We went to a programme, and out of nowhere, this lady rushed to my husband, opened her arms, and hugged him so tightly for close to a minute. I was bewildered, especially by my husband’s willingness to engage in such a sacrilegious act right in front of me and our five-year-old daughter.
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I didn’t talk to him again throughout the programme. He saw my demeanour and tried to explain, but I didn’t give him a hearing. I was quiet. I was thinking. It felt like a national embarrassment for my husband to do that right in front of me.
When we got home, I burst out. “What was that for? Must you tell the world you’re sleeping with another woman right before my eyes? She didn’t want to let go, and you encouraged her.”
“I’m not sleeping with anyone. It was just a hug. Why are you exaggerating a simple hug?”
The fact that he didn’t acknowledge my feelings and sought to play it down made me angrier. I searched through his phone that night. I didn’t know that lady’s name, her story, or her connection with my husband, but I knew there was something going on that I could find on his phone.
I spent the whole night searching for information. I typed “Sex.” Nothing came up. I typed “Kiss.” Nothing came up. I typed “Hug.” Nothing came up. I whispered, “Silly man. He’s deleted the messages.”
I searched his bag and searched his clothes. I smelled his shirt and looked through the fabric just to see if I could find a woman’s hair somewhere. Nothing.
But I wouldn’t give up that easily. When he closed from work and didn’t come home early, he came to meet a tiger and an interrogator in the house. At some point, I even began to stalk him. For over three months, our marriage was never the same again. I was bitter and catching cold from the ice inside me while this man walked around as if he didn’t notice me.
At dawn, after tossing and turning all night, I began asking myself honest questions.
“Who initiated the hug?”
“The lady,” I answered.
“What’s making me angry? Is it the hug or the fact that it was a lady?”
“Both,” I answered myself.
“But what if it was just a hug?”
My husband had never hugged me since we got married. The only hugs we shared were when the two of us were intertwined during intimacy. But a normal hug? Naaa.
So the next day, when he came home from work and I was there, I opened my arms for a hug. He looked at me, surprised and unsure of what to do, but he fell into it, and I squeezed him while he rubbed my back. When we disengaged and he was leaving, he looked back, wanting to be sure of what was going on. I only smiled, and he shook his head and left.
During mealtime, I explained every emotion I’d been through since he hugged that lady so intimately. I apologised for going to the extreme and told him that the hug I gave him was me welcoming him to being normal again. “No more bitterness. I’ve let it go.”
He asked, “So you won’t go through my phone again or suspect I’m doing anything untoward?”
I shook my head. I knew he knew I had been going through his phone because one night he woke up, and I quickly hid the phone and pretended to be sleeping, but I knew he saw me.
We made peace that night, and all the intimacy I’d been withholding from him for the last three or more months happened that night. It was special. It felt like something was pouring out of me. I don’t know what it was, but I concluded it was all the bitterness finding its way out of my body.
I’ve never stopped hugging him. It has even become a rule in our house. We don’t pass each other without a hug, no matter who is coming from outside. If he’s the one coming in, I will hug him. If I’m the one coming in, he opens his arms to meet me.
Because of this ceaseless hugging, when we fight and don’t talk to each other, we are very sure that before the day ends, we will hug because someone will definitely go out and come back in. Yes, it was very difficult for me when that lady hugged my husband, but it taught me a lot about myself.
That I can be very insecure and go into overdrive. That I want to be hugged as many times as possible, even though I’d spent my whole life convincing myself I was not the huggy type of person.
I Called My Girlfriend And Another Man Answered The Phone
Whoever that lady was, I still don’t know her name, but thank you for showing me how to make my marriage work. You don’t know it, but you brought a different dimension to my marriage that I didn’t know existed. You were wearing a black straight dress that hugged your body and revealed your curves. The programme was at Tomreik Hotel in East Legon. Maybe you’ll read this. Maybe you won’t. But thank you all the same.
—Joseline
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