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Keeping up with Ijay My daily activities and Relationship matters

06/06/2026

Someone from my village sent me a message last year. 'Emeka is looking for you. He says he wants to apologise.' Here is what I replied.
The message came from a cousin I hadn't spoken to in a while. She said Emeka had reached out, asking if anyone knew how to contact me. He wanted to apologise, she said. He felt remorse. He wanted me to know.

I sat with the message for two days before I replied.

Not because I was deciding whether to go back to him — I want to be clear: that thought existed nowhere in my mind. Not because I was angry and needed time to calm down. I was not particularly angry anymore. Anger is a fire and fires need fuel, and I had stopped feeding that one.

I sat with it because I was deciding what, if anything, I owed this moment.

Here is what I replied to my cousin:

"Tell him I received the message. Tell him I hope he finds peace. Tell him I have already found mine."

That is all.

I did not say I forgave him — not because I am unwilling to forgive, but because forgiveness is something I do for myself, quietly, on my own terms, as part of my own healing. It is not a gift I give to someone who harmed me. It is a weight I set down so I can move freely. Whether he is forgiven or not is between him and his own conscience.

I did not say I wished him harm. I don't.

I said: I have found mine.

Because that is the truest and most powerful thing I could say. I have found my peace. I have found my life. I am here.

He is there.

And there is nothing more to say.

Some things are not resolved by a conversation or an apology. They are resolved by the quality and fullness of the life you build after them. By every morning you wake up and choose your life again. By every evening you sit in your kitchen with your family and think: yes. This. This is what I was fighting for.

That is my resolution. It is enough.

🕊️ "I have found mine." That's all anyone needs to say. SHARE this post — especially for anyone stuck on whether they need the apology to heal. LIKE it. COMMENT: do you believe you need an apology from someone who hurt you to fully heal? Be honest. This is a safe space.

06/06/2026

People always ask me: what happened to him? Today I'm going to tell you. And then I'm going to tell you why I don't think about him anymore.
Yes, people ask.

It is one of the most common questions when a story like mine circulates — what happened to the man? Where is he? Did he suffer? Did he face any consequences?

I understand the question. There is something in us that needs the scales to balance. Something that asks whether justice is real if it doesn't come with visible, tangible consequences for the person who caused the harm.

So I will tell you.

Emeka was deported from Italy. The legal proceedings did not stop at the divorce — they continued into the labour exploitation case, and the findings were serious enough that his right to remain in Italy was revoked. He left under official order.

He went back to Nigeria with nothing but the house he had built in the village. Everything he had accumulated through years of other people's wages and desperate arrangements — the car, the lifestyle, the status of a man who "made it in Italy" — gone. The account that had held my salary for five years was scrutinised and found to contain earnings that were not his. That process continued after he left.

He is in Nigeria now. I have heard — through the village network that always seems to know everything — that he is struggling. That the story of why he returned has spread in the way village stories spread, which is quickly and with embellishment but also, in this case, substantial truth.

He is known now, at home, for what he is.

I do not take pleasure in that. That is not something I say to seem noble — I genuinely do not. I have no energy left for him. He is a chapter in a book I have set down. I am on to other things.

But if you are asking whether he faced consequences: yes. He did.

The truth, when it finally moves, moves efficiently.

⚖️ The truth moved. SHARE this post if you believe in justice — even when it's delayed. LIKE it. COMMENT: do you think it's important for abusers to face consequences, or is the survivor's freedom enough? This is a real conversation. Let's have it.

05/06/2026

This is the post I wish someone had written for me. So I'm writing it for you. Read it when you're ready. You can always come back to it.
To the woman reading this at midnight:

You found this post for a reason. Maybe someone shared it and you clicked without knowing why. Maybe you've been following this story from the beginning and tonight you recognised yourself in Ada more than you expected to.

Whatever brought you here — you're here. And I'm going to talk to you directly.

What is happening to you is not normal. I say this not to alarm you but because sometimes, when something has been happening for long enough, the abnormal starts to feel like baseline. Your body adapts to the weight and forgets what it felt like before. So let me say it plainly: what is being done to you — the control, the isolation, the fear, the erasure of your own will — is not what love looks like. It is not what partnership looks like. And it is not what you deserve.

You are not crazy. Your instincts are not wrong. The thing that whispers to you at night that something is deeply wrong — it is not paranoia. It is intelligence.

You are not alone. The woman who told this story — Ada — she was exactly where you are. She had nothing: no money, no language, no allies, no idea how to get out. And she got out. Not perfectly, not quickly, not without fear. But she got out.

And the other side exists.

I want you to know that. Above everything else — the tips, the resources, the five things to know, all of it — I want you to know that the other side exists.

There is a version of your life where you are safe. Where you sleep without fear. Where your money is yours. Where your body is yours. Where the decisions about your own life belong to you.

That version is real. It is waiting.

You are not too far gone. You are not too ruined. You are not too stupid or too naive or too entangled.

You are someone who survived. And survival is where everything else begins.

I'll be here. Drop a 💙 so I know you read this. I'll see every single one.

💙 Drop a 💙 if you read this. That's all. SHARE this post — especially tonight, especially widely. It will find the people who need it. LIKE it. And if there is any way I can help someone in the comments — let me know. Keeping Up With Ijay is a community. Let's act like one.

05/06/2026

Here is what nobody tells you about leaving: the logistics are harder than the decision. So let me walk you through it, practically, step by step.
Deciding to leave is one thing. Leaving is another. The gap between those two is where many women stay trapped for years — not because they don't want to go, but because the practical barriers feel insurmountable.

Let me try to address them.

IF YOU ARE IN A FOREIGN COUNTRY:

Contact your country's embassy. They have consular services for citizens in distress. You do not have to disclose everything at once. You can say you are a citizen in need of assistance and request information about your options.

Search for migrant women's organisations in your city. In Italy, they exist. In the UK, Germany, France, the United States — they exist everywhere that migration exists. Many offer free legal advice, shelter, and support with documentation. Search in private browsing so there is no record on shared devices.

If you signed documents you didn't understand, those documents are not necessarily binding. Coerced signatures — especially across a language barrier — are often legally contestable. A pro bono lawyer who specialises in immigration and family law can assess this.

IF YOUR SALARY GOES TO SOMEONE ELSE:

This is exploitation and it is illegal in most countries. An employment attorney or labour organisation can advise you on how to redirect your earnings to your own account. Your employer is legally required to pay you, and if someone else has fraudulently registered to receive your wages, this is recoverable.

IF YOU HAVE NO MONEY:

Women's shelters and support organisations often provide housing, food, and emergency funds specifically for this situation. You do not need money to access initial help. That is what these organisations are for.

The first step is always the hardest. It does not have to be the biggest step. It just has to be the first one.

You are already thinking about it. That means you are already moving.

📞 SHARE this post with every resource you can find. Someone is reading this on a phone in a bathroom right now and this is the information they need. LIKE it. COMMENT: add any resource or organisation in your country that helps women in these situations. Let's build a comment section full of help.

05/06/2026

This post is not for the people who have gotten out. This one is for the women who are still inside — still in the situation, still afraid, still pretending everything is fine.
I see you.

Not the you that you show people at work, at church, at family gatherings — the you that smiles and says "everything is fine, thank God" because it is easier and safer than the truth.

The real you. The one who lies awake at night running calculations. Who rehearses exit scenarios in her head and then talks herself out of them. Who has started to believe the story her abuser tells about her — that she is too stupid, too dependent, too nowhere to survive without him.

I was you.

I want to tell you something that took me years and one very good friend to understand: you are not trapped because you are weak. You are trapped because someone who was planning this long before you arrived has engineered a situation to make you feel there is no exit. That is not your failure. That is their design.

And their design, however carefully constructed, has holes. Every cage does.

Here is what I want you to do — not today if you can't, not all of it at once, but when you can:

Find one person you trust. One. Not many — just one. Tell them something true. Even small. Open the door just a crack and see what the air feels like on the other side of it.

Start learning your rights in the country you are in. Quietly, on your phone, in the bathroom if you have to. There are organisations in almost every country that exist specifically for women in situations like yours. They are not there to judge you or rush you. They are there to give you information, which is a form of power.

And document what is happening. A note app on your phone with a password. Screenshots. Dates. Even fragments. You may not know yet what you need it for. Keep it anyway.

I am not going to tell you it will be easy. I will not lie to you.

But I will tell you that I stood exactly where you are standing. And I am here. And my life — this real, mine, full, safe life — it is possible.

Your life is possible.

🙏 If you know someone who is still inside, send them this post. Just send it. You don't have to explain. They will understand. SHARE widely. LIKE it. And if you are that person — drop a 💙 in the comments so I know you're here. You don't have to say anything else. Just let me know.

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