Alice called me one morning to tell me she had a man for me. I’d been out of a relationship for two years and Alice knew it because she had been there with me through it all.

I asked, “A man for me? Where did you pick him from?”

We laughed. We discussed him; what made him thick and what made him thin. “The thick is, he has everything you want in a man, good job, good temperament, intelligent and well kept,” Alice listed.

Usually, it’s not the thick side of things that makes me decide on a man. It’s the disadvantages, it’s what makes him thin that makes me decide on a man.

You can love a man for everything he has but there might be one thing about him that’s a deal breaker, the bile to the liver. You look at the list and go like, “Wow, he has it all but he’s an alcoholic who doesn’t brush his teeth before bed.” It’s hard to live with a man like that no matter what he has. So it’s the thin side of a man that makes me decide on him.

Alice: “There might be some slight baby mama issues because he has a three-year-old daughter who lives with him and his mom.”

Me: He has a daughter? You know I love kids but the baby mama…hmmm let me get to know him first.”

I met Raymond, he was everything Alice talked about, the kind of man that made my heart leapt out of my chest. We shook hands. We smiled at each other. We already knew the deal because Alice had told us. He asked, “So where do we go from here?” I answered, “To your daughter’s mother. What happened?”

She wasn’t in the picture. She is a nurse. When their baby was two years old, she had the opportunity to travel to the UK to work. He went for the girl before the lady left. “We talk every Wednesday and Sunday. It’s basically about the girl and nothing more. She usually wants to know how the girl is doing,” Raymond told me.

When I asked what happened, he answered, “A lot.” I said,  “I have time. We have eternity, you can talk about a lot and I can listen to a lot so let’s begin.”

It’s the pregnancy that broke them up. The lady wanted marriage before a sign of the pregnancy showed up but Raymond wanted to take his time. “We were pregnant didn’t mean we should get married,” he told me. “We had dated for only five months.”

According to him, the lady misunderstood the wait as a lack of love and that eventually broke them up even before the pregnancy was three months old. I listened to him, I picked up the nuances. I didn’t want to suffer the same fate as my predecessor.

The first time he took me home, his daughter ran to me, jumped into my arms and started calling me mommy. I found it cute but blamed Raymond; “Did you plan this with her? To make me fall in love with her the way I’m doing?”

He laughed at me. His mother came out to see the girl in my arms. She asked if I’d met her before and I said no. She was surprised with the ease with which we got connected. She said, “Adom usually doesn’t get used to strangers like that.”

I loved her right from hello and didn’t want to path from her.

When I was leaving she cried. Because of her, I went back the next day and then the next until I picked her up on weekends and brought her back on Sunday evening. I was loving two people in a single relationship, a father and a daughter. I thought loving two people this way wouldn’t bring any jealousy or a fight until it became everything we fought about.

He asked me, “Who are you in a relationship with, me or Adom?” I thought it was funny until he started beefing up his question. “When you come home, she’s the reason. On weekends we have to be together, she’s with you. Can you leave her with my mom so we be?”

Meanwhile, he was the same person who brought her to me on weekends. He was the same person who called and gave the phone to his daughter to speak gibberish with me. He was the same person who took me home because Adom was missing me. I didn’t struggle to love her because right from the start, she called me mom.

I told him, “So what do you want me to do? Ignore her? Treat her like she doesn’t exist? Can you be in a room with me and be happy while she stands at the door knocking? Don’t blame me. Let’s find a balance together.”

The only balance we found was when we were out in town. Some weekends I didn’t go for her so we were good but when his mom had to attend a funeral or a wedding, she asked me to go for her.

READ ALSO: He Wants To Marry Me But His Girlfriend’s Family Is Standing In The Way

When things change it’s easy to see. The sun and the moon may look the same but they feel different. The one who complained about the relationship between me and his kid now became the person who brought his daughter to me every weekend. He didn’t let me visit him as often as I used to. For over six months I didn’t go to his house. He was the one coming and each time he came around, he brought Adom with him.

I asked questions. He told gave me excuses. Later he told me he was having issues with his mom and wanted his mom out of his house so the two of us could have space. It didn’t sit well with me so one day, I went to his place unannounced.

His mother said he wasn’t there but his car was outside. Raymond doesn’t go anywhere without his car but his mom insisted he wasn’t. What made me suspicious was when I told his mom I wanted to wait for him and she told me he wasn’t coming back anytime soon. Adom was at my back sleeping. She asked me to drop her and I did.

I left but I didn’t go home. I hung around until I saw him coming out of the house with a woman in tow.

He was the first to get to the car. His mom had a conversation with the lady, all smiling before the lady went to sit inside the car. I rushed in to meet them in the compound. When his mother saw me, she jolted and later cast her eyes on the floor. “Raymond, you were not picking up my calls, why? You told your mom to tell me you were not there? You brought your daughter to me so you can entertain a visitor, that’s OK but why were you not picking up my calls?

When the lady heard ‘daughter’ she shivered. She asked if I was the wife and I told her I was the girlfriend. “And you two have a daughter?” I said yes! Raymond retorted, “It’s a lie. Don’t listen to her. I will explain.” I smiled and walked away.

I called Alice, “How didn’t you add a womanizer to the thin side of Raymond? How did you miss that?”

Raymond came back to explain what happened. I said, “You called me a liar in front of another lady and told her you could explain. I want to know your explanation to her before you explain yourself to me.” He begged me to listen to him. I insisted I wanted to hear the explanation only in the presence of the other lady. He asked for time. I told him he could have forever.

The next time he called, it was about Adom. I met him halfway and took her from him. When I had to send her back, I met him halfway. I wasn’t going to allow him back into my life again until I met that lady. He wasn’t ready but was trying to use his daughter to get back at me.

Alice called me to visit. I went there and met Raymond. Alice was trying to be a mediator. I told her, “I’ve changed my mind. I want his mother to be the mediator while the other lady is there. If he can’t give me that he should stop wasting his time.”

Two weeks later, nothing. In the third week, I sent him the breakup message that brought him to my door to break up to pieces. He came with Adom. I took her in and locked him out. I told the girl, “It looks like it’s going to be you and I in this relationship. If I have to take care of you, I would do it without any resentment but your father has explanations to do.”

In the relationship, I never spoke to Adom’s mother. I saw him talk to her and saw photos of her but we never talked. I had a call and it was from Adom’s mother. She said, “I heard what happened and I heard you’ve been a very good mother to my daughter. Can you please forgive him for the sake of Adom?”

We both ended up laughing. She said, “Men, it seems like they don’t know what they want.” I responded, “I know what I want, fortunately for me. I don’t want a cheat who has a mother who supports his cheating ways.”

Call Your Ex And Ask Why It Didn’t Work Out Between You Two

We are friends, me and Adom’s mother. She calls very often. She sends me money to buy things for Adom. I still see Adom on weekends when I’m free. Raymond brings her so he can have time to cook lies for other women. Then once in a while, he would call me at dawn to tell me he misses me so we should work things out. I tell him, “Bring the lady and your mom together, explain things to us. That’s the only way.”

He can’t do that so we can’t be together

—Liz

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