Nigerian journalist, Tope Delano in a post published on her Medium site about the physical, emotional, and verbal abuse she allegedly suffered in her marriage and how it has affected her young daughter who now appears afraid of marriage.

Read the post below:

This was barely 3 days after moving into our new home. We had just finished dinner and having a mummy and daughter time when she asked, ‘’Mummy, can a girl and a girl marry’’? I answered, ‘’yes.’’

She continued, asking if a boy and a boy could also get married, I affirmed saying yes, then added that marriage should happen when both parties are sure they needed to. For a minute, I thought that was the end to the questioning because really, I just ate and wanted to sit in silence and listen to music with her, but, no, my child followed up with the statement; ‘’I don’t want to get married, they will beat me.’’ Now, we are Yoruba, and ‘’they’’ in my language is meant for an older person, I was broken into bits.

Dear DJ

I knew from the very start that the marriage was going to fail. I wanted a home with you but, you were far from being an apartment. I stayed silent for years watching you cheat, all the while acting dumb, I, however, never envisaged that your anger would one day result in you hitting me.

You have continued to deny the many times you abused me, you have continued to deny ever hitting me on several occasions and, I have for years continued to hide that side of you from everyone you and I know.

The abuse started verbally. For every argument and disagreement that occurred, I heard how my mother did a shabby job parenting me, how my family was of no good, why you ask? I talked back so calmly, I dared to say every time — ‘’you are pushing me to the wall, someday soon, I will turn back and fight.’’

Read the full post here.