A week before our wedding, I found out that he had two other women in his life. They were texting every night—nights when I was not there with him. I was devastated. He came to see me reading the messages and quickly rushed to take the phone from me. I didn’t give it to him. While we were struggling, I told him, “If you force my hand for this phone, it’s the end of everything.”

That didn’t stop him. He kept pushing. I kept resisting until he prevailed. I told him, “Great, you’ve made your choice. So be it.”

He was chatting with two women. One didn’t know he was getting married. He was giving him hope and promising to see her on the day of our wedding. The lady was celebrating her birthday on that very day and had listed all the things she wanted from my husband-to-be. I read it and laughed through my heartbreak. “Is he lying to her or he’s indeed going to give her all that?”

We dated for two years. I was out of the country for a year out of the two years that we dated. I went to school and came back so we could get married. When I was away, I didn’t see any sign of cheating. When I came back, he was all over me as if what we had was new. We planned our wedding while I was away so when I was coming, I brought everything we needed for our wedding. He didn’t contribute a pesewa. Well, he contributed something—his love for me but once I found him cheating, his love for me became worthless.

The other girl knew he was getting married. From the chat, someone from his circle told her. She sent a five-minute voice note crying and begging him to tell her it wasn’t true. “Kwame, I beg you, tell me it’s not true. Please say it’s not true. I don’t mind if you lie to me because the truth may kill me. How would you do that to me? You think you can go scot-free after treating another woman like this?”

Her voice broke my heart. If she were close, I would have put my hand around her and shared her pain. After all, both of us were in the same place though I was the one he was getting married to. All Kwame told her was, “I didn’t tell you because everything came in a rush. She was abroad. That’s why my family are forcing me to marry her. I don’t want to talk a lot. I will meet you after everything and explain things to you. Please forgive me.”

He snatched the phone from me so I didn’t have the time to take screenshots but what I saw was enough for me to decide I wasn’t going to go on with the wedding. I called my elder sister first; “Alice, there’s fire on the mountain. Kwame has two other women in his life.” She screamed, “What? How did you know?”

Before I could finish telling her my story, she was at my door knocking. She found me crying. She told me, “We are not going on with it, right? After these tears, it’s over, right?” I shook my head and in tears said, “I don’t know what I’m going to do. That’s what is killing me.” She said, “Listen to me, you know what you’re going to do. You’ll pick up the phone and tell him it’s over. You’ll get ready and travel back abroad. Case close.”

“Is not that simple, sister. It’s not!”

Right there she picked up my phone and called my dad. She told my dad to put the call on a loudspeaker so my mom could hear everything. Before she could tell them what was happening, my mom asked, “Who’s crying behind you?” My sister answered, “Your daughter. It’s the reason I’m calling you.”

She told them everything. I could feel from the way they talked that they were stunned. They called us to come over and we did. My dad asked what I was going to do. I gave him that same line, “I don’t know…” I was still crying. My sister told them, “She’s not going to go ahead with it. Let’s call him and his family and tell them everything. Time is running out.”

“It’s not that simple, Alice. Yes, we’ll talk to them but it’s not that straightforward,” my dad responded.

My dad called him and asked him to be honest with him, “I’m a man. Talk to me man-to-man. Is it true? You’ll choose those women over my daughter? We have a few days to the wedding. Say it so we know what to do.”

He went on and on with his regrets and how he intended to make amends to me. Hearing him talk made my heart angry. The lines of the text flashed through my eyes. His tone, his demeanour while responding to the text, everything came flashing and it got me angrier. I shouted, “Liar! Go and be with them. It’s over.”

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Both families met. The meeting lasted for four hours. I don’t know what I was looking for but I kept saying no to everything. They pushed him to come and kneel before me. He threw himself down, held my leg and started reciting his apology like an infant reciting a rhyme. I wasn’t looking at him but he looked through me and felt I was determined not to go through with the wedding.

The energy in the room was not balanced. Everyone was on the side of forgiveness. I was one soldier fighting a losing battle. My sister wasn’t around. They intentionally didn’t allow her to be there. I asked for a day to think through things. They agreed. I shut everyone off. I even switched off my phone. When I put my phone back on, there were a lot of messages asking for directions to the wedding and asking how far with preparations. I gave them the direction. I told them everything was on course.

I called my parents and told them I was ready to go on with it. They screamed for joy. They thanked me for not disgracing them. I called Alice. I was scared to tell her about my decision but when I did, she said, “You’re not a girl. I believe you know what you’re doing. I’m your sister. I will support you in every way though I wish the decision was the other way.”

A night before the wedding, he started sending me screenshots of the new conversation he had had with those girls. I asked him to stop sending them because he was getting me angry. The next day, we met in church and pretended we were the happiest couple on earth. We danced. We made it graceful like it didn’t hurt. No one suspected what we’d been through days before the wedding. When the curtains dropped, I went back to being angry.

I felt I’d paid my dues. I’d done what everyone wanted me to do because they didn’t want to be disgraced. What was left was between me and my God. I called off the honeymoon. I stayed with my parents. He came around often. He wanted me home. When he spoke with my dad, he told him to be patient as I was still going through the pain. I wasn’t going through any pain. I was going through the next phase of my personal healing.

One month later, I bought a one-way ticket and travelled back abroad. The real thinking started when I settled. Living alone wasn’t a bad thing. Work took a huge chunk of my days so I didn’t get the time to brood over what could be. I wasn’t around when he cheated with those two girls. I was no longer around, I didn’t trust he would wait for me without engaging in anything cynical.

A year later, he was over my head asking when I was going to fly him in to be with me. He said, “If that’s too hard, then you can come home so we build our lives here.” I told him, “I’m not coming anytime soon and I don’t have any intention to live with you here. If that would bother you, you can marry someone else.”

Minutes later my dad called. “What did you tell your husband?”      After him was my mom, “What silly things are you saying over there?” Hours later, his father called me, “My son told me what you said, are you serious about it? Is there something we need to talk about?” Alice called. She said, “I thought you were being stupid. I didn’t know you had a master plan. Why didn’t you tell me about it?”

I couldn’t answer all their questions. My decision remained my decision. He wasn’t ready to waste his time so the divorce was initiated by him.

I Didn’t Tell Anybody Because I Enjoyed It

I don’t know if I did the right thing or not but I know I saved myself from trust issues and a lot of what ifs. “A cheat will always cheat when they have the chance.” This mantra kept playing in my head until I decided enough was enough. Honestly, I don’t miss anything. It doesn’t feel like I was once married and now divorced. It feels like I have the wind beneath my sail now and I can fly anywhere I want to be, including the arms of a new man who wouldn’t have another woman a week before our wedding.

—Sika     

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