My Husband Started Loving Me When I Got Pregnant For Another Man

I was twenty-four years old when I got married. I was a village girl who had come to the city with village dreams. I didn’t come to the city to go to school though my peers were in school. My parents couldn’t afford that. I didn’t come to the city to marry too though marriage found me on the fringes and took over me. I came here to work, make money and send some home to my old folks. But when I got to the city, a lot of things didn’t make sense to me.

In the village, men looked at me when I walked by. I was that girl who caused a stir. That girl who caused a pause in a conversation between men. They’ll stop whatever they are saying when I walk by. They’ll look at my behind because I have what it shakes. I could feel the silence that had befallen them and I could feel their eyes scorching on my skin.

In the village, men stopped and talk to me. They asked for my name and ask for my number. I didn’t tell my name to everyone or gave my number to just anyone. You should be something or somebody to deserve my number. I loved to hear, “I’m the teacher who took your number down the street.” I didn’t want to hear a name and I didn’t want to hear someone telling me to guess who was speaking. That all changed when I got to the city.

I walked by like a shadow in the night. No one saw me. No one looked at me. No one asked for my number. No one looked at my ass.  My ass ‘assed’ in the village but in the city, my ass wasn’t ‘assing.’ Men were too busy here down the streets. They’ll rather look out for an opportunity than look at a lady’s behind. All was vanity to them. It got me sad. That I was a nobody, that I wasn’t looked at, that I didn’t cause a stir so when one day Afrifa came my way and looked at me and called me beautiful, I fell for him straight away.

He came to my shop often in his car. He brought me takeaway with malt on the side. He would wink at me and blow me kisses in the air before leaving the shop. My friends were envious, that the village girl could have a man who drives his own car and brings food to her in the afternoon. I was scared to lose him so when he was around, I didn’t leave his side. I was scared he would find his type in the city girls and leave me for them so I was overly protective of him.

He saw it. He even advised me to relax because no one could take him away from me. One day, he drove me to his house. He didn’t own the house. It was rented. I thought a man who had his own car would also own a house but this guy was renting. It didn’t bother me. I was ready to do life with him. That day, he asked if I could move in with him. He said he wanted me desperately and would love us to live in the same place so he could feed his eyes on my beautiful self every day.

I was sceptical at first but he said, “You don’t have to worry. We are getting married very soon so what’s there to fear?”

The mention of marriage broke into my defences. I was young and ready and he was the only man who had found me beautiful in the city so why not? I sat next to him in his car and he drove me to where I was living, waited for me to pack all my things and bring them to his car. He drove away. On the way, he put his right hand on my thigh and drove with one hand. My heart was jumping with happiness. He told me sweet things and I melted. He was like the sun shining on shea butter.

It took me a week of living with him to know that the car he was driving wasn’t his. It was Uber and it belonged to someone else. He came home without the car one day and I asked where it was and he told me, “That silly owner has taken it from me but don’t worry, I’ll get a new one very soon.”

The car wasn’t the reason I was loving him. He was the only city man who saw me and called me beautiful. The absence of the car shook me a little but our foundations were intact.

He got a new car and a couple of months later, we got married. We didn’t have a grand wedding where I wore a white gown and he also wore a black tuxedo. We couldn’t afford it so we married traditionally where my family accepted his drinks and we were pronounced married.

After marriage, he was on and off with his driving job. Today, he would have a car, tomorrow he would lose it. When he loses it, it takes a very long time for him to get another one so he would be out of money and we would be spending my money.

Every morning before I leave for work, I will put something on the table for him. I will give him money to buy electricity and he would spend it. We would sleep in the darkness for a night, we will sleep hungry sometimes, the landlord will threaten us with an eviction on another day. Life was hard because I was doing a lot of things all alone.

One day we couldn’t pay our rent again so we were told to leave the room. He told me, “I have a piece of land I was building on when times were good. If you could take a loan from work, we can do something and live in it for the meantime.” I did just as he said so we were able to build up and roof it. By the time we fixed the windows and doors, our money was finished so we had to sleep in a room without flooring and without plastered walls. It gave us peace so we were ok. We didn’t have to pay electricity too so we saved that money for food.

Three years later, we had been able to complete the house and had fixed lights and had started working on the adjacent one.

He started cheating.

He cheated with a girl next door and I caught him. He cheated with a minor and the girl’s parents came to our house to threaten him with a police case. He cheated on me with the lady who came around to sell liquid soap to us. He cheated on me with a girl who sold in a shop in the vicinity. I became the woman whose husband goes out of the house and brings cheating home. I would be angry but I would forgive him so he would go out again and cheat one more time. He was still a driver of a car that doesn’t belong to him.

He got a job in an office close by. He was a company driver. He was given a bigger car he brought home every evening. A bigger car means bigger cheating and bigger problems. We had been married for six years but had no child, yet this man would go around cheating with his deficient joystick.

He was shooting blank. Every test we did proved he was the one with the mistake. He was working on it but he didn’t have time to sit down to develop healthy sperm. He shot wherever he could find a hole. I got tired so I threatened to leave. I couldn’t leave and he knew it because Everything we owned had my investment in it.

One day, he travelled for a funeral in my hometown and my sister caught him sleeping with a girl who was my cousin. My sister didn’t want to tell me but when push came to shove, she told me. My husband denied it and told me it was rather the girl who jumped into his bed but he didn’t do anything to her. I left the marriage for a couple of months. I went to live with a friend while thinking of what to do next. My heart was on fire. I was dying young because of the man I married.

While away, he came around every morning and evening, begging me to come back home. My friend told me to give him one more chance and see how it goes so I went back home. He won’t sleep with me but he would go out there and sleep with babies in diapers.

I was sex-starved, child-starved and also affection-starved. I was walking in the marriage empty and bored. Nothing was going on for me. I became depressed and gained excessive weight. To make matters worse, he pointed at my weight gain and told me it was the reason he didn’t sleep with me.

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I met a man on my way to work one morning. He was looking at me from behind until he walked briskly to pass me by so he could see my face. When I sat in the taxi, I sat next to him and he took my number. He called in the evening and called me beautiful. He said he couldn’t take his eyes off me and would do anything to make me his girlfriend.

I asked, “Are you sure you looked at me very well? And you didn’t see a ring?” He asked, “Oh you’re married? Forgive me but can we be friends?”

I accepted the friendship but a couple of weeks later, I slept with him. It was intense. He owned me. He made me feel beautiful again. It was the second time a city man has made me feel seen. He asked me, “Are you happy?” I answered, “Of course I’m happy. You did a good job.” He said, “No, I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about life, marriage and everything. Are you happy in life?”

So I told him all the problems I’m facing in my life, childbirth, a cheating husband, my investment in everything we owned and why I couldn’t leave a cheating husband.” He told me, “Don’t be afraid to leave him. You’re still young. If you don’t take care, he would waste your life while he builds his’ in places you don’t know. Leave everything for him, if you can. You can do it again  with a man who loves you truly.”

No matter what he said, I couldn’t leave but I couldn’t stop seeing him too.

As I write this, I’m pregnant and it’s for the man I met in the taxi. I told him about it and he asked what I was going to do. I told him, “I want to keep it because it’s mine.” He asked, “Are you going to leave him?” I answered, “I don’t know.” He told me, “If you won’t leave him then it means we can’t end up together. I can’t continue waiting for you until I expire. I will move on at some point but you have to promise me that in future, you won’t pursue me with this kid. I don’t want a call from the past once I move on.”

I nodded. I said, “I understand. Take it as a parting gift you’re giving to me. I’m thankful. I won’t chase you with it. You’re free to see it as not yours.”

My husband thinks he’s the man who got me pregnant. He’s very happy. He’s being overly protective now. He comes home early after work. He touches my tummy at dawn and asks me, “How is my baby doing?” He wakes up early in the morning to make breakfast for us before he goes to work. He was supposed to travel with his boss but he didn’t go. I asked why and he said, “I’ve told him my wife is pregnant so I can’t leave her alone.”

He’s prioritizing me and it’s beautiful. I’m still fat but he doesn’t talk about it as the reason he doesn’t want me. He wakes me up at dawn for shuperu. He calls it “watering the plant.” He’s happy and bubbly. I didn’t know fatherhood would turn his compass back north. All of a sudden, he had become the man I thought he would be when I married him.

The man I met in the taxi is also lurking in the dark, encouraging me to leave the marriage and come to him. He has his own house. Yes, it’s uncompleted but it’s a house. Maybe, I’m made to complete uncompleted houses with men who love me. He’s four years younger than me but he has the heart of a tiger. He loves me recklessly and I love him too but he’s not the man I’m married to. I’m holding allegiance to my husband and it hurts him to the core.

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I’m sharing this story to lessen the burden. To make the guilt bearable but honestly, I don’t have regrets. It’s the future that scares me.

I shouldn’t have told the taxi man about the pregnancy. Love has a way of turning us bitter and inward, especially when it’s not reciprocated. That’s what I fear. That this man would be embittered and spill the truth someday, even before I’m ready to tell the truth. If he doesn’t, praise God. Life will go on until it stops going on.  

—Frema

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