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One of our blog readers sent us this story, although she wishes to remain anonymous, she hopes other women can learn from her experience.
The Story you are about to read is about love, ultimate betrayal and man's inhumanity to man.
If you want us to publish your story, you can send us a message, tell us what you or a loved one have gone through in the journey of life. We will write it as a story and publish it on our "STB-Inspirational Stories" we will NOT include your name.
Elizabeth (not real name) from Lagos State (changed) got to Austria in 1997, she was young and naive, but old enough to know what she wanted.
She was focused and hardworking, engaging in various jobs to support her family back home in Nigeria.
Life was good, she had relocated her parents from the two-room, "face me i face you" apartment, which is often referred to as passage house, in some parts of Nigeria, to a bungalow which she built somewhere in the city.
Her mother stopped selling Garri (fried crushed cassava) and frying Akara; a local Nigerian delicacy made from crushed black eyed pea, started selling groceries in a little shop she cut out of the fence in her 6 bedroom detached flat.
For over 15 years, her mother would fry Akara during the day, with a basin on her head, sell Garri by sun down. This was the trade she used to cater for her 5 children, till Elizabeth was able to find her way to a foreign land, in search of greener pastures.
She also sold water for members of the community, they were the only family who could afford to sink a borehole in the area.
In 2001, Elizabeth had completed her second building, for her, it was time to settle down and raise a family.
She lived in the city of Graz, Austria, but had a friend in Vienna, who invited her for a Christmas party. It was there she met Mr Iyuromo, who later became her husband.
Things kicked off very fast between them, they showered each other with gifts. Iyuromo was quiet older than her, he had some children back home in Nigeria and have lived in Austria longer than Elizabeth.
Few months after meeting Iyuromo, the pair got married, Liz moved to Vienna to live with her husband.
The couple had documents which permitted each of them to live and work in Europe, the marriage was not that of convenience, but based on love.
Within the span of 5 years, Liz had delivered 3 children; two girls and a boy. What she had was a happy home. A loving husband, good job and beautiful children.
Her husband worked multiple jobs, a newspaper vendor; he would deliver the dailies around the City of Vienna, on a bicycle, in the early hours of the day, while working with a company that installs billboard.
Liz was a caregiver, she also handled a highly profitable private business.
The cookie however began to crumble, when her first daughter who was less than 12 years old was caught shoplifting. What started as a shock became a norm.
Cinderella (not real name ) was caught on several occasions, stealing cigarette from an off license shop.
That was when her husband decided to relocate his family to Nigeria. Cinderella and her siblings would attend high school in Nigeria, be disciplined till it's time for college .
She taught it was a great idea, she wanted the best for her children. An idea that would later turn out to be her worst nightmare.
The couple began to save towards their planned trip, they worked twice as hard than they normally would.
Elizabeth was to deal in textile, while her husband would oversee their trucking business.
October 2014, the couple had sold their home in Vienna, purchased 6 trailer heads /buckets, shipped to Nigeria.
According to Liz, the house which was sold was hers, she paid the mortgage, her husband never contributed a dime towards acquiring the apartment.
By December of that same year, the family had arrived Lagos and was clearing the remaining truck which their agent left in the Apapa wharf, Lagos.
Before Christmas the following year, Liz had open a shop at Balogun Ultramodern Market, Lagos, where she sold fabrics in wholesale.
Her shop was super large, with assorted expensive laces, Hollandaise, Akosombo, Ankara, name it...
According to Elizabeth, her shop was counted among the biggest at the shopping complex.
Some retailers who deal on textile materials in the same market usually made purchase from her.
She got a Mercedes Benz, while her husband drove an SUV, these were purchased weeks preceding their arrival in Nigeria.
The kids were registered in one of the private schools on the Island, with combined tuition running into hundreds of thousands of Naira, per term.
Her sales girl usually did the school run. Although her husband drops the children at school, it was her staff who usually picked them up after school hours.
Her Husband suddenly sold two of the trucks barely 2 years of arriving in Nigeria, he couldn't account for the money, nor give a tangible explanation to how the funds were spent. He casually said "I wan use am take start another business".
Liz said, she never knew the truck was sold, till it was the time of the month when the driver usually balances an agreed amount. When the drivers of both trucks didn't show up, she was scared something might have wrong, the drivers may have stolen the trailers.
She told her husband she was going to arrest the guarantor who introduced the truck driver to them.
It was at that time he confessed to have sold the trucks, months earlier.
She was angry, she owned about 90% of the money used to purchase the trucks. After keeping malice with her husband for a few days, they reconciled.
Unknown to her, he was already having an affair with the prophetess of their church.
As a wife who wanted her marriage to work, she kept to herself everything that was going on, never sharing it with friends or family members.
Gradually, unexplainable amount began to drain from the account they both share, huge withdrawals were made regularly without her husband informing her where the funds were being channeled.
Her business was crumbling, she had no money to stock her shop, she was spending both profit and capital to run the home, her husband never dropped feeding allowances.
By this time, words of her husband's infidelity began to filter into her ears from members of her church parish, that her husband was having a highly publicised relationship with the prophetess. It seemed everyone else knew, but her!
Before year 2017 christmas celebration, Iyuromo sold the remaining truck and moved into the prophetess' apartment.
"He has not come home or visited his children since he moved out of the house"
Now he has abandoned his wife and children, nothing is left in the joint bank account.
Liz can barely feed the family, she intends to withdraw the kids from their current school to a much cheaper school before the next academic term. There after she plans to file for legal separation and move on with her life.
She keeps lamenting, looking back, thinking of what she might have done wrong, or what she could have done differently to avoid her present situation.
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