The sun was already high in the Lagos sky when Emeka adjusted his tie and closed the door of his black Toyota Camry. The city buzzed with life—hawkers shouting, cars honking, people weaving through traffic as though there were no laws. But inside Emeka, it was all silence. There was no buzz. No spark. Just the heaviness of performance.
He had become an actor. Every smile was rehearsed, every gesture calculated. He wore his masculinity like armor—polished, thick, and suffocating. To the world, Emeka was the perfect man: a successful banker, a father of two, and the husband of a beautiful, eloquent woman. But behind closed doors, he was a prisoner to expectations that crushed his spirit.
His wife, Ijeoma, was everything society celebrated: articulate, attractive, accomplished. But behind her charming exterior was a woman who knew how to wound with words and freeze a man with silence. Emeka never imagined that emotional abuse could be so insidious, so difficult to explain. After all, who would believe him? A man—abused?
He remembered the night he cried for the first time in years. He had come home late from a stressful day, only to be met with accusations. "Where have you been?" Ijeoma asked. Not with worry, but suspicion. "You men are all the same. Maybe I should stop wasting my beauty on you."
That night, as he curled on the edge of the bed, tears slipped silently down his cheeks. He wept into the pillow, muffling the sound so his children wouldn't hear. But even in that moment, a part of him felt ashamed. Men don't cry. Men don't break. Men endure.