Margaret Ntifo's Blog

Laura Dekker: A Force To Be Reckoned with

I have been following the incredibly inspiring story of Laura Dekker, the 16-year old girl who travelled solo around the world making her the youngest-ever solo circumnavigator, although Guinness book has refused to certify this record in an attempt to stop young person’s putting themselves at risk by trying to break ‘dangerous’ records.

Laura doesn’t seem bothered with the fame or money; clothes and luxury apparently means nothing to Laura.  All she wants is to live her dream on her boat, a dream that stems for her heart and soul.

Laura’s story is one of tremendous self-will-power and determination, a quest for freedom, stoicism, independence, discipline, and a certain zest to uphold her inner wishes regardless of whether the world understand and accepts it or not. I can align with that.

Faced with several court cases from as young as 13 when she announced her intentions to sail around the world, Laura battled with Government organizations concerned about her safety and won. These authorities tried to use the court system to deter her from making the trip and complained that at her age her place should be in the classroom instead. Miss Dekker is “seriously thinking about not returning to the Netherlands” because of the controversy in Holland surrounding her voyage.

It is not surprising that Laura has become rather wary of authorities who claim to be acting in ones best interest. Who wouldn’t be?

Laura was born on a boat on 20^th September 1995, and spent the first four years of her life at sea. After her parent’s divorce in 2002, she went to live with her Dad and has lived on a boat most of her life. Naturally, this kind of existence is not the norm hence the Dutch authorities difficulties to accept Laura’s plans of sailing the world at her age. What they failed to appreciate was how normal and important this was to Laura.

Under the guise of ‘working in her best interest’ they tried to shape her up into a ‘normal’ teenager. On the contrary, Laura is understandably not interested in what the ‘normal’ sixteen year old focusses on. Instead, she is content to cope with weeks of solitude, ocean storms, threat of whales and pirates. She says, “For me it’s really normal.”

For me, I can only marvel at how a person as young as she is can have so much of her wits about her. Here’s some special girl. I am so happy for her that she met her goal of circumnavigating the world despite all the negativity from the authorities, and others.

Destiny & Our Higher Purpose of Life

We all have a certain vision or plan of how our lives might unfold. Even the people who do not set daily goals have some sort of image of how they want their lives to run. These are mostly based on our life experiences, values; those of our parents, the people around us and the society we live in.

What we come to learn is: “Very often not getting our dream gives us our destiny.” Not having our lives run the path we envisage can give us a higher purpose. Often we don’t always realize the goals we set. This can make us frustrated, disappointed, and sometimes resentful.

It helps to look for an empowering meaning whenever something happens that is not necessarily according to our vision, to ask ourselves - how can I use this to serve higher purpose, to make me a better person?

I for one, never ever expected to be divorced, ever. My community still looks upon divorce with a little stigma, which I now proudly wear! It went against my community values, my Christian values and what have you. But divorced I am actually praying that I will soon be! In fact, my biggest frustration recently has been how long trying to get my divorce has been. What an irony that I cannot wait to be divorced.

Very often in life when we really look back on our lives, the worst adversarial situations have been our best learning points, if we only we are willing to trust that it happened for a reason. This reminds me of a poignant piece I found extremely comforting in 2005 the late Steve Jobs’ commencement speech at Stanford University. He said– “you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life”.

Steve Jobs at the very least knew what he was talking about.

Some experiences are too painful that we probably never want it to happen again but we must be willing to trust that these experiences serve us. Once we are willing to trust and have faith, to look for answers and actively pursue them, we will come to realize that every human experience supports us, even the painful ones. Yes, even the painful ones!

Instead of living in fear of pain we can choose to live with certainty that - No matter happens we will benefit from every experience and situation. When we adopt this approach in life, we will look for benefits and therefore we will find them.

Back in 1997, I went through a most painful experience. Following an affair my ex had, I faced a lot of rejection and abandonment from my ex. I wasn’t strong then to walk away. Life was still shaping me up and pruning me. The worst of that rejection was being told without mincing words that I was a ‘liability’, that I was dragging him back, that I didn’t earn enough money to enable him live the life he wanted! Phew.

Fancy being reduced to M.O.N.E.Y! My only excuse is at the time I was a new mother for goodness sake. A new mother who had fallen pregnant in my final year of an advanced diploma I was pursuing after my first degree. This meant that I couldn’t start any serious job hunting with a nice pot-belly. I mean, who was going to employ this new graduate about to drop. So I made do with my sales job that I had had during college. I’d also had complications in this pregnancy at eighteen weeks when I went into early labour due to degeneration of uterine fibroids. So with all these complications and a commission-based sales job, is it any wonder that my income dropped significantly? Suffice to say, I continued to work as soon as I was discharged from hospital.

So, to be rejected at this time when a woman’s hormones are all over the place, and reduced to being likened to M.O.N.E.Y was the pits and I felt like cringing into a corner, which I did! It took years to get my confidence back and crawl away from that corner. Years of pain during which I had to question my worth and value! If your own husband of only 3 years rejects you, not just in favour of another woman, but relegates your worth in favour of M.O.N.E.Y, is it any wonder that somewhere along the years, when I finally got my self-worth back intact, I determined that, “Never again! Never again will I be valued alongside M.O.N.E.Y. Heavens, I am a trillion-fold far more priceless and beyond compare!”

I decided to study M.O.N.E.Y to understand how it could have that power to be used against me! To acquire enough M.O.N.E.Y such that no man will ever have that power over me, ever!

Don’t get me wrong, M.O.N.E.Y was not everything. In fact, there are far more valuable things in my life now apart from M.O.N.E.Y, such as my children, my life, my family, my health, my intelligence, my courage, and a lot more. But M.O.N.E.Y does sure buy a few handbags.

Fast forward a few years on, I realized that my life path changed that day he told me he wanted a separation not only to continue his affair with another woman, but also because I didn’t earn enough money. Mind you, that was the only time he wanted to leave me!

At the time, I begged him to stay, I begged him that we could work this through. Of course, I knew that he wasn’t thinking straight, that he was delusional. I mean, which man in his right mind would want to leave me? And he never ever did again. He never wanted to leave me again, even when I begged him to years later.

For you know what, I finally became the woman he always wanted to be with for life. I am proud of that. But he had lost that chance. Looking back he lost that chance that day in July 1997. The ensuing years were just a bonus to give him a chance to redeem himself, but unfortunately he was never man-enough to do so. I often said to him, “Ye ma wo hene, na wo andi a, kyeame bo wo”. Meaning: ‘Given the opportunity to be a king, if you do not live up to it, you will not get the chance to even be the king’s spokesperson or linguist.’

At the time, the vision of my life did not include being left after only three years of marriage, and I found it hard to handle. But that experience proceeded to change the course of my life. Gradually, I came to realize and accept that in fact being left, or divorced is no big deal. That I could grow from that experience to become more.

Don't you think that finally becoming a major investor, with an enviable portfolio of properties and other investments IS more than the cringing girl who feared being abandoned. Ironically I was the one to finally leave him, and for two years he continued to beg me to have him back. The interesting thing is at the same time he was trying to convince me to have him back he was fighting a losing legal battle for half of my investment empire. Some stupid solicitor must’ve advised him that he could do so in English Law.

Ha! For what shall it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his own soul? Sadly, he didn’t only lose me, he lost his own children and does not even realized how dispossessed he is. How sad!

On the other hand, through these painful experiences I have been empowered to find meaning in my life, to seek and find my higher purpose, and to not rest until I have found it. I used to think that my property portfolio was the legacy I was building up to leave for my beautiful children. I now realise that it is my entire life that would serve them as a better legacy. How wonderful, how wonderful!

 

The Field of Dreams

I recently watched this rare great movie, a rather old one, “The Field of Dreams” is an American classic combining themes of family, fantasy, faith, reconciliation, destiny, disappointment and redemption. The one theme I’d like to focus on today is its metaphoric depiction of how by losing our dream we come to ‘find our higher purpose in life’.

The main plot is about Ray Kinsella (Kevin Costner), a novice corn farmer who becomes convinced by a mysterious voice that he is supposed to construct a baseball diamond in his corn field... 'If you build it, he will come'.

Later in the movie Kevin Costner seeks out an old man, Dr. Archibald ‘Moonlight’ Graham played by Burt Lancaster. This fictional character in the movie is actually based on a true life person by the same name, and except for a little artistic license with the dates it pretty much tells a true story.

'Doc' Graham used to be a baseball player as a young man who had worked extremely hard to get into the majors of the game. His whole life’s dream had been to play professional baseball and he did everything to try and realize his dream, his passion.

Finally, he made it to the big league and the whole season went by without his being able to play. At the end of the season, in the eighth inning the coach finally selected him to play. He was so happy he couldn’t believe it. He ran onto the field waiting his turn to bat, waiting for someone to hit the ball to him, but nothing happened.

Graham played the bottom of the ninth in right field but never came to bat. That game turned out to be his only appearance in the major leagues. His turn to bat never came and the next year, without giving him another chance they sent him back to the minor league. By this time, he just couldn’t take it anymore so he quit, and went on to pursue and complete a medical degree in the University of Minnesota, got his license and began practicing medicine in Chisholm, Minnesota.

He said to Kevin Costner of his one-time appearance in the major league, “You know we just don’t recognize the most significant moments of our lives while they’re happening. Back then I thought, well, there’ll be other days. I didn’t realize that that was the only day.”

Kevin Costner thought about what an incredible devastating pain it must have been for ‘Doc’ Graham to have been that close to his dream and not touch it. He said to Doc, “Fifty years ago, for five minutes you came within... y-you came this close to your dream. It would KILL some men to get so close to their dream and not touch it. God, they'd consider it a tragedy.”

But Moonlight Graham gracefully replies, “Son, if I'd only gotten to be a doctor for five minutes... now that would have been a tragedy.”

Playing baseball for 5 minutes was not a tragedy! Playing baseball for only 5 minutes was not devastating. What would have been a disaster, what would have been a tragedy is if he’d been a doctor for only 5 minutes. You see, if 'Doc' Graham had hit that baseball; that would’ve been the bigger disaster. Because then he never would’ve come to live in Chisholm, he never would’ve become a doctor and he never would’ve got the chance to save lives as he did… Now, that would’ve been a bigger tragedy.

In other words, not getting his dream of playing baseball enabled ‘Moonlight’ Graham to realize his destiny of becoming a doctor and serving the people of Chisholm for fifty years.

The true-life Graham served from 1915 to 1959, and was the doctor for the Chisholm schools. The Graham Scholarship Fund, established in his honor, provides financial assistance to two Chisholm High School graduating seniors each year. The award is given to one boy and one girl, $500 to each. For many years while practicing medicine, 'Doc' Graham made arrangements to have used eyeglasses sent to his Chisholm office. On Saturdays, in his own time, he would have the children of the Iron Range miners, from Grand Rapids to Virginia, come to his office, have the their eyes checked and then fit them with the proper set of glasses, all free of charge.

Graham died in Chisholm in 1965. He is buried in Rochester, Minnesota.

In the movie, 'Doc' Graham goes on to say, “Well, you know I... I never got to bat in the major leagues. I would have liked to have had that chance. Just once! To stare down a big league pitcher. To stare him down, and just as he goes into his windup, wink. Make him think you know something he doesn't. That's what I wish for. Chance to squint at a sky so blue that it hurts your eyes just to look at it! To feel the tingling in your arm as you connect with the ball. To run the bases - stretch a double into a triple, and flop face-first into third, wrap your arms around the bag. That's my wish, Ray Kinsella. That's my wish. And is there enough magic out there in the moonlight to make this dream come true?”

On hearing this Kevin Costner arranges for 'Moonlight' Graham to have one last chance at experiencing his dream of playing baseball. He brings him to the field that he had built and organizes a game with famous baseball players such as “Shoeless Joe Jackson”. Finally, 'Moonlight' is going to get a second chance to play professional baseball, to realize his dream.

As he steps onto the field he feels young again. But just as they begin to play, just at that opportune moment there came a loud scream from the stand. 

Kevin Costner’s daughter had been knocked off the stand by accident and she falls and hits her head and starts turning blue. Realizing the danger his daughter was in, Kevin Costner starts yelling, “We need a doctor, we need a doctor”. 'Doc' Graham hears the desperate call for a doctor just when he is about to swing the bat. He is about to finally realize everything he had dreamed of in his life, and he says,” I’m a doctor!”

He starts running full blast to save the child but then he stops to look down at the foul line in front of him; the line that divides the field of dreams from the other world - and he realizes that if he crosses this line he can never go back. He can never live his dream again. He does not hesitate anymore, as he steps across the line to save the child’s life.

Once again, ‘Moonlight’ Graham loses his dream, but lives to fulfill his destiny. The moral here is very simple. Inside each one of us are dreams and desires that we have for ourselves, for our lives, those things that we feel are important in our lives. But there is also our destiny, the call for us to go beyond our desires to become something greater, something more! To give of ourselves in ways that we have never given before that would give us the greatest sense of fulfillment to complete our life purpose. The sum total of our lives so far has prepared us for this moment. Let us seek to find the meaning in every experience, however painful, however much it doesn’t go according to the plan or vision we have of our lives.

Dr Archibald ‘Moonlight’ Graham saved lives. Let us live to save lives starting today, starting with our own life. Wow! Phew!

Now, do you wonder why I loved this movie so? Mind you, I am still working hard to get my son to watch it. He run away once he saw how old the film was, how faded and jaded the colours were. But I am still working on him! On that note, I did try to get them to watch loads of Meryl Streep’s movies and he point blank refused to watch “Kramer versus Kramer”. He screamed to his sisters, “Run! This film is so old that Meryl Streep is young!” Lol!

Lose A Dream, Find Your Destiny...

"Sometimes in Life, not getting your dream gives you your destiny!"

Tony Robbins

You'll see

I was listening to Susan Boyle’s ‘I Dreamed A Dream’ album in the background this morning when my attention was suddenly drawn to the poignancy of the lyrics of 'You’ll See'. Enjoy! I looked up Madonna’s video version and decided to put that up instead.

You’ll see

You think that I can't live without your love, You'll see.
You think I can't go on another day.
You think I have nothing without you by my side,
You'll see; Somehow, some way

You think that I can never laugh again, You'll see,
You think that you destroyed my faith in love.
You think after all you've done I'll never find my way back home,
You'll see; Somehow, someday

All by myself; I don't need anyone at all
I know I'll survive; I know I'll stay alive,
All on my own; I don't need anyone this time
It will be mine; No one can take it from me
You'll see

You think that you are strong, but you are weak, You'll see.
It takes more strength to cry, admit defeat.
I have truth on my side, You only have deceit.
You'll see, somehow, someday

The Woman I Was Born To Be

Though I may not know the answers

I can finally say I AM FREE

And if the questions led me here then

I AM the WOMAN I was born to be!

One of the last things I remember saying to my ex was;

                “… You clearly are not ready for the WOMAN I have become!”

As I uttered these words, I felt powerful at finally finding the right words to say to him. I walked away from the meeting with a pastor that he had organized to try and get me to have him back, as I had always done in the past. Sure, good old Margaret loved him so much that the one thing he could trust and always depend on was that I would come back to him because he also knew that, more than anything, all I ever wanted was the nice little family with two parents and three beautiful kids to call my own.

After all the abuse, the verbal, psychological, emotional and physical abuse, after all the pain, after all the virtually ‘wasted’ years, when I finally gathered the courage, (it took more than courage, it took God’s grace), when I left my husband, or should I say forced him out of our lives, he started a contentious court case to force me to have him back into our house. When that did not work, (because I fought that case, and the judges couldn’t decide) he tried pleading himself, then involved the church, then the pastor, who as expected would join him in trying to put more emotional pressure on me to have him back. The funny thing is while he was talking to the pastor he still had his court case pending in the background.

Honestly, I can only laugh now. He had it all in the can. It is a well-known fact that when an abused woman finally manages to flee the cage the men proceed to use the legal system to try and control her. That is so classic it is no longer ingenious! Here is a man who claims all he wants is ‘his family back together’. So, I am the wicked woman keeping the family divided. Talk about emotional pressure!

The irony was I felt the same. Truth be told, all I wanted too was my family back together. I was in so much pain I couldn’t believe it myself. I didn’t expect to go through any such pain. After all, I had made the decision, right? I had decided that this was it, right? So why, why on earth did I miss him so much. Why would I miss the very person that had made my life hell for the past ten years?

I cried and cried. I called my friends and cried some more. Yet no one could fill that big void I had created myself by forcing my husband out. Thank you so much, Hanna. As a girlfriend who had been through a similarly emotionally charged divorce, Hanna was so supportive. I tried to organize some counseling for myself but my heart was not in it, or maybe the good Lord designed it such that the counselor was going to call me back and never did. So I never did go for counseling during this period.

I had to be strong for the children, right? Children supposedly mirror your behavior, and up till then, I had tried to be upbeat and positive.  Who was I kidding? I was well aware that all I had to do was pick up the phone and give in to my husband’s request. Then life would be fantastic for… a period until the next hurdle. And I was well tired of hurdles in my marriage, which seemed to be choking my life. So I decided to consider this period as an addict goes through withdrawal to get rid of the dependence of addiction.

I tried using humour to deflect my pain. Sometimes that worked. Oooh no, it wasn’t working properly this time.

Then I decided to engage my left brain. See, I am a complete right brain person. I am the type of person who would say, “I cannot wait to feel what I'm thinking!” The only problem was while this habit had served me well in my life so far, this was a time that I definitely did not want to feel anything. The numbing pain was simply unbearable.

In engaging my left brain, I decided I would let my family and friends, and even my children decide for me – whether to go, or not to go back to my abuser. I often do that. When I cannot make a decision, I do a round table. I call a few of my friends who know me well, and who are also very different from me in some ways, and whose views I valued. That way I get a kind of group of rational answers. Then I go into myself (back to the right brain thinking) and then I finally make the ‘well-informed’ decision. If my friend Marian, poor long-suffering Marian, (honestly, I bet she rues the day God inflicted me on her as a friend) had a penny for the number of times I have asked her – ‘what would you do if you were me’, I promise you she would be a millionairess by now. Marian has complained in the past that although I come to her and get her into long discussions of pros and cons, I often turn around and do what I want anyway. Sorry, Marian, that must be extremely frustrating. I still love you.

Surprisingly my children were adamant they didn’t want their dad back with us. They, despite their ages were completely convinced we were better off without him, Hmm!

As I was speaking to each friend, I was actually making notes of their views in my journal. I do keep a journal, but only sporadically. Goodness, I’d love to journal daily, but I cannot even commit to that. I wrote down all the answers from my friends. I spoke to my mom. Wait for this. I partly blame my parents for overstaying my marriage. They are from the old school that says if you are married, you are married for life regardless so they have never ever supported me anytime I broached the subject of ending my marriage. So I secretly decided that if ever I finally got the guts to leave, I would do so without telling them, which is exactly what I did. With family values like that, it went without saying that I was imbued with the same thinking so the last thing I needed was someone as important to me as my own mother weakening my already shaky resolve.

However, when my husband responded by taking me to court for locking him out of our joint residence, I had to tell my family what I had done, and I went on to ask my mother’s view whether I should have him back or not. Now, for someone who’s campaigned to keep me married forever, for the first time my mother did not have the answer. She admitted to me that she didn’t know how to advice me and directed me to an old priest we had had years back when I was a teenager! This priest, being a Dr. Reverend was held in very high esteem by the community, and of course his opinions were nuggets of sagacity. So I trudged along to Rev. Dr. whom I hadn’t seen since he left our diocese ages ago. I didn’t even know that my family had kept in touch with him. I did not even know that Rev. Dr. now lived in London. I spoke to him immediately and trudged along to his Dulwich address.

The Hater... By Maya Angelou

Thanks to my friend Maku for sending this to me via email. It is so true I thought I'd share this on here. Much love.

 
A hater is someone who is jealous and envious and spends all their time trying to make you look small so they can look tall.

They are very negative people to say the least. Nothing is ever good enough! When you make your mark, you will always attract some haters…That’s why you have to be careful with whom you share your blessings and your dreams, because some folk can’t handle seeing you blessed…

It’s dangerous to be like somebody else…

If God wanted you to be like somebody else, He would have given you what He gave them! Right? You never know what people have gone through to get what they have.

The problem I have with haters is that they see my glory, but they don’t know my story… If the grass looks greener on the other side of the fence, you can rest assured that the water bill is higher there
too!

We’ve all got some haters among us!  People envy you because you can:

• Have a relationship with God
• Light up a room when you walk in
• Start your own business
• Tell a man / woman to hit the curb (if he / she isn’t about the right thing)
• Raise your children without both parents being in the home

Haters can’t stand to see you happy, Haters will never want to see you succeed, Haters never want you to get the victory, most of our haters are people who are supposed to be on our side. How do you handle
your undercover haters?

You can handle these haters by:

1. Knowing who you are & who your true friends are *(VERY IMPORTANT!!)
2. Having a purpose to your life? Purpose does not mean having a job. You can have a job and still be unfulfilled. A purpose is having a clear sense of what God has called you to be. Your purpose is not
defined by what others think about you.
3. By remembering what you have is by divine prerogative and not human manipulation. Fulfill your dreams!

You only have one life to live…when it’s your time to leave this earth, you ‘want’ to be able to say, ‘I’ve lived my life and fulfilled ‘my’ dreams,… Now I’m ready to go HOME! When God gives you favor, you can
tell your haters, Don’t look at me…Look at Who is in charge of me…’

Maya Angelou

Women, Make Your Own Money...

This morning, musing over an article I read last night, I started thinking - what advice would I give to women in general? In time, I will endeavour to put together list of important advice to women a.k.a. ‘What I wish I’d known before and after marriage’. Until then though, there was one thing that really, really keeps coming back to me. One thing that I want to put across NOW is:

          Girlfriend, Make Your Own Money.

In fact, don’t just make your own money, but have a level of control over your own money. Be it the money you make, or money that is yours from other sources.  The one thing that is prevalent in abusive relationships – oh, please don’t go switching off now under the mistaken notion that yours is not an abusive relationship. I hope not. However, most women do not even know what exactly an abusive relationship is. He doesn’t only have to beat you to make your relationship abusive. There are various forms of abuse, which is outside the scope of this subject so I will not digress any further.

The one thing that is prevalent in abusive relationships, or shall we simply call it – unfulfilled relationship – is financial control, that is, when your partner or spouse starts to control the purse strings. This IS a form of abuse. He cannot control your mind or person so he finds other means to do so. Often women are at a disadvantage because we tend to be the carers. We are either focussing on bringing up our children in a nurturing way, or we are in the prime of pregnancy and childbirth stage. This ultimately has an effect on how much we can earn, if at all.

An abusive partner then starts to use the giving, and withholding of money as a symbol of control over his partner. Depending on your situation he will constantly remind you that he is the breadwinner, and that you cannot survive without him. An idea that most women eventually buy into, which then reinforces his control over you, and often prevents you from leaving the relationship.

Even women from rich backgrounds are susceptible to this kind of abuse, and can be trapped in the same way. Especially when they have become accustomed to a wealthy lifestyle! The partners ensure that these women do not have money of their own, or easy access to their own resources.

Often even women with an independent career can find themselves manipulated into the situation where he is in control of their finances. He gets to make most of the decisions about when and how to spend money.

Do you know, as women we often think to ourselves, ‘such a thing would never happen to me?’ Personally, I must have thought that once, probably when I was growing up and picturing how my future life would be. I was and am such a strong-spirited person that most people who know me have difficulty picturing me in an abusive and controlling relationship. My only excuse is – ‘love’ must have had something to do with it.

That is the situation I found myself in by the time I had my second child and was forced by circumstances beyond my control to become a stay-at-home mother. The only thing I loved about this period was the chance to spend almost every waking hour with the children. I loved being in the ‘mummy’ business. If I had a wish, it would have been to have made a better choice in a partner so that maybe, just maybe I could’ve fully enjoyed this period better when my children were babies.

At the time, I experienced a level of financial control from my partner, which was exacerbated by the fact that I was not earning my own money. To cap it all, because this was not a planned event I did not have a plan to pay down my existing financial commitments – a personal loan and couple of credit card balances. You’ve often heard me say that my husband’s favourite phrase to me was, “Your problem, you sort it” as he proceeded to be as tight as tight can be.

I have often said to him (later, when I found my voice again), “If I have any thanks at all for the success I finally achieved later on in my life, I owe it all to you!” For if I had never gone through that period, if he had never been as cruel as he possibly could, if I had not experienced the pain of being controlled by him financially and otherwise, I never would have gotten off my butt and decided to create something for myself, and my children that I did not need his permission for. Does this sound like ‘success is the best revenge’? You bet it does. If it was my problem, then I very well sorted it!

I always knew that if I ever dared leave this relationship, this shell of a marriage, I would experience financial control to the highest level. So, to manage this risk, I went all out and made my own money. The funny thing is, all the time I was making money I still secretly wanted my marriage to work. I probably hoped that if only he could see that I was not the burden he had once called me, that I could contribute my two-bits to this marriage as he claimed he had always wanted, that maybe, just maybe I was not that bad after all and I hoped that he would do an about-turn and give me the marriage that I deserved.

Oh, how we deceive ourselves! An abuser is an abuser. Nothing, I repeat nothing you can do will turn him into your knight in shining armour. Even if he does for a short while, he cannot sustain it. In my case, what happened was, instead of the marriage improving he actually continued to be a shell of who he was but this time he wanted control of my investments, and became extremely envious of my success. Once, a controller, always a controller!

This is what having control of my own money has done for me.

Since leaving the marriage, I have not had to depend on him. In fact, he cannot stand the fact that I am independent of him financially and one of the reasons for the delay in the divorce process is his crusade to take that away from me. Ha ha! I used to dread being in the position of taking my cup to him to be filled, once separated. I can only imagine what I would have had to go through to get food on the table for my children.

I still believe that despite the fact that I am well-capable of the children and my day-to-day living expenses, a decent father must and should provide for his children. When after a year, this was not forthcoming even after requesting once I was urged to involve the Child Support Agency (CSA). Some good they could do. My deadbeat ex-husband ‘lost’ his job a month after my application to the CSA. What a coincidence! To date, I KNOW  he is working, and trying to hide. Ha! "You can run, but you cannot hide."

There is a wise saying in Ghana that translates literally as:

“When the goat rubs his tail against the wall, he thinks he is defacing the wall. Little does he know that he is damaging his own tail!”

My ex thinks he is doing all this to attack me, with no thought on how it would affect his own children. The only reason why my lifestyle hasn’t changed that much post-separation is somewhere during the marriage I woke up to the realization that I had to depend on MYSELF, and make my own money. There is a saying that ‘A man is not a pillow’. Girlfriend, you cannot perch your head on a man and be all right.

Make your own money! Control your own money!

Even the financial gurus, and relationship gurus advise women to maintain a level of financial autonomy to ensure your feminine well-being. I was shocked to read that even a woman as independent and wealthy as Justine Musk learned this:

"Later that same morning I tried to make a purchase* and discovered that he had cut off my credit card, which is when I also knew that he had gone ahead and filed (as it was, E did not tell me directly; he had another person do it)."

More like - ‘I intend to let you know that I am the alpha in this marriage, yet I am not bold enough to tell you to your face that I am filing for divorce.’

My most recent heroine, Elizabeth Gilbert, in her recent book Committed: A Sceptic Makes Peace with Marriage says,

“If you are advising your daughter on her future, and you want her to be a happy adult someday, then you might want to encourage her to finish her schooling, delay marriage for as long as possible, earn her own living, limit the number of children she has, and find a man who doesn't mind cleaning the bathtub. Then your daughter may have a chance at leading a life that is nearly as healthy and wealthy and happy as her future husband's life will be"

There’s a lot to be said about women making their own money.

My Open Prayer-Pettition...

In the spirit of Elizabeth Gilbert’s “Eat, Pray, Love”, I am hereby offering my own personal prayer to God, and one I want to share with you.

When the thought occurred to me a few weeks ago to actually put up this prayer on my blog-site as an open prayer-petition, it seemed like an intuitive thing to do. However, being a fairly private person, I found the act itself more difficult than the thought, and I struggled with this.

This morning, I have decided to by-pass my resistance and do exactly what I thought was a great idea ‘one morning’. Doubtless, you will have your views on it, and that will be exactly what it is – ‘your view’.

As the songwriter will say, ‘this is MY life, and I am living it.’

After many countless years, (far longer than Elizabeth Gilberts), I finally plucked the courage to take steps to end my marriage. The result has been two and a half years of turmoil despite which, I have no regrets whatsoever. In fact, I ask myself now, what took me so long?

All I ask now is divine intervention to finalise this process, which has hitherto been quite elusive.

If you feel anything at all, I ask that you open a comment box and sign yourself to my prayer-petition.

The Divinity within me perceives and honours the Divinity within you!

Namaste 

Dear God,

By this, I pray for your intervention and help to end this divorce.  My ex-husband and I are locked in this protracted, seemingly-interminable divorce, a process which is distressing us, our children, family and friends.

Please help end this conflict, free ALL our souls from the inherent discord, and redirect our energies to what is right and acceptable in your sight.

As the children and I move forward to create the new, beautiful, blissful, and prosperous lives you have purposed for us I pray for restoration, guidance and forgiveness of all our shortcomings IJN.

I pray for strength and wisdom to bring up our children well. Empower them to fully recover from any negative effects of this divorce, and instead, turn things round and continue to make this divorce as much a positive event in their lives as it has been in mine.

Thank you, Lord in advance for answering my prayer.

Amen.

It Is Well...

It Is Well, With My Soul,

Ho­ra­tio G. Spaf­ford, 1873.

  

 

This hymn was writ­ten af­ter two ma­jor trau­mas in Spaf­ford’s life. The first was the great Chi­ca­go Fire of Oc­to­ber 1871, which ru­ined him fi­nan­cial­ly (he had been a weal­thy bus­i­ness­man). Short­ly af­ter, while cross­ing the At­lan­tic, all four of Spaf­ford’s daugh­ters died in a col­li­sion with an­o­ther ship. Spaf­ford’s wife Anna sur­vived and sent him the now fa­mous tel­e­gram, “Saved alone.” Sev­er­al weeks lat­er, as Spaf­ford’s own ship passed near the spot where his daugh­ters died, he was in­spired to write these words.  

 When peace, like a river, attendeth my way,
When sorrows like sea billows roll;
Whatever my lot, Thou has taught me to say,
It is well, it is well, with my soul.

 Refrain

 It is well, with my soul,
It is well, with my soul,
It is well, it is well, with my soul.

 Though Satan should buffet, though trials should come,
Let this blest assurance control,
That Christ has regarded my helpless estate,
And hath shed His own blood for my soul.

 Refrain

 My sin, oh, the bliss of this glorious thought!
My sin, not in part but the whole,
Is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more,
Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul!

 Refrain

 For me, be it Christ, be it Christ hence to live:
If Jordan above me shall roll,
No pang shall be mine, for in death as in life
Thou wilt whisper Thy peace to my soul.

 Refrain

 But, Lord, ‘tis for Thee, for Thy coming we wait,
The sky, not the grave, is our goal;
Oh trump of the angel! Oh voice of the Lord!
Blessèd hope, blessèd rest of my soul!

 Refrain

 And Lord, haste the day when my faith shall be sight,
The clouds be rolled back as a scroll;
The trump shall resound, and the Lord shall descend,
Even so, it is well with my soul.

 Refrain