lost all three pregnancies because of what he did to me. Three times, my best friend sat with me in a hospital while I lost a child that I had wanted, because of a man I was trying to stay married to, to please people who had already failed me once.

I stayed with him for five years.

What ended it?

Though the marriage was turbulent, there were rare good days, and I would often have Bellema stay over for months at a time. One night, I came home and found him forcing himself on the young girl. She was about 21 by then, and I was 37. The girl my parents had told me was my cousin. The girl I had been buying gifts for, getting phones for, and watching grow up.

I picked up one of the decorative pieces in the house, and I broke it on his head. Then I took her, and I left. I took her straight to my best friend’s place. Her father was a lawyer. We got him arrested that same night.

What was going on in your head during those hours?

It took me back. That is the only way I can explain it. It took me back to being 15 years old and having something taken from me by someone who was supposed to protect me, and then having my parents decide that the most important thing was not me but the story they would tell everyone else. History was repeating itself in the most grotesque way possible, and I had been living inside it without knowing.

After some weeks, I started the atrociously long divorce process. And then I went to see my parents.

Tell me about that conversation.

It was the first time in my life that I told them how I actually felt. All of it. What they had done when I was 15, what their silence had cost me, what enduring and managing and keeping up appearances had actually looked like from inside my body for all those years. My mother cried. My father looked ashamed and could not meet my eyes, but he still said he had done the best he could for me at the time. I have never in my life wanted to hit anyone harder than I wanted to hit him in that moment.

And then I asked them what they had done with my child. I screamed it when they would not answer. They told me they had kept her close. That eventually, I could not stay away. It took me a moment to understand what they were saying. And when I did, I did not stop sobbing for a very long time.

What did you understand?

The so-called cousin I had helped with was my daughter, the child I had at 15. The product of a rape by my father’s brother. She had been living in my parents’ house, she was introduced to me as a cousin, and I had spent years loving her without knowing who she was, while my parents knew exactly what they were doing and said nothing.

She had now survived her own sexual violence at the hands of the man my parents had approved of and encouraged me to marry.

If youā€™d like to be my next subject on #WhatSheSaid,  

Wow. I cannot imagine what you went through. How did you and your daughter navigate what came next?

It took time. There were years when I did not speak to my parents at all, close to a decade. I took my daughter and left the city. My best friend and I got an apartment together, got a job and eventually, I started consulting remotely, then tackled building my own business. I focused on rebuilding, on creating something stable for the two of us, on learning how to be in a relationship with a person I had loved without knowing I was her mother.

She’s now an international lawyer, though she often says that’s not a thing but it’s an easier way to describe what she does. She has 2 businesses: one here, and the other in one of the countries she’s licensed to practice law in. She often volunteers and donates to important causes. She really is the most remarkable person. What she has survived, what she has built herself into despite all of it, I cannot take credit for that. She did that. I just tried to make sure that from the moment I knew, she had everything I could give her.

Where are things now?

My daughter and I have a relationship. It took time, honesty, and a lot of difficult conversations to get here, but we have it. I run my business. I live with my best friend, who has been the most consistent presence in my life for over thirty years now. I have made my peace with my parents to the extent that I am able to. My father died a few years ago. My mother and I speak.

I am 55. I am not who I was at 15, or 25, or 37. I am someone who survived things that should have broken her completely, and I am still here, and I am still building. That is more than enough.

What do you want women who are reading this to take away?

That silence is never neutral. Every time someone chooses silence to protect a reputation, a family name, a marriage, a narrative, there is a person on the other side of that silence paying the price. I paid for decades. My daughter paid it too.

If you are in something that is hurting you, please tell someone. Not someone who will ask you to endure. Someone who will actually show up. I was lucky enough to have that person. Not everyone is. But please look for her, because she exists.

And if you are a parent, your child’s safety is not something you ever hesitate to secure. It is the only thing that matters. Whatever you think you are protecting by staying quiet, I promise you it is not worth what you are asking them to carry.

If you are going through something similar, whether sexual violence, an abusive relationship, or simply carrying something too heavy alone, help is available. You do not have to carry it alone.

1. Mentally Aware Nigeria Initiative: Call or WhatsApp text 08091116264 or 08111680686 to receive immediate mental health crisis intervention and counseling from the active volunteers at the .

2. Lagos State DSVA Helpline: Call 08000-333-333 (toll-free) or dial the quick shortcode *6820# on your mobile phone to safely report domestic violence, rape, or child abuse and get immediate medical or legal response from the .

3. The Mirabel Centre Support: Call or text +2348155770000 to receive 24/7 completely free medical care, forensic evidence collection, and professional psychosocial counseling after experiencing sexual assault from the .

4. WARIF Toll-Free Crisis Line: Call 080092100009 for 24-hour completely confidential emergency aid, legal advocacy, and rapid response to rape and gender-based violence from the .

5. Project Alert Crisis Line: Call 08180091072 to receive professional counseling, shelter support, and legal advocacy for female survivors of domestic and sexual abuse from .

6. National Emergency Line: Dial 112 from any mobile network in Nigeria to reach nationwide emergency services if you are in immediate physical danger.

The  is returning on August 22, 2026, in Lagos! Come learn from finance experts and industry leaders and join unfiltered conversations about building wealth and diversifying your income stream in a country like Nigeria. Real stories, expert advice you can actually use, and a community ready to build wealth together. .

Dika has made peace with where that path has taken him. “For me, what is important is telling stories and for people to listen to the stories I’m telling. Whatever opportunities provide an audience for these films, whether it’s on YouTube, festivals or whether it’s to take it to the box office, I’m very much open,” he says.

Dikaā€™s brilliance, however, continues to shine, as proven once more in the final drop of Ā鶹ŹÓʵā€™s Life 2: ā€˜A Happy Endingā€™. In the film, Dika brings Tatianaā€™s story to life, drawing on a character and experience that feel deeply grounded in the realities of a real woman. It is another example of the filmmakerā€™s instinct for finding the emotional truth in ordinary, complicated lives.

In this conversation, Dika talks about his journey from making films for YouTube to becoming a familiar name in Nigeriaā€™s film industry, the creative choices behind A Happy Ending, and what it means to keep telling stories without becoming too attached to where they might take him.

Initially, Dika had a casting problem with ā€˜A Happy Endingā€™. He needed someone who understood the filmā€™s intention to play the lead actress.. Tatiana is a young woman who moves to Lagos to work as a masseuse. Her job exposes her to a wealthy politician who enjoys the add-on of happy endings to his massages. The professional relationship between the pair goes beyond the spa and becomes more than Tatiana intended. He had an actor in mind, but after reading the script, she turned it down.

Her reason stuck with him because two other actors shared the same sentiments. They wouldn’t play Tatiana because she wasn’t written as a victim. She didnā€™t have a sick mother back home, no pressing issues that required the support of a politician, and no gun to her head. Tatiana was a young woman who weighed her options and chose the one that kept her dreams alive.

Dika found this experience telling. ā€œIt opened my eyes to the sort of society that we live in,” he says. He admits that he’s surrounded himself with “a lot of progressives” for so long that he had “forgotten how conservative our society is.” The truth is that people need it ā€œto be such a miserable story for them to empathise and understand why a person would get into sex workā€.

His refusal to write Tatiana as a broken woman came from the real woman who inspired her story. Speaking about the woman, he says, “What was clear was that she didn’t think of herself as a victim.” “She knew that she was economically disadvantaged, and she wanted a better life for herself, her siblings, and for their parents. Knowing all this, it became important for me that I captured that in the script.”

He is equally clear about why that mattered to him as a storyteller. “It’s so important to give the characters agency to make choices, even under pressure. This person is a human adult, and they can make decisions.”

Dika eventually found his Tatiana in Ifeoma Obinwa, whose Igbo instantly convinced him. “I’m an Igbo speaker, and I can tell when the Igbo is good,” he says. Her audition sealed it. “When I looked at her, I was like, yeah, this is really Tatiana.”

The person who nudges Tatiana into sex work, Madam Ngozi, could easily have been the film’s villain, but Dika refused to do that. “I didn’t want to write her as a villain,” he says. “I never go in thinking, who’s the bad guy here? I don’t think great stories come from writing people as black or white. Where there’s a bad guy, and there’s a good one.”

Instead, he gives her a backstory that mirrors Tatiana’s. “I imagine that the circumstances might have been a lot harder for her than it was for Tatiana,” he says. “And so, she sees Tatiana as her younger self.”

His favourite scene is the one where Madam Ngozi hands Tatiana a contraceptive and tells her to look after herself. “That was the scene where we could really see her as human, outside of running her spa and being a madam.”

He also speaks on how little self-awareness Madam Ngozi has about her role in Tatiana’s situation. “It is not often that people recognise that what they’re doing is not in order.ā€ He even suggests, almost gently, that Madam Ngozi “could have thought of that as an act of kindness.”

The bond between Tatiana and her best friend Ginika carries much of the film’s warmth. But Dika explains that he wasn’t trying to make a grand statement about women specifically.

“I didn’t go into the story trying to say something about female friendships. I was simply trying to talk about friendship,” he says. “I have male friends, I have female friends, and it’s the same in how we care for each other. We look out for one another.”

Still, he can see how naturally it reads as something closer to sisterhood. Especially watching how easily his two lead actresses built real chemistry. “It feels as though it’s a story about Tatiana, but it’s also very much Ginika’s story, and it’s about their friendship as well,” he says.

Dika didn’t set out to make a film with a message stapled on it. He intended to write characters the way people actually are. Messy and with motives, and let the audience do the work of deciding what they think.

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1. Movie: Mulan (1998)

When China calls one man from every family to fight an invading army, Mulan secretly disguises herself as a man to take her ageing fatherā€™s place. She must survive military training while hiding her identity, ultimately proving that courage, intelligence, and determination matter more than gender. The story explores duty, self-discovery, and the challenge of societal expectations, proving that courage and leadership have nothing to do with gender.

2. Movie: Legally Blonde (2001)

After being underestimated, Elle Woods proves that femininity and intelligence are not opposites. Refusing to shrink herself to be taken seriously is feminist. The concept of calling female lawyers ā€œmen in skirtsā€ or trying to postulate that law and femininity do not go together was heavily debunked in this movie. 

3. Movie: A League of Their Own (1992)

During World War II, when many male baseball players left to fight, an all-women professional baseball league was created to keep the sport alive. The film follows sisters Dottie and Kit, along with their teammates, as they navigate fierce competition, sexism, public scrutiny, and their dreams of being taken seriously as athletes. At its heart, itā€™s a story about women proving they belong in spaces that underestimated them.

4. Movie: Mona Lisa Smile (2003)

Set in the 1950s, Mona Lisa Smile follows Katherine Watson, a progressive art history professor who begins teaching at the prestigious all-women’s Wellesley College. She encourages her brilliant students to think beyond societyā€™s expectations of marriage and domestic life, urging them to pursue careers, independence, and lives of their own choosing. As her ideas challenge the schoolā€™s traditional values, both Katherine and her students are forced to confront what fulfilment, ambition, and freedom truly mean.

5. Movie: Erin Brockovich (2000)

Based on a true story, Erin Brockovich follows a struggling single mother who lands a job at a small law firm and stumbles upon evidence that a powerful utility company has been contaminating a townā€™s water supply. Despite having no formal legal training, Erin relentlessly investigates the case, earning the trust of affected residents and helping build one of the largest environmental lawsuits in U.S. history. The film is a story of persistence, courage, and the power of refusing to be underestimated.

6. Movie: Suffragette (2015)

Suffragette is a 2015 historical drama film centred on the British womenā€™s suffrage movement in the early 20th century. A working-class laundress, Maud Watts, is drawn into Britainā€™s growing womenā€™s suffrage movement after witnessing the injustices women face daily. As she joins protests demanding the right to vote, she risks her job, family, and freedom. The film follows the sacrifices ordinary women made to secure a fundamental right that many now take for granted.

7. Movie: Whale Rider (2002)

Set in a Māori coastal village in New Zealand, Whale Rider follows Pai, a young girl who believes she is destined to become the next leader of her people. But tradition dictates that only boys can inherit the role, and her grandfather refuses to see her as a worthy successor. As Pai quietly proves her strength, compassion, and deep connection to her culture, she challenges generations of gender expectations and redefines what leadership can look like.

8. Animated Movie: The Breadwinner (2017) 

The Breadwinner is about an 11-year-old Afghan girl, Parvana, who is forced to step into a world that has decided women and girls should be invisible. After her father is unjustly imprisoned under the Taliban rule, Parvana disguises herself as a boy so she can leave the house, work, and provide for her family. What makes her story feminist isnā€™t simply that she is brave, but itā€™s that she challenges a system built on restricting womenā€™s freedom, denying them independence, education and a voice. Her fight isnā€™t about becoming someone else or proving she deserves rights. Itā€™s about refusing to accept a world that says she should have none in the first place.

9. Movie: Women Talking (2022) 

Women Talking is about a group of women in a secluded religious colony who come together after discovering the extent of the sexual violence they have experienced. The filmā€™s main message isnā€™t about the women speaking up, but more so about their recognising that silence has allowed the system that harmed them to continue, and using their voices to question the rules that have controlled their lives. Their conversations become an act of resistance, helping them reclaim their autonomy and decide what kind of future they want, instead of accepting the one that has been forced on them.

10. Movie: Ex Machina (2014) 

Ex Machina is centred on Ava, an artificial intelligence created by a man who designs her with the appearance and qualities he believes will appeal to him. Avaā€™s eventual escape isnā€™t what necessarily makes Ex Machina feminist (even though that was really cool). Itā€™s that she recognises the limits placed on her by the person who created her and refuses to remain an object built for someone elseā€™s desires. Her liberation comes from rejecting the role she was assigned and taking control of her own existence. 

11. Movie: I Am Not a Witch (2017) 

I Am Not a Witch explores how patriarchal societies use superstition as a tool to control, isolate and punish women who do not fit into expected roles. The filmā€™s feminist message lies in how it exposes these accusations as a way of maintaining power over women rather than simply reflecting belief. Young Shulaā€™s experience shows how easily women can be labelled, exploited and stripped of their autonomy, from young girls accused of witchcraft to widows and women who challenge traditional expectations.

12. Animated Movie: Persepolis (2007) 

Persepolis explores the impact of Iranā€™s revolution on women, particularly how state-enforced rules were used to control their bodies, clothing and freedom. The filmā€™s feminist message comes from showing how these restrictions shaped womenā€™s everyday lives while highlighting their resilience in a society that tried to silence and limit them. 

13. Animated Movie: Barbie and the Three Musketeers (2009) 

Barbie and the Three Musketeers reimagines who gets to be a hero. In a world where courage, strength and adventure are often associated with men, the film places women at the centre of the story, showing them as capable fighters who challenge the belief that women cannot be the ā€œstrong ones.ā€ Its feminist message comes from allowing its female characters to be brave, skilled and ambitious without needing to step into traditionally male roles to prove their worth.

14. Movie: Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti (2024) 

Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti is a biographical film about a woman whose legacy is often reduced to being ā€œthe first Nigerian woman to drive a car,ā€ but her impact went far beyond that. The film highlights her role in fighting unfair taxes imposed on women in Abeokuta and her lifelong commitment to womenā€™s education and rights. Her story is feminist because it shows a woman challenging systems that limited womenā€™s opportunities and using her voice to demand a fairer society.

15. Movie: Gangubai Kathiawadi (2022) 

Gangubai Kathiawadi is about a woman forced into sex work, who refuses to remain defined by the system that exploits her. Gangubai becomes powerful, and she starts asking why women in the sex trade should have to live without dignity, safety, education, political representation or protection. Her fight isnā€™t to escape the hand she was dealt, though she had every right to, and I would argue she could have, or to become acceptable to society. Itā€™s to make society take women like her seriously. 

16. Movie: Lionheart (2018)

Adaeze steps into her fatherā€™s struggling transport business and quickly discovers that competence doesnā€™t automatically earn people’s belief in a womanā€™s ability to lead. Lionheart interrogates the assumptions underlying that doubt. It asks who gets to inherit, who gets to make decisions, and why a woman’s ambition can be treated as a threat. 

17. K-Drama: Extraordinary Attorney Woo

Woo Young-woo is a brilliant autistic lawyer, but being brilliant doesnā€™t stop the world from constantly questioning whether she belongs in the room. The show is interesting because it asks who gets to define what a ā€œprofessional womanā€ should look and behave like. Young-woo doesnā€™t become ā€˜worthā€™ by learning to hide the parts of herself that make other people uncomfortable. Instead, the people around her have to confront their own narrow ideas about competence, communication and normalcy.

Youā€™ll Love: 10 Women on Putting Their Careers Before Family

18. Movie: Citation

In Citation, a student reports sexual misconduct by a powerful professor and discovers that speaking up is only the beginning of the fight. The film is interested in what happens when institutions are structured to make women responsible for proving their own victimhood. It asks why powerful men can rely on their reputation while women are expected to have perfect evidence, perfect behaviour and perfect credibility before anyone believes them.

19. Movie: Little Women (2019)

Little Women refuses to give us one correct way to be a woman. Jo wants artistic freedom. Meg wants love and family. Amy wants financial security and recognition. Beth wants something quieter. The film is inherently feminist, not because all four sisters are ambitious, but because it seriously acknowledges that women can want radically different lives without one of those choices being automatically more respectable. It also asks why women are so often told that ambition, money or independence make them less feminine.

20. Movie: Harriet (2019) 

Based on a true-life story, Harriet is about a brave woman escaping slavery. It is about what happens when a woman denied freedom decides that surviving isnā€™t enough. Harriet Tubman repeatedly returns to help other enslaved people escape, turning her own liberation into collective action. The film challenges the idea that women, particularly Black women living under extreme oppression, are only victims of history.

21. Movie: Hidden Figures (2016)

Hidden Figures is about three Black women whose mathematical brilliance helped NASA accomplish extraordinary things, even as the institution around them was built to make their presence difficult. It is about the difference between being capable and being given access to the rooms where capability matters. Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan and Mary Jackson werenā€™t waiting to discover their potential. They already had it. The system just had to stop getting in the way.

22. Series: League of Their Own (2022)

Set during World War II, A League of Their Own starts with women being given a chance to play professional baseball while the men are away. But the series quickly asks: which women? White women are allowed onto the field while Black women are still shut out, forcing Max Chapman to fight racism and sexism just to pursue the career everyone else is being encouraged to have.

Alongside that is the story of queer women trying to find love and community, even as being open about who they are can put their lives and livelihoods at risk. So the series centres on women breaking into a man’s world and how even opportunities supposedly created for ā€œwomenā€ can still exclude Black and queer women.

23. Series: Charmed (1998ā€“2006)

The original Charmed makes three sisters the centre of a supernatural story in which their power literally comes from standing together. Prue, Piper, Phoebe, and later Paige are allowed to be ambitious, messy, sexual, career-focused, romantic, maternal and selfish at different points without the story deciding that one version of womanhood is the correct one. Their sisterhood is also crucial: their power isn’t something one woman earns by being the best. It works because they rely on one another.

24. Series: Charmed (2018ā€“2022)

The reboot takes the original’s witches and their strong sisterhood and deliberately sets them in a more contemporary, intersectional world. The sisters are Latina and Afro-Latina, one is queer, and just like their mother, a women’s studies professor. 

The show brings misogyny, racism, sexuality, consent and reproductive politics into its conflicts, asking what it means for women to have power in a world that is constantly trying to define how they should use it. It can be ā€˜unsubtleā€™, but that’s part of its appeal.

25. Series: The Wheel of Time (2021ā€“2025)

The Wheel of Time gives women significant political and magical power. It shows that women can also be controlling, ambitious, prejudiced, protective and flawed. They compete with one another, build alliances and fight over who gets to decide what happens next. The show takes women’s relationship to power seriously enough to let them be layered and complicated.

26. Movie: The Princess Diaries (2001 & 2004)

Mia doesn’t become a different person when she finds out she’s a princess. She’s already an awkward, opinionated teenager with a very clear sense of who she is. The makeover is where the film begins to ask a more interesting question: what does the world think a girl has to change about herself before it will take her seriously? Mia is taught how to dress, speak and behave like a princess, while slowly figuring out which parts of that performance actually belong to her and which parts are simply expectations placed on women.

Then The Princess Diaries 2 takes that question from femininity to power. Mia discovers that, despite being the heir to Genovia, she can’t become queen unless she gets married. Suddenly, it’s not just about how a woman is expected to look or behave. Her right to rule is literally tied to whether she has a husband. And instead of accepting the rule and finding a man to satisfy it, Mia challenges the rule itself. It’s a very fairytale way of asking a very real question: why does a woman’s legitimacy have to come through a man?

27. Movie: The Handmaiden (2016)

The Handmaiden unfolds inside a world where men control women’s money, bodies, education and sexuality. At first, it’s two women being manipulated by men who believe they understand exactly what women want. Then the women start manipulating them back. The film explores womenā€™s desire as something that doesn’t exist for male consumption or approval. Sometimes liberation looks less like being rescued and more like refusing to keep playing by the rules written for you.

28. Short Film: Siraam (2026)

Siraam follows a young woman navigating sex, relationships and the expectations placed on women. What makes her story feminist is not simply that she embraces her sexuality, but that she makes choices about her body without being reduced to those choices.

29. Series: Dickinson (2019ā€“2021)

Dickinson reimagines Emily Dickinson as a woman resisting the limits placed on her creativity, relationships and identity. Emily is ambitious, and the show takes seriously how absurd it is to ask a woman with enormous creative ambition to be satisfied with the tiny life available to her. She wants art, love, the right to explore her sexuality, recognition and freedom without having to apologise for wanting more than one thing. The question underneath the whole series is deliciously simple: what if the ā€œdifficult womanā€ was never difficult? What if she just wanted more?

30. Short Film: Before We Fall Asleep

Before We Fall Asleep follows a couple whose relationship begins to unravel as long-held expectations and power dynamics come to the surface. Its feminist lens comes through in the way it questions the roles women are expected to play in relationships and what happens when they begin to push against them.

°Õ³ó±šĢżĀ is returning on August 22, 2026, in Lagos! Come learn from finance experts and industry leaders, and partake in unfiltered conversations about building wealth and diversifying your income stream in a country like Nigeria.Ā Real stories, expert advice you can actually use, and a community ready to build wealth together.Ā .

In this interview, Onyinye talks about the intricacies of what drew her to the role. The intimacy of romantic partnership, and the conversation that started it all. 

This film deals with the difficult side of love, the parts we donā€™t usually see. What made you want to be part of it?

I naturally lean towards stories that explore nuance. Not stories that are black or white, but stories that sit in the complexity of relationships. Whether romantic, platonic, or family. When I read the script, I remember myself, Blessing, Tobi, and director Kaelo all leaving  with different views. And thatā€™s the thing. Itā€™s a story that drives conversation. Itā€™s not necessarily about right or wrong. Itā€™s open-ended, and it leaves room for the audience to talk.

The film takes a different approach to reproductive responsibility. Usually, the cost falls entirely on the woman. Why does that shift matter?

I think art has a responsibility to shape culture. If thereā€™s something weā€™d like to see change in society, we as artists have a responsibility to reflect that in our stories. The approach in which reproductive responsibility is portrayed hasnā€™t been the healthiest.  A child is brought into the world by two people and both of them should be responsible for the child.  From the point of conception until the child leaves this world. So this film asks, how do we move that needle forward? How do we portray something better than what weā€™ve had?

The story also deals with the pressure of traditional gender roles on couples. What was important to you in portraying that authentically?

What mattered to me most is what the story says at the end. Are we sticking to what wasnā€™t working, or are we moving forward? The film presents two sides. You see what happens when you hold on to traditional roles, the good and the bad of it. And you see what it looks like when a couple chooses partnership instead. So itā€™s like presenting two choices, and then letting the audience ask themselves which one they want.

Itā€™s not black or white. Neither is it ā€œsheā€™s wrongā€ or ā€œheā€™s wrong.ā€ Itā€™s just, this is what happens in homes. This is real. So my job was to show that authenticity so that people can have real conversations about it.

What does partnership actually look like in this film?

Itā€™s consideration and difficult conversations. Grace and forgiveness. Itā€™s putting the other person above yourself. And when a child enters the picture, itā€™s less about both of you and more about the child.

Nazo and Tola are a new couple navigating something neither of them has been through before. They have outside pressure, their families, and ideas of who a husband or mother or career woman is supposed to be. And we see them fail. We see how damaging that failure is. But we also see them win, and we see what partnership produces. The film is basically making the case that when you partner, things just get better.

What was your experience like playing a romantic lead opposite Tobi Bakre for the first time?

It’s not exactly my first time working with Tobi, actually. We worked together on Slum King. So this is the second time, but the first time in a romantic role specifically.

Tobi is a great guy. He was up and ready for rehearsals, very committed. He has a spirit of excellence, like he genuinely wants to do things well. And heā€™s a friend, so there was a lot of laughter. Even filming late into the night, we were keeping each other going. In between takes, we were having arguments. Not real ones, just like, ā€œTobi, they are going to come for your character on Twitter. The way you played that scene, youā€™ve turned yourself into the villain.ā€ Weā€™re looking forward to seeing whose side people end up on.

How did you prepare to play the character of Nazo, from the table read to production?

It always starts with asking a lot of whys. But the peculiar thing with this one is that itā€™s based on a real-life situation. I read the original article it was inspired by. The script itself was also very elaborate and clear.

And then thereā€™s Kaelo, our director, who did something Iā€™d never experienced before. He pulled me and Tobi separately into what I can only describe as a therapy session. He was asking about our childhoods, our relationships with our mothers and fathers, all of it leading us toward our characters. Tobi came out of his session saying he felt like a load had been lifted off him. And honestly, thatā€™s what it was.

After that, it was a done deal. I understand Nazo because I understood why. And thatā€™s really the whole process. Why does she say this line? Why does she think this way? You keep asking why until you get to the root. And when you find it, you can slip into that characterā€™s shoes completely.

What makes going that deep worth it?

Honestly? Itā€™s my job. I donā€™t take it as a special compliment because depth is what the work requires. Iā€™ve played lighter characters too. The emotional weight is different, but the depth of preparation is always there. For Nazo specifically, it was worth it because thatā€™s what she deserved. I wanted to stay true to her and remain authentic to who she is. Thatā€™s what justifies the work.

What was it like working with Blessing Uzzi and BluHouse Studios?

Blessing is someone Iā€™d say yes to any time, any day. Thereā€™s something Uzoamaka said at the premiere of Call of My Life that I think captures it perfectly. Blessing is a believer in people. She doesnā€™t need you to have the numbers or a million followers or to look a certain way. She believes in you, and she takes a chance.

There was a moment during production that really stayed with me. We had delays on set, and we were about to film the high-conflict scene of the film. I was telling someone how exhausted I was. How worried I was about going into that scene on empty energy. And without me even asking, Blessing said we were pushing the scene to the next day. Because her actors were tired. There was no point doing something if they werenā€™t going to do it at their best.

Not every producer would do that. I donā€™t know if I told her how much that meant to me then, but it really touched me. Thatā€™s what BluHouse is. Quality, care for the work, and care for the people.

How do you think the film will land with audiences? 

I have no idea, honestly. I think itā€™ll be controversial. The conversations will be polarizing. Some people will be firmly on one side, some on the other, some completely in the middle. And Iā€™m looking forward to all of it.

What do you hope they take away?

What I hope people take away, especially couples who are new parents or going through financial pressure together, is that itā€™s not you against them. Itā€™s both of us against the world. Because for a partnership to work, it takes love. Real love. Patient, selfless, forgiving love. And if thereā€™s a couple already losing each other through something like this, I hope this film gives them a reason to find their way back. Whatever cracks have formed can be fixed. But it takes two.

Before We Fall Asleep is a BluHouse Productions film, part of the Ā鶹ŹÓʵ Life Series Production and directed by Kaelo. Starring Onyinye Odokoro and Tobi Bakre.

Read Next: Kaelo Iyizoba Explains Why Before We Fall Asleep Refuses to Pick Sides 

What She Said will give women the mic to speak freely, honestly and openly, without shame, about sex, politics, family, survival, and everything else life throws our way. 

The subject of today’s #WhatSheSaid is Stella*, a 37-year-old woman from Rivers State. She talks about a childhood that taught her to survive before she even knew she needed to, a whirlwind online courtship that led to a wedding within six months, and the slow, devastating unravelling of a man she thought she knew.

Tell me about yourself. Where did you grow up, and what was your childhood like?

I’m Stella, I’m 37, I’m from Rivers State, and I have always lived in Port Harcourt. School took me away for a while, but I always came back.

My childhood was good until my parents separated when I was 15, and then life became something else entirely. Before that, though, we were comfortable. My dad is not a rich man, but he made sure I never lacked. He would buy me something every day after work, no matter how small, just something to show he was thinking of me. Our house was always full of people because there was always food. People were always coming to eat. That was my childhood before everything changed.

What happened when your parents separated?

Here is the thing: when they separated, I was actually happy at first. I always knew my mum never loved my dad. She married him so her siblings could have something to eat, and she passed a lot of that anger onto us. So when she finally left, part of me felt relief.

But that relief did not last long. My lastborn sibling was only six months old when she walked out. She did not come back for us. She just started travelling to other states, living her life, and she has never cared since. The only time she shows up is when there is something to get from me.

Then, about a year after she left, my dad remarried. His new wife wasted no time. She made him take me out of the house and sent me to live with his brother. That was when real suffering started. My uncle and his wife took me on as their house help. The maltreatment became too much, so at 17, I ran away from that house and moved in with my maternal grandmother.

At 19, I started selling okrika clothes, which people now call thrift. By 22, I had saved enough to get my own single-room apartment, where I shared a toilet and bathroom with other tenants. I lived on my own from 22 until I got married.

What kind of person did all of that make you?

I have always been a happy girl, somehow. I love to play, I love to laugh, I love being around happy people. I know that sounds strange given everything I have been through, but it is the truth. Life has been a great teacher, and even though I have been hurt by people I trusted, I never gave up. God has been faithful, even when things were hard.

I have always been the romantic type. I love love. And if you know what I have been through, you know what that means. I had four partners before my husband. My first relationship lasted eight years and seven months, and that man made me feel less of myself every single day. By the time I met my husband, I was completely done with long courtships that led nowhere. I said to myself, forget it. Let me try something different.

What did your life look like just before you met him?

I was 36, living in PH, working. Not yet where I wanted to be, but moving. I work in the children’s department at my church, and I have always loved children. I celebrate my birthdays with them. My friends and family all know it. The whole essence of getting married for me was always to have a family, to have children of my own, to see my own offspring. That was always the dream.

How did you meet your husband?

He messaged me on TikTok, and that is where we shared contacts. The very first message he ever sent me, he called me his wife. Just like that.

What was that early period like?

It was beautiful, honestly. He told me he loves the things of God, and I do too, so that mattered deeply to me. We prayed together every morning and every night, even while he was still away at work, and he was the one who initiated it. He sent me messages without fail every single morning and night. I asked him once how long he planned to keep doing that, and he said forever. He still does it today. He has never missed a single day.

He told me he does not drink alcohol because of a health condition. He made me believe that whenever there was conflict, he preferred to talk things through and never go to bed without resolving it. That made me feel safe. That made me think, this is a man I can trust.

Walk me through what happened after his first text and how it led to a wedding.

We were talking online for three months while he was still away at work. Before he came back, I told him I thought we needed to slow down. I said I wanted us to spend maybe a month or two in the same space first, going on actual dates, properly getting to know each other. He got angry. He asked me if he had ever been bad to me, and I said no. He said he loved me, he knew what he wanted, and I should trust him. He said he believed we could make it work.

Considering his age, he is 42, and the fact that I was also ready to settle down, I accepted. I believed we could make it work.

We met in person for the very first time the day he got off work. The next day, we went on a date, and that was when he proposed. He said, “Please be my wife; it would make me the happiest and luckiest man.” At first, I was scared, and I told him that. He promised to make me the happiest woman.

I said I know marriage is a good thing and I am happy, but a part of me is scared because I know how emotional I am. My fears were greater than my joy in that moment. But I said to myself, I have heard stories of people who meet online, fall in love, get married, and it works. Mine would not be any different, especially because of the God factor. So I believed.

. I met his family a week after the engagement. When he introduced me to them, everyone loved me. His friends, too. Nobody said anything discouraging. He kept saying, ā€œWhy can’t you see that this is meant to be?ā€ About a month after the engagement, we got married.

Tell me about the wedding. How did that day feel?

It felt special. I was happy seeing people come out to celebrate with us.

But my mother made me sad. She acted like a complete stranger. I had given her money to buy clothes since she rejected the outfit I had already bought for her. She did not buy anything. She showed up in a wrapper she had bought in 2000, when she was still married to my dad. I ended up giving the outfit I had bought for her to my dad’s younger sister, one of the people who actually took care of me when I was little.

My dad and my elder siblings, though, were the happiest. That made me so happy and teary. That part I will always hold.

When did you first sense something was wrong?

The morning after our wedding. I was on the same bed with my husband, practically naked, and he was masturbating while watching pornography. I was right there. He preferred to do that rather than be with me.

I felt disgusted. Would you be happy seeing your partner do that when you are right there?

What She Said: The Day My Husband Asked for a Divorce Was the Best Day of My Marriage

Did you say something to him about it?

I did. But things just kept unravelling after that.

He drinks heavily, and whenever he drinks, he says whatever he wants without caring how it affects me or our marriage. He makes me feel like he’s disgusted by me. We always quarrel when he is drunk. This is the same man who told me before we married that he does not drink at all.

And there was something else happening underneath all of it. My husband barely even kisses me. When we first met, he told me he loves all of that, the romance, the kissing, all of it. But this is the first relationship I have ever been in where the man does not kiss me or want romance at all. He just wants to go straight to the point. I have never gotten an erection from him just from being close to him, even when we cuddle. My exes were never like that with me.

I spoke to him about it a few times, and he kept telling me I love sex too much. That is not true. I actually have a very low libido. In my previous relationships, my exes constantly complained about it. But with my husband, something shifted in me. I had never gotten wet during sex before, but with him, I would get wet just from cuddling. So I knew it was not about me.

And yet he was the same person who, when he was drunk one night, told me he did not find me attractive and that he regrets marrying me and wants his bride price back. Rather than getting mad, I almost found peace. Because he had finally said out loud what I had been sensing all along. It also explained why he was seeing other women..

What do you mean?

I hacked into his phone. The reason I did it is that from very early on, he was always on his phone. The moment he woke up, he went straight to his phone. When I asked him to come and pray with me, he told me to pray and leave him alone. This was the same man who used to initiate our prayers when he was still away at work.

I found messages with numerous women, along with pictures. Even in the days leading up to our wedding, he had been sleeping with different women. While I was the one begging him for intimacy.

I was filled with so much anger and disgust. Especially when I saw the pictures of the women. It made me sick. Dey no even fine reach me. All I could think of was evil.

What did you do with that?

I told my family and his as well. I told him to leave the house, which he did. I sent his clothes home to his family and told them to instruct him not to come back, because at that point, I could not trust what I was capable of feeling.

But I want to be honest about that period, because it was the darkest period of my life. I have two older sisters who were not yet married when I first got married. In my community, people had already been saying things about my family, calling us cursed, using it to humiliate my dad at gatherings. When I started to see that my marriage might be falling apart, the weight of what people would say became unbearable. I almost did not survive that period. I was so afraid of the shame that I nearly cut my wrists with a knife. I thank God for his mercy and grace for still being here.

If you are reading this and you are in that place, please do not do what I almost did. No marriage, no shame, no public opinion is worth your life. Please reach out to someone. In Nigeria, you can call the Mentally Aware Nigeria Initiative on 08091126655.

What made you come back from that edge?

God. Just God. And eventually, the anger helped, too, because it was louder than the shame.

When his family saw that I was serious about leaving, and when he saw that I meant every word, he got scared. He kept calling and begging. His family and some elders held a meeting. They called me on WhatsApp, and I spoke for a long time.

Weeks passed, and after much begging from everyone, I told them that the moment this man married me, God made him the head of our home. But since he has refused to act like the man that he is, this marriage will continue on my terms and conditions. If he agrees, fine. If he does not agree, it is way better for me, because this is not how I envisioned my marriage.

The next day, they called back and said he had agreed to do whatever I wanted.

If youā€™d like to be my next subject on #WhatSheSaid,  

What were your terms?

I wrote them down and sent them over. We signed the agreement with a third party, their king, as a witness. Everyone in that room scolded him. Not one person supported what he had done.

I told them clearly: any day he deviates from any of my terms, the marriage is as good as over.

How has he been since?

He stopped drinking. He joined a department in the church. We pray together as a couple again. He has taken the things of God very seriously since then.

When he came back home after we were separated, he had lost so much weight. He looked so pale and sick that it made me cry. I gave us a second chance, knowing that we never actually dated before the marriage. Some of these things were probably always going to surface eventually.

I still have trust issues. He changed the password on his phone after I gave it to him once. I have decided not to let that consume me. I also have my own plans, and those are between God and me.

I know he is probably still cheating, even though I have not caught him again. I know that if I went through his phone, I would find things. But I have decided not to go looking. I told him that he alone will expose himself to me, and that will be the total end.

No one will cut my life short simply because he has refused to keep his penis in his pants. It is very easy for people to say “leave” until it is their turn and they find out they cannot. I know there is no perfect person out there. I pray for my marriage to work out fine.

How do you carry all of this day-to-day?

I channel my energy into building myself. For myself, for my unborn children, for my family. I do not let it consume me anymore.

I come from a polygamous home, and I have hated that reality my whole life. I promised myself and God when I was young that I would have all my children with one man. That has not changed. I want to have my own children. I want to see how beautiful and handsome they will be. I want to see my own offspring grow.

One thing I will never do is cheat. In all my relationships, I have never cheated, not once. I have always believed this: if you are not happy, please leave rather than hurting someone. I believe that even now, even while I am the one still trying to hold things together.

If you could go back to the version of you who said yes to him, what would you tell her?

I would tell her to stand her ground about taking things slow and getting to know each other properly before marriage. Marriage is a long ride.

I would tell her to ask more questions. About him. About his family. Before you sign up for the whole thing.

The  is returning on August 22, 2026, in Lagos! Come learn from finance experts and industry leaders and join unfiltered conversations about building wealth and diversifying your income stream in a country like Nigeria. Real stories, expert advice you can actually use, and a community ready to build wealth together. .

In this article, we spoke to 10 women who have chosen their careers over everything else, and they shared what that decision has meant for their marriages, children, families and themselves.

1. ā€œIā€™m Just Glad My Kids Have a Father Who is There for Themā€ ā€” Bimbo*, 40

When it comes to work, Iā€™m a huge perfectionist. Itā€™s one area of my life I don’t joke around with, and before I got married, I was honest with my husband that work would always take priority over everything else, and he understood. So, when we got married and even started having our kids, we barely fought because he knew what to expect. 

His job doesnā€™t demand much from him, unlike mine, so he easily took over the bulk of the parenting. If I knew I would work late nights, he would take care of them, and when I get back, he would take care of me because he knows how bad my migraines get after a long night.

Whenever I travel for a work event for weeks at a time, he makes sure the children donā€™t feel my absence in any of his actions, and I guess thatā€™s why heā€™s their favourite parent. It would make sense to be jealous of the fact that my children donā€™t feel close because of how much work takes me away from them, but honestly, Iā€™m just really glad that they have a father who is completely there for them in every way. 

2. ā€œI Didnā€™t Want to Be Like the Women of My Familyā€ ā€” Oyin*, 39

When I turned twenty, I realised that I didnā€™t want to be like the women of my family who broke their backs serving men who didnā€™t serve them back, so I decided not to get married and focused on advancing my career instead. It has been nineteen years since I made that decision, and Iā€™ve been having a good time. 

As much as the job market can get toxic sometimes, I love working so much. I love managing people, I love making my own money, and, most importantly, I love how it has given me the chance to meet many people. My family does not approve of my single lifestyle, of course, but the beautiful thing about the first child who makes bastard money is that everyone is always afraid to go against you out of fear of you financially cutting them off. 

There are days when I do ask myself if Iā€™m really sure I donā€™t want to get married and have kids of my own, but then I watch my friends complain about their husbands’ weaponising incompetence, and assure myself that I made a good choice. 

3. ā€œMy Husband Tried Baiting Me Into Resigningā€ ā€” Fathia*, 40

Iā€™m an executive at a company that demands a lot of my time and energy. Because of that, Iā€™ve had to put work before my husband and two children, which has caused a lot of problems between us. There was a time when I was the less busy parent, and my husbandā€™s job was constantly demanding, but I never complained that the majority of the housework fell on me because I understood. So, imagine my surprise years later when he got a less demanding job, I got promoted at work, and he started having issues with the same things I had overlooked for him out of ā€˜u²Ō»å±š°ł²õ³Ł²¹²Ō»å¾±²Ō²µā€™.&²Ō²ś²õ±č;

There have been times I would leave work at 9 p.m. and still face the island-to-mainland weekday traffic, and when I got back home, I would find the children still waiting for me to cook because their father, who gets back home by 6 in the evening, refuses to cook. Aside from that, he would not help with their assignments or even help wash the flasks of food they took to school that day. When I confronted him about all this, he told me I should learn how to juggle my work and personal life better, but letā€™s not forget that when he had a demanding job, I was making sure our children didnā€™t feel neglected in any way. 

I knew he was just baiting me into possibly resigning, and I refuse to do that because I love my job. Itā€™s my biggest priority. The week after confronting him, I hired a housemaid to help care for the kids, and although my husband hates it, I donā€™t really care about him. 

4. ā€œIn Prioritising My Career, I Emotionally Neglected My Childrenā€ ā€” Biola*, 60

I hate being idle, and this inability to sit still without doing anything pushed me to become a dedicated career woman all my life. For decades, I worked tirelessly and prioritised my job over everything, including my husband and children. In most movies you see on television, itā€™s usually the husband who is barely ever home because of work, but in my childrenā€™s lives, it was I who was barely ever home. I only saw them early in the morning and at weekends, and I didnā€™t realise how much of a strain this put on our relationship until they all grew up and no longer wanted to be associated with me. 

It is only because of my husband that my children still keep in touch with me. They would have been completely okay with not associating with me at all if not for him, and to be frank, I donā€™t blame them. In prioritising my career, I emotionally and physically neglected them at precarious times in their lives, and thatā€™s enough not to want to talk to me at all. It hurts, though. 

5. ā€œMy Mum Believes a Generational Curse is Preventing Me From Finding a Husbandā€ ā€” Keji*, 35

When I decided I would rather marry my work than have a husband, I knew my family wouldnā€™t accept it, so I had to devise a plan that wouldnā€™t cause complications. For years, while I focused on climbing the corporate ladder, I would have the occasional boyfriend, introduce him to my parents as someone I wanted to marry, and, after a few months, break up with him. 

This was a cycle I kept repeating because I knew it would make my mother think there was some family curse that was preventing me from finding a stable boyfriend that could eventually turn into a husband. Iā€™ve been doing this for years now, and while everyone keeps praying over my head for me to find a good husband, Iā€™m focusing on my work. There might come a time when my mum realises Iā€™m doing it on purpose, but for now, she is just convinced itā€™s a generational curse preventing me from finding a good husband. 

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6. ā€œMy Husband Understands That Work is My First Loveā€ ā€” Doyin*, 29

I donā€™t regret putting work above everything in my life, and maybe itā€™s because God blessed me with a mother who also did the same and showed me that you could still have a good marriage while putting yourself first. My husband and I have been married for five years now, and he understands that work is my first love and will remain like that forever, even when we have our children. 

We have had a lengthy conversation, and Iā€™ve let him know that just because work comes first doesn’t mean our marriage wonā€™t work. As long as we both respect and understand each other, there wonā€™t be any reason to fight over my work schedules. I think having a husband who respects the work his wife does is what a lot of career women need, because if you are married to someone who has no respect for the job you do, heā€™s only going to keep dragging you down. 

7. ā€œI Have to Deal With Family Because My Husband Canā€™t Stop Complainingā€ ā€” Maria*, 36

Putting work above your marriage and your kids would get you on a lot of bad sides, and Iā€™m a living testament of that. Apart from the occasional fights with my husband, who gets mad that he has to watch the children whenever work keeps me occupied for hours, I also have to deal with family members on both sides because my husband canā€™t stop complaining about my love for work. 

Itā€™s already stressful trying your best to be a present mother for your children, and then Iā€™m being dragged to one family meeting after another because my putting my work first is stressing a grown man out. The thing my husband knows but refuses to make peace with is the fact that I am not going to stop working. Work is the only thing that frankly keeps me sane in this world, and I love the fact that I can take care of myself and my children without needing to ask anyoneā€™s son for that.Ā 

8. ā€œIā€™m Okay With Being a Single Workaholicā€ ā€” Tola*, 30Ā 

As a woman who put career over any possibilities of marriage, a lot of my friends expect me to regret it, and while I do, sometimes, I actually love being single right now. I am self-aware enough to realise that most romantic possibilities would not be okay with me being a workaholic who does not understand the concept of taking breaks. 

Work has affected my relationships with my family and friends, so I know itā€™s probably going to be worse if I do start dating someone. It has also come to my attention that men donā€™t really like career-obsessed women, and honestly, I would rather die than take steps down my career ladder just to appease someoneā€™s ego. If I find someone who understands my workload in the future, maybe Iā€™ll be open to giving them a chance, but for now? Iā€™m very okay with being a single workaholic. 

9. ā€œWe Built a Bond With Our Daughters Without Work Being Affectedā€ ā€” Ella*, 40

One reason putting my career first has not affected my marriage or my relationship with my kids is that my husband is like me. We both love our jobs too much, and thatā€™s one of the reasons why we fell in love with each other. Before we had our twin girls, we made an extensive plan on how to be there for them despite our jobs, and it has been working out well for us. 

On weekdays, we mostly have the housemaid take care of them, but we make an effort to be back by evening so we can learn how their day went and hear about any complaints they have. On weekends, we switch off our phones and spend the entire time with our girls, and by doing so, we have built beautiful relationships with them without work being affected in any way.Ā 

10.Ā ā€œIā€™m Too Career-Obsessed to Make Space for Childrenā€ ā€” Lillian*, 28

Iā€™m a big career woman who has decided that I would not give birth to any children unless my possible future husband and I decide to give adoption a chance. I decided this because Iā€™ve seen how many career women tend to scale back their dreams a bit every time they have children. Whether they like it or not, they have to make space for those children, and honestly, Iā€™m too career-obsessed to do that. 

That is why Iā€™m having a lot of problems on the romantic front. A lot of men Iā€™ve had romantic connections with in the past were ā€œtraditionalā€, and whenever I talked about my career, they always reminded me that I would need to make work a lesser priority when I get reminded to them. Frankly, that is something I do not see myself doing, and I always let them know, but their responses have never been positive. For that reason, I will be staying single from now on and just focusing on my career.Ā 

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This informs his role as director of Before We Fall Asleep.  The film follows Tola, a young father who loses his job and struggles to adapt to life as the primary caregiver while his partner becomes the family’s breadwinner. According to Kaelo, ā€˜This is a story about a couple who have expectations about what society expects their relationship to beā€™. ā€™But they are also learning that what society expects wonā€™t always work for them,ā€™ he adds.

How it started

Initially, Kaelo picked up the script because of Blessing Uzzi, the writer of Before We Fall Asleep and showrunner for the Ā鶹ŹÓʵ Life Series productions. ā€˜I’ve been a fan of Blessing’s work for a while. I love the way she thinks. When I read this script,  I knew I had to make it with her,ā€™ he says. But what cemented his interest was the filmā€™s premise. Kaelo describes Before We Fall Asleep as ā€˜One of those films that would start a conversation. The kind that will split people down the middleā€™

From his first narrative film, , in which a teenage boy meets a girl on the bus who turns out to be a suicide bomber, to his more recent works. Itā€™s easy to tell that he likes to confront difficult conversations. Before We Fall Asleep is no different. ā€˜I wanted to make the kind of film where the right choice isnā€™t clear. Each choice is heavily dependent on a different perspective, and neither choice is wrong per se,ā€™ he says.

This is why he found himself wanting to direct Before We Fall Asleep, even though it appears to be romance at first glance. Interestingly, this is  Kaeloā€™s first time directing a film that he didnā€™t write. ā€˜When you write something, you are still attached to it as a writer. So, when it’s time to make some directorial decisions, which may mean taking something out, youā€™re less likely to do it. One thing creatives will tell you is that you have to kill your darlings. It was easier to kill the darlings here because I was serving as the director. My job was to make this work as a finished product, not as a script. 

The Details That Made the Difference 

While the media is filled with stories about falling in love and falling out of love, it rarely explores the ordinary domestic moments that make up most of a relationship. Before We Fall Asleep breaks that mold. Instead of cheating husbands and drunken fights, we see baby baths and burnt noodles. Kaelo takes what would ordinarily be considered boring, everyday life and makes these intimate moments worth watching.

To do this, every choice, from the cast to the lighting, was intentional. The film features an unlikely pairing with Tobi Bakare as Tola and Onyinye Odokoro as Nazo.Ā  ā€˜I remember when Blessing first mentioned that she was thinking of casting Tobi, I was like, ā€˜ah, isn’t that the action starā€™? But then I met him; we had our first rehearsal, and I was blown away,ā€™ Kaelo says. ā€˜Weā€™ve seen him jump off bridges a lot, and it was equally amazing to see this side of him. During their final fight scene, Tobi and Onyinye completely threw out the script. They tapped into an almost spiritual mode, stepping so deeply into their roles that the characters took over entirely.

Kaelo wanted Tola and Nazo’s home life to feel like two Nigerians existing in this space where they aren’t together in a conventional way. But they’re with each other in every way that matters. 

Kaelo believes the representation of their partnership is important and central to the film. ā€˜There are different types of relationships, and it’s important to represent that in film. Most Nigerian films skip over unmarried, cohabiting couples, but this story puts them centre stage. At the same time, the audience will immediately recognise Nazoā€™s mother, who defends traditional expectations

These creative choices also extended to Nazoā€™s workplace.ā€˜The workplace in the film reflects the reality of most workplaces in Nigeria, where there really is no support,ā€™ Kaelo says. ā€˜I know a couple of companies now provide support for new mothers. But largely it’s still unheard of that you go to a place, and they have a daycare.ā€™

The hardest challenge in directing a family-centred film came from one of the most essential members of the crew, the five-month-old baby who plays Feyisola. ā€˜We built all our schedules around the baby. All the plans we make go out the window whenever she has to take a nap. We have to be ready to act when she’s awake. And then we take a pause when she has to shower four times a day,ā€™ he says. 

Why This Story Had to Be Told 

For some, the answer to the conflict in Before We Fall Asleep seems obvious:Ā  hand Tola the broom and let Nazo carry the briefcase. To Kaelo, immediately picking a side defeats the point of the film. ā€˜When I first read the script, I was on team Nazo. I had to detach from my personal opinions to understand why Tola made the decisions that he did,ā€™ he says.Ā 

That detachment allowed him to direct a much better film because he could modulate Nazo’s character. It helped in making her feel like a real person with emotions. ā€˜As things got worse, I was careful in guiding her performance. She talks to Tola in a way that it is evident that sheā€™s not blaming him or trying to make him seem like a villainā€™, he says. To Kaelo, there is no textbook version of a relationship. After watching the film, he hopes that the audience understands that compromise is all that matters. In his words, ā€˜If Tola still had a job, then their salaries would have allowed them to afford a nanny. Then there would have been no issues. An ideal relationship is whatever your relationship needs to be, and that decision is between you and your partnerā€™.Ā 

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This is Solanaā€™s Story As Told To Sofiyah 

I donā€™t remember much about my childhood, but I do remember music. My mum played a lot of , , and other Yoruba artists she loves around the house, so those sounds were a core part of my earliest memories.

Maybe thatā€™s the reason why music always felt natural to me. I wrote my first song when I was six, although I honestly canā€™t remember what inspired it. People often ask me when I decided I wanted to become an artist, but I donā€™t think there was ever a specific moment. One could say music has just always been the way I express myself in this world. If I feel a certain emotion, experience something, or have a story I want to tell, I usually process it by writing and singing. There was never a time when I sat down and decided to start making music. It has always just been my normal way of life.

It wasnā€™t until my second year at university that this normal part of my life began to feel like something more. I had a roommate who worked at a recording studio, and she would always see me writing and singing in our room. One day, she decided to take me to the studio, and I believe that was when I started recording properly. Looking back, that was the beginning of my journey as an artist, but at the time, I wasnā€™t thinking about it as a career decision. I just found myself doing something I had always done.

It also explains why Iā€™ve never really questioned whether music was the right path for me. While I do love fashion and creating things, music is the one thing I feel I can truly excel at. It is the one thing I can do well, and anything else I try would probably not give me the same joy and satisfaction.

Even though music has always been a part of me, and I was sure of what I could create, I didnā€™t get to where I am today alone. My friends were some of the first people who believed in me. I was always the girl writing songs and singing, and they were the ones reminding me that what I was creating was really good. Their encouragement gave me the confidence to keep taking myself seriously.

That confidence grew even more when I started working with . He helped me develop my sound, pushed me to explore more creatively and gave me a safe space to express myself. One thing you should know is that we both love experimenting, so working together has always felt seamless and easy.

That shared love of experimentation is also why I have never liked putting myself into a single genre box. People often describe my sound as Yorupop (Yoruba Pop), and I understand why, because my culture is a big part of who I am, but Yoruba music is only one part of my identity as an artist. I donā€™t want to create from a place where I feel boxed in.

I would love to keep exploring different sounds and finding new ways to express myself. If someone who has never heard my music asked me to describe it, I would say Iā€™m an experimental artist, but no matter what sound I explore, I still want people to always hear that Solana stamp.

That exact mindset shaped . The title means ā€œdarknessā€ in Yoruba, and the song is about leaving a difficult place behind, but to be honest, I didnā€™t want it to feel like a sad song. I wanted it to show that you donā€™t have to leave darkness in a sad way. You can leave it happily, step into the light and find joy again. It is a song that carries a heavy message, but it is still a lot of fun.

Looking back, itā€™s quite interesting that Okunkun almost stayed unreleased. I recorded it in 2023, but when some people in the industry heard it, they had their reservations. They questioned whether Nigerians would connect with it. They felt it wasnā€™t the kind of sound people were used to hearing and wondered whether listeners would embrace a song that wasn’t Amapiano-led. 

At the time, those opinions affected me more than I admitted. The song remained unreleased for years because I started to question whether they were right, but eventually, I realised I couldnā€™t keep creating based on what other people expected from me. 

I had to remind myself why I started making music in the first place. I was making music for myself, and if I loved a song, that had to be enough. The people who connected with it would find it, and if they didnā€™t, I would still be proud of what I created.

When I finally started teasing Okunkun online, the response reminded me that trusting myself was the right decision. People from Nigeria, Europe, and America connected with the song and loved how different it sounded.

One of my favourite things since releasing Okunkun has been seeing the different meanings people find in the song. Yoruba is such a deep language, and people have interpreted the lyrics in ways I never expected. I love that because it shows how a song can grow beyond the person who created it.

That experience has made me even more excited about everything else I have to share. After releasing Dide and Okunkun, Iā€™m preparing an EP produced entirely by Killertunes that drops next month. I also have a lot of unreleased songs, some dating back to 2019, that I canā€™t wait for people to hear finally. Watch this space.

More than anything, I want to keep making music that feels true to me. Iā€™ve realised that I donā€™t have to fit into anyone elseā€™s idea of what my sound should be. As long as I keep creating, experimenting and sharing the parts of myself that I put into every song, I know exactly where Iā€™m meant to be. 

What She Said will give women the mic to speak freely, honestly and openly, without shame, about sex, politics, family, survival, and everything else life throws our way. 

The subject of today’s #WhatSheSaid is Remi*, a 52-year-old businesswoman based in Lagos. She talks about 25 years of marriage, the emotional and financial abuse she quietly endured, the mother who told her she would be disowned if she left, and why she laughed when her ex-husband finally asked for a divorce.

Can you tell me a bit about yourself?

I’m Remi. I’m 52, and I live in Lagos. I deal in textiles, which is actually something of a family tradition; my mother was in the industry before me. It is the business I have built my independence around, and I am proud of it. Beyond work, I am a mother of three and someone who has learned, later than I would have liked, that choosing yourself is not selfish. It is necessary.

Before you got married, what did you imagine marriage would be like?

I only had my parents’ marriage to use as an example of what a perfect marriage looks like. So I imagined that my husband would be like my father, someone who worships the ground I walk on and loves me wholeheartedly, and that my marriage would be blissful and free of complications. My father genuinely adored my mother. That was all I knew of what a husband was supposed to be, so naturally, that was what I expected for myself.

How did you meet your ex-husband, and what made you think he was the one?

I met him through a friend. Letā€™s call her Stella*. At the time, she was dating his friend, and the day they introduced us, I kept staring at him because I had never seen someone as handsome and confident as him. When we started talking, I realised he was someone I could see myself having all my kids with.

What was that early period like before you got married?

It was exciting. He was charming and attentive, the way men are when they are trying to win you over, and I was completely taken. Looking back now, I can see things I missed or chose not to see, but in my time, when you are young and in love, and someone looks at you the way he looked at me then, you are not exactly looking for red flags. You are just happy. I was happy.

How long did you date before he proposed, and how did he ask?

We dated for about two years before he proposed. It was not an elaborate thing; he was not that kind of man, but he was sincere about it, and at the time, sincerity was enough for me. We were at home, just the two of us, and he told me he wanted me to be his wife. I said yes immediately because I genuinely wanted to. I loved him, and I could see my life with him clearly in that moment.

But even as I said yes, there was something sitting at the back of my mind. A few months before he proposed, I had met his eldest brother for the first time at a family gathering. I do not even remember what the occasion was now, but I remember that man’s face when he looked at me. He barely acknowledged me. At some point during that visit, he made a comment, not directly to me but loud enough that I could hear, something about his brother always making decisions without thinking them through. It was not hard to understand what he meant. I was the decision he was referring to. I smiled and said nothing because I did not want to cause problems, but I filed it away. When my husband proposed, I was happy, genuinely happy, but that interaction with his brother was already there, already casting a small shadow over everything.

What was the wedding like?

Quite dreadful, if I am being honest. By the time the wedding came around, I had had enough interactions with the eldest brother to know that the shadow I had felt at the proposal was not going anywhere. He was cold throughout the entire occasion. Not rude in a way that anyone would point to, but the kind of cold that you feel in your body when you are the only one it is directed at. He did not congratulate me. He barely spoke to me. At one point, I caught him watching me from across the room with an expression I can only describe as contempt, and when our eyes met, he simply looked away.

I told my husband how I felt, and he told me I was seeing things, that I was overthinking it, that his brother was just like that. But I knew what I had felt, and I knew what I had seen. I was scared, not in a dramatic way, but in the quiet way you are scared when you can see something difficult ahead of you and nobody around you will acknowledge it is there. I pushed the feeling down and got married anyway, because what else was I going to do? I loved him. I chose to believe it would be fine. It was not always fine.

Did that fear about his family materialise?

Yes. It was not just the eldest brother. Most of my husband’s siblings were awful to me because they felt I was trapping him. He was their only breadwinner at the time, so they resented me for it, as though my marrying him was some kind of scheme. Only the younger ones liked me. The older ones detested my guts. It created a tension in the marriage that never fully went away, because he was always navigating between being a husband and being loyal to siblings who did not particularly care for his wife.

How long were you married?

Twenty-five years.

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What were those twenty-five years like? Start from the beginning.

The early years were fifty-fifty. There were good days, genuinely good ones, but there were also moments that made me stop and ask myself if I had made the right decision. He had a way of saying things, cutting things, that would sit with me for days. He would berate me in front of people, family, friends; it did not matter who was watching. He would tell me I could not amount to anything. At the time, I was relying mostly on my parents’ money because I was not in the job market, and for some reason, he would call me useless for that, as though I had lied about who I was before we got married. He knew exactly what my situation was. He still used it against me at every opportunity.

The financial side was its own separate cruelty. There were times he would not give me money for food, but right in front of me, he would give his brother any amount he asked for without blinking. For a couple of years in that marriage, I had to rely on my parents to feed my children and me. He never denied our children their education, I will give him that, but he would constantly expect me to produce money from nowhere to carry the house, while simultaneously making me feel worthless for not having any.

I kept hoping the good days would become the majority, that we would find our rhythm and settle into something more stable. That never really happened. The difficult days were always there, just waiting.

Iā€™m sorry. How did you eventually find financial independence within the marriage?

I tried a few things before I found my footing. Provisions first, then drinks, then I tried baking for a while. None of it quite clicked the way I needed it to. Eventually, I found my way into the textile industry, which is actually a family thing. My mother was in textiles before me, so in a way I was following a path that had already been laid. Once I found it, things started to shift for me in ways that went beyond just the money.

How did your husband treat you once you became financially independent?

He started seeing me as someone worth respecting. I was no longer someone he could rule over in the same way, and whatever control he had felt over me before started to loosen. There were still moments when he made me feel strange about having my own money because he no longer had the upper hand in the marriage, and that clearly unsettled him. But there was a certain level of respect I started to see that had not been there before. It is telling, really, that the thing that changed how he treated me was not a conversation, a realisation, or any kind of emotional growth on his part. It was money. The moment I had my own, I became worth respecting.

How important was having your own income to your sense of self?

It made me feel really good. I felt confident that I could spoil myself and my children without asking anyone for permission or waiting on anyone’s mood. I could get what I needed without calculating how much money I did not have. I did not have to beg him or my parents for anything, and that freedom changed how I moved through the world entirely. It is a beautiful feeling to know that you are not dependent on someone who does not treat you well for your basic survival.

When did you realise the marriage was something you could no longer live with?

When my daughter started making her displeasure with her father very obvious. She was not subtle about it, the way her brothers were. She genuinely hated him and wanted everyone to know, and watching her made something click for me. I realised that by staying, I had damaged my children in more ways than one. He never let them lack anything materially, that much is true, but he was still emotionally abusive to them. They were watching how he treated me and experiencing his moods and his coldness firsthand. My daughter’s anger was just the loudest version of it. Her brothers had their own version of it, too; they just kept it quieter. Seeing it so plainly on her face made it very hard for me to keep pretending things were fine.

For a long time, you stayed despite everything. What kept you there?

My children, mostly. And the whole “what would people say?” that my mother kept muttering in my ears every time I told her I could not stay in the marriage anymore. There was also the fact that I still loved him, to an extent. That is a complicated thing to explain, loving someone who treats you badly, but it is real, and it is one of the most disorienting feelings there is. You are not stupid for feeling it. You are not weak. It is just that love does not always go away simply because the person has stopped deserving it, and for a long time, that love, mixed with fear of losing my mother’s approval and genuine concern for what this would do to my children, kept me in that house long past the point when I should have left.

What did those conversations with your mother look like?

They usually started with me calling her, exhausted, trying to explain another thing he had done and how overwhelming everything was getting. And they would always, without fail, end with her saying, “he is still the father of your kids.” She has never experienced what it is to have an emotionally abusive husband, so like most women in our society, she trivialised my struggles. A lot. She did not mean harm. I think she genuinely believed she was giving me wisdom, but what she was actually doing was telling me that my pain was not enough of a reason to leave. The concept of my leaving him was so unacceptable to her that she told me she would disown me if I ever did. That threat sat with me for years.

That must have been very painful. What messages had you grown up hearing about divorce?

It was. I grew up learning that divorce is unacceptable and unheard of. That, unless your husband is physically laying his hands on you, there is no valid reason to leave. Just stay with him, even if he spends three hundred and sixty-five days a year making you feel like a failure. Just manage it. Pray about it. Find a way to make him happy. Nobody ever asked whether he was making you happy. That was not part of the conversation.

Why were you worried about what people would say if you left?

I was mostly worried about what my parents would say. My mother had made her position very clear, and my father, though gentler about it, had always taken an “as long as you are happy” stance that I knew would be tested the moment I told him I was choosing divorce. Honestly, I did not really care about other people beyond my immediate family. It was the people closest to me whose reactions I could not stop thinking about.

Do you think you would have left earlier if you had had financial security from the beginning?

Even if I had the money, I would not have left earlier, because my mother would have made good on her threat and disowned me. The financial piece was important, but it was not the only thing holding me. The fear of losing my family’s approval, particularly my mother’s, was its own kind of trap.

How did the conversation about divorce actually happen?

He left the country about three years ago. He said it was to set roots there, but I had a feeling from early on that he just wanted to leave without making it a dramatic event. So when he eventually called and told me he wanted a divorce, I was honestly just blank about it. There was no explosion of feeling, no moment of crisis. I told him to send the necessary papers, and I would sign. That was the whole conversation.

What was going through your mind in that moment?

Honestly? Relief. When I tell you I laughed, I mean I genuinely laughed. It had been such a long time coming that there was nothing left to feel except the strange lightness of it finally being said out loud by him. I did not have to be the one to say it. He said it. And all I had to do was agree.

How did your family react?

When I told my parents that he was the one who had initiated it, they expressed surprise and then more or less called it a day. My dad was calm about the whole thing, and I think it is because he never really liked him like that. He had always taken the gentle path with me, never pushing back strongly, just going with “as long as you are happy,” but over the years, you could sense that his opinion of my husband was not particularly high. My sister asked if it was the right idea because of the children, but our children are grown, all 3 in their 20s and barely interact with their father, so I honestly did not know what point she thought she was making.

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Did you feel judged by your community or extended family?

No one judged me. They all knew what kind of husband he could be. I think that says a lot about how visible his behaviour had been over the years, even to people on the outside.

How did you talk to your children about the divorce?

I told them casually, and they barely blinked. They just said okay. There was no drama, no tears, no long conversation about what it meant. They already knew. They had been living in that house too.

How aware were they of what was happening in the marriage?

Very aware. He was not only unkind to me, but he was also unkind to them. He had his good moments, and I want to be fair about that, but my children mostly remember him for his bad days. They had their own relationship with his moods and his emotional distance, completely separate from whatever was happening between us as husband and wife.

Looking back, do you think staying together would have been better for them?

No. What was the point of having a father in their lives if he only gave them trauma to carry? I think it would have actually been better for them if I had left him much earlier. They would have been more self-actualised. They would have grown up watching their mother choose herself, which is a lesson I gave them far too late.

How has your life changed since the divorce?

It has been wonderful. Honestly, when he left the country, I was already living like a divorced woman in many ways. The weight of wondering whether someone at home was eating, whether his mood that evening was going to determine the atmosphere of the entire house, all of that was already gone. After the papers, I just kept going further in that direction. I started going out more, spending time on myself, pouring into who I am. No husband constantly chipping away at my self-esteem. I am prioritising myself in ways that feel completely natural now, as though I was always supposed to be living like this.

Do you ever regret it?

No.

Have your views on love or marriage changed?

I still think love is beautiful and that people just have to find their right partners. I understand that marriage did me dirty, but it is not everyone it would do dirty. Case in point, my parents. Their marriage is everything I imagined mine would be when I was young. I just did not end up with someone like my father.

Would you get married again?

Absolutely not. I am okay like this. I love being single.

If you could speak to the version of yourself who was scared to leave, what would you tell her?

It is fine to be scared, but she should not be, because it is not even as big a deal as she thinks. She is going to be okay. She is going to be more than okay.

What is one thing society gets completely wrong about divorced women?

That it is shameful. We have always tied a woman’s entire worth to being a wife and a mother, and the moment she exits a marriage, people act as though she has failed at the most important thing she was supposed to do. I think it is silly because more women should be allowed to divorce and still have their communities backing them. Leaving a bad marriage is not a failure. Staying in one for the sake of appearances is not a strength. We have had it backwards for a very long time.

What is one lesson you hope younger women take from your experience?

That it is fine to leave if your husband is not acting like the love of your life should act. You do not need him to be hitting you. You do not need a dramatic, obvious, provable reason. Feeling consistently unseen, disrespected and diminished is reason enough. Your life is too long and too valuable to spend it managing someone else’s ego.

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