If you are in town today and you happen to see a young man somewhere around Accra or Circle carrying a cute lady’s handbag while walking alone, please mind your business. That is my husband.
The same husband who wore my bag proudly just because he misses me. He is one of the few people who makes marriage look soft, safe, and beautiful. Today, I just want to celebrate him.
My husband and I are in a long-distance marriage.
We had been married for less than a month when I packed my bags and left the country. Sometimes I still think about how strange that sounds. One minute, we were learning how to be husband and wife in the same space. The next, we were learning how to love each other through phone screens and unstable networks.
Living here still feels unreal some days. I am learning a completely new language now, one with unfamiliar characters and confusing sentence structures. There are moments I stand staring at signs like a lost child. Simple things that should take minutes end up taking forever because I am still trying to understand how everything works.
But somehow, through all of this, my husband has made the distance feel lighter.
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I sent in my applications while we were still dating. Around the same time my interview email came, my laptop had already broken down completely. I was stressed all the time. My heart was constantly racing over whether I would even get accepted. At the time, I was teaching during the week and helping my mother at her shop on weekends. The shop was always busy, and once interview preparations started, I kept complaining about how I was never going to get enough time to study.
That weekend, he came to my mother’s shop.
He greeted my mother, walked inside, and immediately started helping like he belonged there. He attended to customers, carried things around, and kept asking my mother questions whenever he got confused. After some time, he looked at me and said, “Go and study for your interview.”
The next day was my interview, and he came again.
This time, he brought his laptop. He sat with me for hours, helping me prepare, checking documents, making sure everything was complete. He carried the whole thing on his head like it was his own future on the line.
To be honest, he found out I had been accepted before I did. I was at work when he called me. I still remember how his voice sounded. He was so excited he could barely stay calm while telling me I had been selected.
And the thing is, he knew accepting that opportunity meant I would be leaving for years. Still, he never became a stumbling block between me and my dreams.
When we got married, I only had a few days left before leaving the country, and there was still so much to do.
I used to wake up early to avoid traffic, and by the time I returned from the bathroom, breakfast was already waiting for me. In the evenings, I would come home exhausted and late, and dinner would still be there, warm, waiting patiently for me.
We spent most of those days on calls together while going about our separate routines. Sometimes we talked nonstop. Other times, we just stayed on the phone quietly while each of us handled our day. One night, I had gone to my parents’ house and stayed till late. He insisted on staying on the call with me the entire journey home. From the moment I left their place, entered a vehicle, and got down at my stop, he stayed on the phone.
And when I finally arrived, he was already standing there waiting for me at the bus stop.
Three days before I left the country, we stayed up talking late into the night. In the middle of the conversation, he suddenly started crying. Not the kind of crying people try to hide. He cried openly, like a child, and immediately I started crying too. We held each other tightly and eventually fell asleep like that.
Sometimes I think that night never really ended.
The sadness simply stretched itself across countries and time zones. Even now, there are nights I cry quietly in my room because loneliness in a foreign country hits differently. Some days, I miss home so badly it physically hurts. But somehow, we keep carrying this marriage together.
We talk every day. Morning calls. Midnight calls. Random updates. Video calls while cooking. Silent calls when one of us is too tired to talk but still wants the other person there.
We have learned how to love each other through screens.
And honestly, he has always been this way. Even when we were dating, he pampered me constantly. I was not allowed to cook or wash dishes at his place. Anytime I tried helping after meals, he would push me away from the sink and insist on doing everything himself.
Sometimes, he visits my parents just because he wants to spend time with them or help around the house. Till today, he still does it. Some weekends, he stays with them and only leaves after church on Sunday, almost like I am still around.
That is just who he is.
As I am writing this, it is Saturday, and he is at my parents’ house again. Earlier today, we were on a video call with some friends when he carried one of my handbags and jokingly said, “This is what you left behind for me.”
Then he actually wore the bag and announced to my mother that he was going to town with it. I could hear my mother laughing loudly in the background while he walked around seriously with my bag hanging on his shoulder.
And I just sat there staring at my phone screen, smiling like an idiot because I missed him so much.Sometimes I tell him how grateful I am to have a man who allows me to grow freely, even if it means I may someday achieve more than him.
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And every single time, his response is the same. He says he does not understand why a man would stop his wife from shining.
He says if marriage ever fails, a woman should not lose both the marriage and the opportunities she gave up because of it. According to him, no promise should cost someone their future. Honestly, I wish more people thought that way.
And recently, something beautiful happened for him too. A huge door opened in his own life, and now we keep joking that one day we will stand in church together and give a testimony. I am genuinely proud of him. Proud of the man he is. Proud of the way he loves me. Proud that even with all this distance between us, he still somehow feels close.
God truly came through for both of us.
—Patt
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