‘I never knew my Europe-based husband already had a wife and children’

It was the norm for men from our community based abroad to come home looking for a wife and at such times, parents did everything to convince their daughters to get married to such men so they would have in-laws based in Europe.

Most of our parents would not mind what the man does if he is based outside the country and if one refused to get married, they would see you as the black sheep of the family who does not want any good thing to come their way.

Though I did not have any serious relationship at the time, I was not too keen on getting married to a man I barely knew but my parents insisted I must marry Ugochukwu who was very serious about marrying me.

In the end, I accepted out of respect for my parents and the fact that at the age I was at then, most of my mates were married and my parents used this as one of their bargaining chip.

In the end, we had our traditional marriage with the idea that Ugo would come back in six months’ time for the white wedding and I would join him afterward.

But this was not to be as Ugo did not come home that year until another December and gave so many sob stories about how the government of Austria was making things difficult to foreigners and how he was planning to move to a friendlier country so I could join him.

We had our white wedding and another year of waiting started all over again with Ugo giving one excuse or the other. Both my parents and his kept telling me to endure, that everything would soon be alright.

But the bubble burst when one of our town’s man came home from Austria and while chatting, he told me the reason Ugo found it difficult to send for me was that his Austrian wife had refused to give him a divorce.

I was shocked at the revelation and called Ugochukwu and he confessed that he had a wife and two kids. He said he got married to her to get his stay permit but had planned to get a divorce but the woman had refused to give him.

When I told my parents about the development, they told me to believe him and wait for the divorce but from the look of things, Ugo is not in a hurry to divorce the woman and even if he does, I am not sure I would want to stay married to a man who hid the truth about his marriage to me.

What if he does the same to me in future? I am really confused.

Chioma.”

Dear readers, after going through Chioma’s story on Morning Teaser today, do you think she should continue to wait for Ugochukwu till he can get a divorce from his Austrian wife?