Hazel, in a lengthy post on Facebook, recounted how her ex-husband mistreated and belittled her, stating that she was not up to the standard of women he had dated in the past.

scolded me…”see how you’re just saying baby baby.”

“All the other places we went to, he stayed very far from me and was on the phone the whole time, I still haven’t found the words to describe how I felt that day. I survived… But the night he woke me up at 4am (I was more than 6 months pregnant) to cuss me out for telling my sister in law how he was treating me; he made sure to tell me how I was nothing and didn’t measure up to the women in his life.

“He said, “do you know the kind of women I left to marry you, you this thing.” He went on to call me many more unprintable names and added my sister in law to the insults.

Then he said, “my mother warned me about marrying an Umuahia woman (at this point I want to state that his mother died when he was 16), but I didn’t listen. I have asked questions and they told me that Umuahia women are domineering and evil.”

“Umuahia people, come and collect your sub…because the insults he gave Umuahia people is immense; yet he worships Nnamdi Kanu of IPOB who is from Umuahia and happens to be my second cousin. The following night; I woke from sleep to hear him on the phone with someone and he was telling this person how he doesn’t know how he married me because nothing about it made sense. He claimed that I held him down with some form of supernatural whatever and now that his eyes have cleared I had become repulsive to him and he couldn’t stand the sight of me.

“No wonder he had in a spate of abuse told me, ‘you can go and burn more bay leaves to tie my legs.’ I burn bay leaves occasionally to get rid of mosquitoes and pesky fruit flies instead of using insecticide. And burning bay leaves relaxes my nerves and makes me sleep better, so I didn’t understand what he said until I overheard that phone conversation. I was too numb to even cry…

He follows the likes of AllahKaduna who tell them that they’re alpha males and the prize…well, I was not in competition with anyone for anything so I removed myself from struggling for any prize biko.

“He loves to insult women on social media but is always in women’s inboxes asking for money…I lost count of how many women kept sending him money for only God knows what; and when I complained, he would say that I’m just being insecure…he still won’t pay any bills or buy anything for me or the house. The next time a random stranger told me I was beautiful; I was shocked to hear it. I had forgotten that I was beautiful because I was constantly belittled and demeaned by the one person who should have been praising me.

“It has been one joy ride finding my way back to myself…and right now my voice is stronger than ever.

7 months of marriage that felt like 7 years of torture…”