Nollywood Actress Ijeoma Grace Agu Ends 10-Year Marriage, Chronicles Infidelity in New Memoir
Talented Nollywood actress Ijeoma Grace Agu has ended her 10-year marriage to her husband, Daniel Oriahi, citing infidelity. She details her experience in a new memoir titled “You Can’t Be Here, I Have a Girl In The Room.”
Below is an excerpt from the book where Ijeoma recounts when she first suspected her husband’s infidelity and how she confronted him about it:
**IJEOMA GRACE AGU:**
The journey began on the 23rd of April. To be honest, it began five months in, but that’s another tale.
This day began like any other day. He’d usually call every morning while we went about our morning routine (per my laid down instructions) but B beats him to it. He, B, was calling regarding a decision he was faced with and had wanted my advice. Apparently, he had signed on to do a project but had now received a call for another project coinciding with the earlier project. He was torn between both as one was a critical project and the other, a commercial project. My simple advice was; if you are a person of integrity, you should know what to do, seeing as you signed on to the first project.
We finished the call, and D calls and asked who I had been on the phone with. I went on and explained B’s predicament and D retorts with, “Ah, he should go with the bigger project.” Astounded, I asked, “Doesn’t it matter that he had signed on to the smaller project first? Where is your sense of integrity?” To my amazement, D kept defending his stance. At which point, our kid had joined us, and I asked her directly what she would do if she was in B’s shoes. Without missing a beat, she goes, “He can’t disappoint those people, he already gave his word.” I looked at D and said, “From the mouth of babes,” and promptly cut the call.
Throughout that day, I just couldn’t shake off that feeling and knowledge of the fact that I was married to a man without an atom of integrity. This hollow feeling would go on for weeks and had turned into an existential crisis for me.
For weeks on end, I couldn’t speak to him. We would chat but not speak on video calls like we’d always do. Things got better between us early June, and we resumed speaking via video calls until he came home for my birthday.
There was an unsettling energy when he came home. I couldn’t place my hand on it, but even our lovemaking came up short. I remember commenting on it, and he laughed it off casually. A few days after my birthday, we had a quarrel over ‘nothing’ in the presence of a friend. I would later look back and wonder what actually caused the outburst, and it really was nothing. Although we tried to move past it, the energy between us remained heavy and unsettling. So much so that when he returned to Nigeria late June, our video calls were few, devoid of feeling, and slowly tapered out.
July came, and as we prepared for his birthday, a friend bought a cake on my behalf and delivered it to him. Her video recording of him receiving the cake had him mouthing the infamous words; ‘Abeg, make she dey her dey, make me I dey my dey.’ Those words hung heavy and replayed over and over again in my head. A couple of days later, I’m coming out of my room and felt a stab to my heart, and I staggered and fell but caught the wall instead. My Gorgeous rushes to me and said, “Mama, what’s wrong?” I responded with, “I don’t know, but my heart is broken.” My Gorgeous quietly asked, “Who broke your heart?” I responded with, “I don’t know.” She slowly guided me to the couch, and I lay down for a while. The very next day, I felt the jab at my heart again. This jab would come intermittently over the next couple of days. It was by this time the word cheating floated into my conscious for the very first time in 10 years. At the thought of it, I was filled with shame for having such thoughts, but it persisted. I had begun to journal at this point. I had also started writing a book I had aptly titled; “Let’s Play Back Now Shall We?”
I was scheduled to start filming at the Volta Region by the third week in August. On the day we arrived at the resort where filming was to take place, I took a look at the lovely scenery and broke down in tears. I had just pictured D and my Gorgeous taking in the scenery with me, just like we would do whenever they traveled with me for work, and the feeling was overwhelming. I decided there and then that I would ask him.
I left to sit by the restaurant and promptly called him via video call. It would be the first time we would be talking in over a month. Immediately he picked up, I asked without hesitation, “Are you cheating on me?”
He cut the call on me.
A first in 10 years.
I put in an entry in my journal that day.
