Infertility wreaks silent havoc in marriages, wives resort to infidelity

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Five years was lost. Five years 41-year-old Efosa Ehiosu would never get back in his life.

The discussion about that dark phase of Ehiosu’s life that nearly drove him over the rocks, took place over an internet video chat but there was no doubt that part of his life still hurts him.

Ehiosu, a businessman based in Dublin, Ireland, explained in the chat with our correspondent, how he met his now ex-wife during a visit to Nigeria early in 2008.

He said, “It was not long after I settled in Dublin. I just decided that it would be good if I could settle down and allow my wife to handle my business in Nigeria till she would come and join me here. I came down to Nigeria and I met my wife and we got married almost immediately.

“We had tried to have a child for about two years. Between that 2008, when we did a hurried traditional marriage, and 2010, I was constantly in Nigeria almost every two months to ensure she conceive and also because of my business.

“We tried as much as we could. For more than a year, there was nothing. But she later conceived in late 2010. I am an educated person so I knew some things about conception.

“When she told me, I tried to double-check by calculating the time of our last sexual contact and the number of weeks she said she was pregnant. It correlated and I praised God that I would soon become a father.”

But did he already have a suspicion for him to double-check? Ehiosu said no. According to him, he only did the cross-checking out of excitement and just because he wanted to be sure.

In 2011, Ehiosu’s wife put to bed.

Soon, he travelled back to Nigeria for the pomp and ceremony that came with the christening of his son, spending many weeks afterwards just to be with the newborn baby.

He said even after that, his visits to Nigeria became more frequent.

“My wife is Yoruba while I am Edo. There was no indication that she was getting any ‘action’ behind the scene. She did not come across as a sex-starved young woman, who could not hold herself for a few weeks before my next visit to Nigeria. I took great care of her and the baby and lavished them with gifts,” he said.

His family developed in love. He felt great because he had become a father. Or so he thought.

Fast-forward to 2015, things started heading downhill.

With his baritone voice, which he said was one of the features that his ex-wife fell in love with, Ehiosu said, “I noticed that as the child grew up, I was increasingly becoming a stranger. I called him ‘mummy’s boy’ because anytime I carried him, he was always crying. That was initially. But later, I started becoming concerned because almost every time I held him, he would scream and kick.

“It kept bothering me because it happened every single time. I was forced to ask my mother what could be wrong and she said, ‘Not to worry; the boy would get used to you as he grows’.

“How would I have a son I could not hold? When I had to tell my mother again that the problem still persisted, she sat me down and asked if I was sure I was the father. You can’t imagine how angry I was. She did not exactly support the marriage in the first place. She only grudgingly let go when I told her I was old enough to make my own decisions.”

But the seed of doubt had been sown in Ehiosu’s heart.

He explained that he did not ask his then wife any question nor did he confront her with any question but simply told her that he needed to take his son for a DNA test which the young woman did not argue against.

The DNA test was conducted in Lagos in March 2014.

“My brother, I have heard and read this many times but did not imagine this could happen to me. My son – the boy I loved so much and lavished with gifts, that I could even swear resembled me – was not mine. Do you know how that feels?

“I felt like my wife had crushed my legs with a car and laughed in my face. Betrayal did not even come close to what I felt. I never imagined it in my wildest dream.”

The marriage never survived it.

Ehiosu said all he told the young woman, whom he has now divorced, was to take the child to the rightful owner.

“I don’t think she even knew that the child was not mine. She begged and sent her family to beg me also and they did.

“What I did not understand was why anybody would think I could remain in that marriage? She admitted she was afraid that if she did not give me a child soon then, I would send her packing because we had already been married for almost two years without her getting pregnant. That was why she decided to try it with someone else.”

Ehiosu

While cases such as Ehiosu’s raise numerous questions and sometimes pity, it hits at the heart of the issue in a society where a marriage remains on a shaky foundation so far it has not produced “a fruit” – child.

In many African societies, infertility is still treated like a bad luck, or a situation inflicted by a malevolent force.

Sociologist, Monday Ahibogwu, explained that this age-long notion may have been the reason infertility still threatens the marriages of many Nigerian. He said it does not matter whether the couples concerned are educated or not.

“You must remember that you are a product of your environment. No man can function outside the understanding held by his environment.  No matter how educated people are, what have been ingrained in their mind since birth would remain so long,” he said.

Experts say this archaic understanding of infertility is why many women are forced to have extra-marital affairs to save their marriages.

Ahibogwu said some men, who already know they cannot conceive, may choose to keep quiet about it when their spouses bring an illegitimate child home.

 “From a subjective point of view, what you don’t know cannot kill you. It is like eating a snake or dog meat without knowing. It is when you are told what you are eating that you start feeling terrible,” Ahibogwu said.

Incredibly, geneticist and founder of the DNA Center for Paternity Testing, Lagos, Dr. Abiodun Salami, said his experience in the last 14 years of practice in Nigeria shows that out of every 10 fathers, four are fending for a child that is not their own.

Considering that he said few years ago that about 30 per cent of fathers are not the biological parent of their first born, our correspondent asked if his current data on the paternity issue in the country has reduced but he said it is only becoming higher.

“Now, out of every 20 cases we handle at our centre, eight come out negative. That is, four out of 10 fathers we get are not the father of the child,” he said.

Salami explained that infertility problem on the part of men in Nigeria is one of the main reasons many women are forced to seek extra-marital solution to their problems.

Salami is not alone in this line of thought, another DNA expert in Lagos, Dr Oyinwola Oni, corroborated the statistics that 40 per cent of men do not know they are not the biological fathers of their first child.

With this statistics, one can only assume  there is a generation of illegitimate children out there, many of whom would never know their true fathers.

For people like Ehiosu, one might say luck was on his side because he got to know the truth while the child was still three years old.

Ehiosu, our correspondent learnt, met his current wife, another Nigerian, in Dublin early in 2015. Now, they have a child. The current wife and daughter have now become Ehiosu’s world. If not for them, he said he might not have recovered from the trauma of knowing that a child he had thought was his, biologically belonged to someone else.

“The funny thing about this whole thing is that my current wife became pregnant soon after we met. I believe God has a way of teaching us great lessons and my ex-wife was my own bitter lesson,” he said.

 Marriage crashes and illegitimate children

Obviously, there are many other reasons for infidelity in marriage. But the paternity test experts our correspondent spoke with said, usually, guilty women confide in them that they took the step to save their marriages.

Dr. Salami of the DNA Center for Paternity Testing said usually, such women are able to confide in him when they realise that the secret is out.

Unfortunately many families come out worse in the infertility-infidelity scenario. What happens when the man who feels betrayed is already past the reproductive age?

David Fasanya, a 62-year-old poultry farmer in Akure, Ondo State, could probably have been able to tell the story better.

In July 2015, he dragged his third wife, a 35-year-old woman, before a court in Akure to have their marriage dissolved after he found out the only child she bore him 11 years ago, was not biologically his.

What prompted him to take their son for a DNA test came down to allegations of infidelity.

A member of the family, who told our correspondent that Fasanya died shortly after the marriage was dissolved, explained that Fasanya insisted on the DNA test after he met a man his wife introduced to him at an event.

“She introduced the man as her relation but my uncle said he became very apprehensive when he realised the ‘relation’ bore an uncanny resemblance to their son.

“We all thought he was just being silly when the matter became a problem in the family. He insisted on the DNA and we told him to go and satisfy his curiosity. Nobody knew he could actually be right. And truly the boy was not his. The court eventually separated them before he died.”

Unfortunately, this is one story that becomes a reality for many men.

In July, a 55-year-old engineer, identified as Yusuf, approached an Igando Customary Court in Lagos for the dissolution of his 15-year-old marriage on the premise that his only child with his wife, did not belong to him.

Having tried to have a child for more than 10 years, Yusuf told the court that his wife eventually conceived and had a boy five years ago.

Yusuf said he decided to do a DNA test on their child when he had a disagreement with someone around their house, who abused him by saying he had a bastard in his house.

He told the court that after he took their child for a DNA test and it was indeed confirmed that the child was not his, he learnt that his wife had been “entertaining” a lover on their matrimonial bed for so long that it was common knowledge in their neighbourhood.

The court promptly dissolved the marriage.

Earlier in January, the same case played out at the Ikorodu Customary Court, when the court granted the prayers of a 48-year-old artisan for the dissolution of his marriage.

The Court President, Mrs. Omolara Abiola, separated the couple after the husband presented the report of a DNA test, which confirmed that one of the couple’s two children was not his.

The husband, a resident of Baiyeku, Igbogbo area of Ikorodu, had filed a petition against his wife, Sherifat, citing infidelity.

Cases elsewhere in the world

Recently, a story circulated on social media showing Ugandan businessman displaying the result of a DNA test he conducted on his four children.

The man, Musa Luyomba, was said to have fainted when he realised that none of the four children was his. In fact, he would later learn that they were all fathered by his neighbours.

Just March this year, the head of the Anglican Church, the Archbishop of Canterbury, 60-year-old Justin Welby, discovered after a routine DNA test, that the man he had always known to be his father, was actually not his biological father.

It turned out that he was an illegitimate child of Sir Anthony Browne, an aide of former British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill.

 How bad is male infertility in Nigeria?

Experts say male infertility is the result of low sperm count.  The World Health Organisation says if the number of sperm in the semen (sperm count) is low, the odds of the sperm fertilising the female egg decreases.

According to Nordica Fertility Centre, in as many as 50 per cent of cases, the fault of inability to produce a child lies in the man.

Managing Director, Nordica Fertility Center, Dr. Abayomi Ajayi,  said there seems to be a 30 per cent decline in sperm count of men yearly and this seems to now be a global phenomenon.

According to him, “This is one finding Nordica has verified in Nigerian men too through the quality of people presented 10 years ago and those presented now.”

Also, St Ives Founder, Dr. Tunde Okewale, said an increase in sexually transmitted diseases that are treated poorly on one hand and the fact that many are marrying late on the other hand, are two factors contributing to increasing rate of infertility in Nigeria.

 These things will destroy your fertility

According to the Mayo Clinic, one of the world’s largest medical research groups, the causes of male infertility come under three broad categories; medical causes, environmental factors and lifestyle.

The Mayo Clinic said medical causes of infertility may come from infection or antibodies attacking the sperm. There are many other medical causes like undescended testicles and hormone imbalance.

The following are the other factors that may destroy your fertility:

• Exposure to lead or other heavy metals
• Exposure to radiation or X-rays
• Overheating the testicles through frequent use of saunas or hot tubs
• Sitting for long periods, wearing tight clothing or working on a laptop computer for long stretches of time
• Use of anabolic steroids taken to stimulate muscle strength and growth can cause the testicles to shrink and sperm production to decrease
• Use of cocaine or marijuana may temporarily reduce the number and quality of your sperm as well
• Drinking alcohol can lower testosterone levels, cause erectile dysfunction and decrease sperm production.
• Liver disease caused by excessive drinking also may lead to fertility problems.
• Tobacco smoking
• Emotional stress
• Obesity can impair fertility