He had a call while seated next to me.He said, “I’m not doing it intentionally. If I had the money, I would have paid you long ago.” It turned into an exchange of words. My boyfriend sounded apologetic. When I finally walked in, I asked, “Do you owe him money?” He looked up at me while seated. “Were you listening to our conversation?” he asked. I told him I wasn’t, but the conversation itself made me listen to what was going on.
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He finally admitted that he owed the guy money. He had taken a loan for a project that failed, and since then he hadn’t known peace. I’m the management kind of person. I can even manage death, slowing it down until it finally comes for you. I told him I would help him pay, but he should also commit to paying off the loan within a certain period.
He mentioned how much he could pay monthly. I told him I would collect the money and pay it on his behalf. We had a conversation with the guy and agreed on new terms of payment. Whenever he gave me GHC1,000 to pay to the guy, I added GHC1,000 of my own. Whatever amount he gave me, I doubled it and sent it to the guy. Within just three months, we had finished paying off the loan.
He was grateful. He thanked me at every given opportunity and blessed the day he found me. He said if God had brought me his way earlier, his life would have been much better.
I believed in his love for me and how intentional he was about me, about us, and about our relationship. He was a young man trying to make something out of his life, and you could see the effort. Apart from his 9-to-5 job, he always tried to do something new that would earn him money. He failed often, but I loved his effort.
It got to a point where I realized he had changed the route to his house. I would be going home with him, and he would take the long, meandering route instead of the usual short one. At first, he told me it was just for the experience, and then later he told me there was a woman he was trying to avoid because she always asked him for money.
One evening, when I was walking home from his house this woman called me. She owns a big grocery shop along the way to my boyfriend’s house. My boyfriend had bought items from her long ago and was refusing to pay. The woman knew me because I’d shopped there with him several times.
She said, “Tell him he can’t run forever, but when I finally see him, it will turn into an embarrassing situation.”
I called him right in front of the woman. I said I was with her. Then he dropped the call. He owed her GHC800. I told the woman to give us time to pay.
The woman found him late at night at the house, and as she had said, she embarrassed him in front of the other tenants, not once, but twice. So when nothing was coming from his end, I ended up paying the woman off so she would leave my boyfriend alone.
He has a problem with his ex-girlfriend, the one he left to be with me. Right before our relationship started, he told me about her and painted her as a crazy ex who couldn’t move on and was stalking his life. This lady would call him, and he would show me the call and say, “See that crazy girl. She’s calling me.”
One day, he picked up the call in front of me, and it turned into hot chaos between them. The phone wasn’t on loudspeaker, but I could hear the girl shouting about something. When he ended the call, he turned to me and said, “You see why I’m avoiding her? She never comes in peace but always wants to cut me to pieces.”
I spent the night with him, and late at midnight, we heard someone knocking at the door. He asked me to ignore it. “It could be one of the neighbors,” he said. I asked, “What if they need your help?” He answered, “At this time? Just sleep.”
The knocking got louder and louder, followed by a shrill female voice calling out his name, telling him to come and open the door or she would break it down. He whispered, “Bernice.”
I asked, “Your ex? What is she doing here at this time?”
He answered, “What else? Isn’t she a witch? Don’t mind her.”
The noise was too much to ignore. He opened the door, and she barged in shouting, “Where’s my money? You don’t pick up my calls. You’re never home. You think I can’t find you?”
He was trying to restrain her, but she barged into the bedroom and found me lying in bed.
“Oh, you have a woman in your bed? That’s why you don’t want to pay?”
She started narrating to me how he came to owe her GHC6,500 and all the trouble he had put her through. She said, “He got me pregnant and took a loan from me for the abortion. He hasn’t paid me back till now. He couldn’t even buy me a single aftercare medicine. Sister, you don’t have a man.”
She took his wallet, removed the money inside, counted it, and said, “GHC450. You now owe me GHC6,100.” Then she stormed out.
I couldn’t sleep again. “How come he owes everybody? How does he do it?”
Currently, he’s asking me to help him pay this loan just as I did the first one, and he has promised never to owe anyone again. I’m not even thinking about what he owes but rather what his ex told me. They dated for four years. I’ve dated him for less than a year. If I’m wise, I should listen to the one who has experienced it before. The abortion part made me shiver.
I Called My Girlfriend And Another Man Answered The Phone
A spark has been lost, and I don’t know how I’m going to restore it.The best thing for me is to learn from the past and walk away. Otherwise, one day you’ll ask me, “Didn’t you see the red flags while you were dating?” But on the other hand, a voice tells me I’m different, so my story could be different. He hasn’t done any of what his ex narrated to me. Isn’t that enough of a sign that my story will be different?
—Janice
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