I wasn’t feeling well, so that weekend I couldn’t go to his house to do chores. He drove to my place and dropped his laundry off and said his laundry hadn’t been done for weeks. Yes, I hadn’t done it for two weeks, because I hadn’t been feeling well. He dropped money for detergent and told me he would come for them in the evening.
FOLLOW US ON WHATSAPP CHANNEL TO RECEIVE ALL STORIES IN YOUR INBOX
I was washing a shirt when I felt like I was washing more than just the shirt. “Money?” I asked myself. Slowly, I took it out, and it was a piece of A4 paper folded into six parts.
I carefully opened it so I wouldn’t destroy the paper. I started reading and suddenly felt the urge to sit down. I threw myself on the floor with my mouth open. “No, this can’t belong to him. Whaaat!”
When he got a job in Accra and didn’t have a place to sleep, I shared my room with him. It was just a single-bedroom apartment that I could barely fit in, but I squeezed myself for him to have a place to stay for almost a year. Because of him, my landlord wanted to eject me. When he couldn’t do it directly, he increased my rent just to push me out of the house.
He stayed with me for close to a year before getting his own place, but he didn’t pay utilities for a single month. He didn’t pay for what he ate or even give me any allowance for the things I was doing for him. He said he didn’t have money. He had come to Accra to start all over again, so I should be patient.
Whenever he talked about marriage, he said he would be the luckiest person ever because he was the one who got me. I won’t lie, he treated me very well, which is why I could do everything for him without complaining. When he finally got his place, I was the one who went there to clean it up and helped arrange the place. The landlord asked him, “Is she your wife?” He answered without any hesitation, “We are not married yet, but very soon we will be married.”
What I found in his pocket that day was a dowry list. I sat shaking. I read it over and over again, trying to see if I could find something that said the list belonged to him. I didn’t find any.
I didn’t ask any questions or act in a way that showed I had seen something. Weeks later, he called and asked in a sober voice, “Did you see any paper in my pocket while washing my clothes?” I asked, “Paper? What paper is that?” He answered, “No problem. I will look for it.”
He walked like a guilty man and talked with a voice that had lost its grace. He knew I knew something but wasn’t talking about it. One day, he told me he was traveling to his hometown, where he used to live before he got a job in Accra. His parents lived there. He said he was going to visit them. I told him, “I would like to go with you. Don’t you think it’s about time you introduced me to your parents?
He said no. “Not this one. Let me go and come back so we go the next time.”
While he slept that night, I picked up his phone and went through it—something I had sworn never to do in my love life. The lady was called Edith, but he had saved the number as “Eddie.” I shook my head in disbelief. I had seen calls from that number several times. I didn’t ask questions, and he didn’t explain, even when the number called at night while we were sleeping.
I woke him up, shaking with disappointment and fear of losing him. “Who’s Eddie? You’re doing all this with me while you have Eddie in the picture? What did I do wrong not to deserve to be your wife? Tell me.”
The night was calm and serene, so every little noise you made traveled far and wide. He tried to shush me, telling me to lower my voice. I screamed louder so the night could be a witness to what was going on. “Tell me! What did I do wrong?”
He said they were young when his parents and the lady’s parents entered into an agreement that their children were going to marry each other. “It was a family decision made when we were young,” he said. “I thought it was a joke until they told me I had no choice but to marry her.”
I screamed, “Liar!” He said, “You can speak to my mom and ask her about it.” I said calmly, “Great, exactly what I want to hear. Put your mom on the phone. She’s a woman. I want to ask what she would do if she were in my situation.”
For several minutes, he held his phone tightly without going through to find his mom’s number. I locked us inside the room and hid the keys. “You are not going anywhere until you let me talk to your mom.”
He slept while I sat in the chair, brooding over the death of the future I thought I had. Morning passed us by. He asked where I had placed the keys. I asked if it was time to talk to his mom. Afternoon passed us by; he was getting aggressive. I said, “You’ve killed me once. Do it again and finish me totally.” Evening came. He said I was killing him with hunger and that he was going to break the door. I said, “Eat your lies. It’s enough to feed you for ages.”
He started getting aggressive with me, but I had lost my fear of him. I didn’t care what he would do. I wished he could even hurt me so I could make a police case against him. I had nothing, and I wanted him to have nothing too. All day, his phone kept ringing. Eddie called. Others called. He switched off the phone.
In the evening, he started hitting the door, asking those outside to help break the lock. While he begged them to help, I also said I had the keys, so they shouldn’t bother. It was the landlord who eventually coerced me to open the door. I told him the whole story, and he asked, “Ah, how can you treat a woman like this? Do you want to kill her?”
I retorted, while in tears, “Daddy, I’m already dead. I can’t feel my heart, my body, everything. I’m not alive.”
Contents
What Nobody Tells You About Divorce
He asked me to let it go and said that God might have something greater for me. It was hard, but I walked out of that house and never turned back. The landlord didn’t lie. It took less than two years for God to restore everything I had lost. I got married just two years after he had gotten married to ‘Eddie.’
My first child is seven years old today, but guess what? They are still looking for their first child. I’m not happy or sad about it, but it’s part of my story, and I had to tell it.
—Joy
This story you just read was sent to us by someone just like you. We know you have a story too. Email it to us at [email protected]. You can also drop your number and we will call you so you tell us your story.
******