Mother: My daughter, my co- wife

It was a normal, busy weekday. I was driving to work and noticed cars parked along the highway. I realised that there was a police crackdown on traffic violators and, to my horror, I suddenly realised that I had forgotten my driving license at home. Luckily, no one stopped me.

When I got to work, I decided to park my car and take a bus home to get my license. I wasn't going to take chances and risk trouble on my way home in the evening.

When I got home, I found the house silent. My husband had said he had a headache and was not going to work. I figured he was in bed, still asleep. My daughter, a university student, had mentioned she didn't have didn't have morning classes so she was probably studying in her bedroom.

I tip-toed upstairs to our room so as not to disturb my sleeping husband. I knew exactly where the license was so I thought I could just grab it and ease the door shut...until I heard noises from the bedroom.

I had never suspected my husband for cheating on me let alone bringing a woman to my house. But what I saw was beyond anyone's imagination; my husband having sex with our daughter!

The sight of my daughter and my husband naked on my very bed sickened me. I still get nauseated at the sheer thought of the spectacle. It was more ugly than shocking.

Momentarily, I thought I had gone mad. I opened my mouth to scream but nothing came out.

Then my daughter shamelessly retorted: "Mum, why are you surprised? I thought you knew it all along!" And to rub it in, my husband confirmed that what they were doing was no mistake. "The only mistake we've made is using your bed," my husband arrogantly said. Only the previous night, he and I were very intimate on the same bed. What a betrayal!

Their retorts brought me back to my senses and I walked out. I later told my in-laws and the village elders what I had seen and all of us were summoned. My husband can win an Oscar; he denied everything saying that he was very concerned I was losing my mind. I was shocked when he and my in-laws suggested I should get psychiatric help. I knew they had beaten me and I got into serious depression.

I kicked my husband out of our bedroom and as expected he ran into his 'lovers' arms. My two sons kept aloof and never encouraged any discussion about what was happening. Maybe they too blame me for their sister's insanity though their distant relationship never changed.

Thoughts of pain and regret started creeping through my mind. I had severally been warned by concerned women who had seen them together that the two were overly involved. I often told-off the women justifying the closeness with the obvious fact that it is psychologically proven that daughters love their fathers more than their mothers.

When my daughter grew older and became a pretty young woman, I got suspicious but I severally rebuked myself for even imagining that my daughter and her father would ever have a sexual relationship. From when she was a tiny baby she would sit on his lap and lay her head on his chest and he would kiss her cheeks. What reason did I have to thwart the beautiful relationship between father and daughter?

I recall a day when one of my friends called me to inform me that she had seen my daughter and her father kissing passionately. I scolded the woman for having such immoral thoughts and firmly defended my family. My husband is a prominent business man and my family was steadfastly crocheted together hence I wouldn't be the one to expose it to public shame. Besides, even if it were true, everyone would blame me for being poor in parenting or worse still, no one would believe me. Had I listened, I would have cautioned my daughter early enough or separated them at some point but I worried what the two would have thought of me had it turned out to be just an innocent father-daughter relationship.

The relationship between me and my daughter was average; we had good and bad times and I was firm but loving whenever she did a mistake. But every time I corrected her, the father would reprimand me in her presence. This made her very disrespectful and even when I invited our local pastor to speak to her, she accused me of being unfair to her declaring that the only true friend she had was her father.

She was very distant to her brothers and had no girlfriends. When she was in high school, I questioned who her girlfriends were but she was categorical that she enjoyed her own company. I admit I may have given up on her too soon because I chose to ignore her and to continue bringing up my sons who had teachable spirits. I comforted myself that getting solace from her own father was safe instead of getting it from outside.

My two sons kept aloof and never encouraged any discussion about what was happening. Maybe they too blame me for their sister's insanity though their distant relationship never changed.

I went to see a psychological counselor as a last resort but he advised me to file a divorce. I have invested so much into that marriage that I can't stand losing all the estates I have laboured for. I chose to stay and ignore everything.

I do all a wife is supposed to do apart from sharing my bed with my husband or choosing his wardrobe. That's within my 'co-wife's' docket. It's been over three years since they moved in. Our sons have gone their different ways to pursue their careers. I am so lonely in that house but I can't move out neither can I share my ordeal with anyone. I blame myself so much for being a poor mother but now, as it were, it's too late. I must learn to accept my daughter as my co-wife.

I am a mother and a once happy wife. Not anymore; today I am a bitter woman; full of regrets and nursing pangs of resentment against my daughter. She is a girl I nursed as a baby and nurtured into adulthood. I never withheld an iota of love from her yet she mercilessly took my husband and abused my matrimonial bed. It would have been less painful, if my co-wife were not my very own daughter.