A fervent listener of JoyFM’s Super Morning Show on Friday disclosed that she had suicidal thoughts after she was constantly abused by her mother-in-law.
According to the caller, who identified herself as Hawa, when she was married to her ex-husband, her mother-in-law was not pleased with their marriage because of the exceptional love her ex-husband used to show her.
“Whenever we think about abuse, we are always thinking about the husband. I personally had an experience with my in-law. I went through hell.
“It got a point in the marriage, I had to halt my master’s degree just to go to the market for her so that I could keep my marriage,” she said.
Mixed reactions from her husband anytime she shared her displeasure of her mother-in-law’s attitude towards her led Hawa to constantly break down in tears because she didn’t want to break a family.
“Whenever the mum did something to me, I needed to swallow it without actually informing my husband. But it got to a time, I was actually feeling suicidal.
“I am the one who lived a very good life. No men. Completed my university. Got married. And all of a sudden everybody would say I have divorced and I’m home.
“The shame that came with it made me stay for a while. But after some time I actually wanted to take my life, but a good Samaritan saved me from committing suicide.”
Talking about her ordeal in her previous marriage, she disclosed that aside from the fact that her mother-in-law didn’t want her to marry her son, she also didn’t like the ethnic group Hawa is from.
“And she didn’t like women who are elite. She wanted a normal woman to be able to go to market and sell for her. And all of that. I needed to do all her chores sometimes when she had people who could actually do it for her,” she lamented.
Hawa told the hosts of JoyFM’s Super Morning Show, Winston Amoah and Animwaa Anim Addo that after several contemplations of committing suicide, she tried to take her life but a friend caught her in the act and reported the incident to the family.
“I was working with a company as an engineer. I had to sometimes take a long leave to satisfy her. All of that didn’t work. I felt like taking my life. But God being so good, I didn’t do it,” she recounted.
Sharing her domestic violence story on the show, Hawa said that an abusive experience traumatised her which made her check herself into a psychiatric hospital, stayed there till she got healed.
“But I tell you, my life has never been the same since,” she added.
“I’m just 36 and it makes me very very careful when it came to men and people never understood how such a beautiful and intelligent woman would be single. And it’s difficult to make another decision not realising what you’d fall into the next marriage or relationship.
“It wasn’t an easy experience. So sometimes the in-laws too cause a lot of problems in that aspect when it comes to marriage. That’s my story.”