In 2013 when we were getting married, her junior sister was our maid of honor. She was barely twenty-two years old, had completed SHS and was waiting to attend any of the tertiary institutions that was willing to admit her. I remember telling her she makes a beautiful maid of honour. Maybe the blue silk dress did the magic or how her hair was twisted and moulded like a princess. It could be the makeup or a combination of everything she used that day.  After the wedding, she packed her things from her parents’ home to come and live with us.

We didn’t talk about it, me and my wife. If we did, it was just a passing comment I didn’t think would hold a huge weight on our marriage. Knowing my wife and the way she treated serious issues with nonchalant, maybe she said, “I want Erica to go with us to Accra.” And I might have responded, “That’s cool” thinking it was just a visit. Erica came with us to Accra and for the next nine years, she lived with us.

While with us, she got an admission to the university. She didn’t go to the hostel. She lived with us until she completed school. Some dawns, she would come and knock at our door and say goodbye to us. She would ask me for money and I would willingly give. She was with us when our first child arrived three years after marriage. A girl we named Daisy. She was with us when the second one arrived. A boy we named Julius. Seasons came and went, Erica wasn’t a season so she stayed with us.

My wife has five other siblings, or? There’s Kobby before Erica, after Erica is Enoch, there’s Jennifer and Alberta. My wife is the eldest. In all, they are six siblings. While living with Erica, all these siblings passed through our homes whenever they were on vacation or came to visit Accra or decided to spend some holidays with us. Enoch came for a visit one day—well I thought it was just a visit but he never went back.

We didn’t discuss it. Knowing my wife and the way she treats serious issues nonchalantly, she might have told me, “Enoch wants to stay with us and look for a job.” I might have responded, “That’s fine,” thinking after getting a job, he’d leave us and look for his own place.

We were raising two kids alongside my wife’s two siblings. We lived in a two-bedroom house so we shared a room with our kids while her siblings took over the next room. Erica completed the university but was still living with us. She did her national service, completed her national service and had a job but she was still living with us. For over two years, Enoch did not have a job so he was always in the house, growing friendships with other guys in the vicinity and being a nuisance.

We looked crowded, especially when our kids started growing and calling things by name. We had a four-year-old girl and a two-year-old boy sleeping in the middle of our bed while we slept on either side of the bed. It was a big bed but kids have a way of swallowing space and making the world look so small.

Me and my wife were supposed to be closer to each other, cuddling and smelling each other’s breath in the night when we slept but we had a bridge between us—a bridge built with the bodies of our two kids. Intimacy grew thinner every day. We couldn’t speak in whispers, we had to shout over the bridge.

I started growing agitated. “This is not how things are supposed to be. Why are they living with us when they should have their own homes?”

I’m a man of few words. I don’t say a lot. I act a lot. It turned out my wife was illiterate when it came to reading body language. When I was angry about something, I walked differently, hoping you’d see anger in my gait and do something about what’s making me angry. My wife didn’t see it.

I grew moody. I withdrew from conversations and kept to myself. I knew I had to talk about it but I didn’t know how to start the conversation so I walked around getting angry about little things instead of addressing the main issue. She would serve me food and I would be angry the food was served in a blue plate instead of a white plate. I’ll talk angrily about it and she would be like, “Is it about the plate or it’s about something else because the color of the plate doesn’t affect anything.”

I made everything else look like the problem while the problem walked around unattended. We had been married for over eight years but we had never had a major fight. I’d never said sorry to my wife because I had no reason to. She had never said sorry to me because there was nothing to be sorry for. We didn’t hurt each other to say sorry. Eight years of marriage and we didn’t know how to say sorry because it has been good. We didn’t know how to fight. It was the reason I didn’t know how to address the issues.

One late evening, while getting ready to go to bed, our two kids started a huge fight about their sleeping space. Daisy accused Julius of encroaching on her sleeping space. Julius didn’t budge so it turned into a fight. We tried calming them down but Daisy wouldn’t listen. Out of anger, my wife started beating her into submission. I didn’t touch my kids. I could scream at them or threaten them but it never got to a point where I would lay a hand on them. I asked my wife to stop but she didn’t. The girl was screaming but she kept beating her.

I screamed, “What are your siblings doing in this house?”

She was shocked.”What has this got to do with my siblings?” She asked. I retorted, “Get them out of this house as soon as possible. My kids shouldn’t fight over space when your people are taking over what’s theirs. Get them out or I’ll do it at a time when it’s raining.”

Stunned, she asked me how long I’d been thinking about driving her siblings out. She asked how long I’d been harbouring that hatred towards them. That got me in the wrong way so I started ranting.

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The rant turned into insults. The insults had their foundation in age-old stories. Forgotten stories. I brought everything out just to build my case. My wife started crying. That’s where I should have stopped but I was too pissed I crossed many lines. The kids went quiet. My wife got up, went to the room of her siblings and told them; “Erica, start looking for a place tomorrow. Enoch, you’re not working. Pack your things and go home to your parents. My husband doesn’t want you here.”

That made the issue worse, the way she communicated it. I kept throwing salvos. Her mother got her share. Her dad also got his share. Something they did years ago came up and I blasted all of them. I was uncontrollable. I’d had enough and it was about time.

The next day the house turned into a cemetery. No one talked to each other, even the kids felt the temperature. Daisy came to ask me, “Dad, why were you shouting at mom last night?” My mom called. Daisy took the phone and told my mom, “Mom and Dad fought last night. Dad was shouting.” I looked at my wife and realized she was broken. She was still crying.

Three days later, her brother left the house. He didn’t even say goodbye to me but I didn’t care.

I called Erica, I sat with her to have a conversation; “You were twenty-two when you came to live with us. You have a job. You have a relationship. You’re a woman. It’s about time you started living your own life and that begins from renting your own place. I don’t hate that you’re here but you’ll soon be someone’s wife. That person should meet you prepared.”

Maybe she understood me. Maybe she took it how she wanted to. It didn’t bother me. From her, I decided to build what I’d broken; My wife. We didn’t know how to say sorry because we didn’t know how to fight. I was a terrible fighter, I accepted. I didn’t know what to say or how to say it. I went to her and said sorry; “I said a lot of bad things. Forgive me. I shouldn’t have and I promise it would never happen again.”

She nodded but continued living as if my apology didn’t matter. She walked around like a shadow, doing the minimum and saying the least. Our relationship became like water in cupped palms; it kept dripping away. We were losing the love we once had. Everything that once made us happy turned to black and white. We didn’t know how to say sorry but I didn’t know my wife didn’t know how to accept sorry once it’s given from a clean heart.

“I said sorry. What you have to do is to accept it and let’s be us again,” I told her.

“You hurt me. It’s very deep and I don’t know if I can ever forget. You had all that in your head and never said it until that night? Herrrh, you can kill,” she responded.

Healing comes slowly but it comes. You don’t have to push it. You wait until it comes when it has to come. I didn’t force her to forgive but I encouraged her to do it for the sake of the good times we’d had.

Three months later, Erica got a place and left us. She also didn’t say goodbye to me but I held it not against her. In the end, good things came out of the bad situation and that was all I needed.

Once she was gone, I bought paint, painted the room and set it up the way kids’ rooms are set up. Daisy wanted pink paint with yellow butterflies. Julius wanted blue so I painted the room in two colors. I bought them their own bed, set up a learning desk and a little library in the corner for them. I mounted a TV on their wall.

The night when they went to sleep in their room, I didn’t sleep. I woke up on several occasions to go and check up on them. The bridge was gone but the empty space was felt.

I Didn’t Tell Anybody Because I Enjoyed It

Months later, I sleep and hug my wife from behind. We sleep that way until we unknowingly fall apart while snoring. I stretch my arm and it falls on her. I can smell her tired breath and feel her warmth next to me. I’m writing this in a dawn when she’s peacefully sleeping. I see her face and it’s still as beautiful as the day I met her. I planted a feeble kiss on her lips and she opened her eyes a little to look at me. She turned around and continued sleeping.

This is what I fought for. I broke her and probably broke the heart of Daisy when she saw me screaming but see what came out of the wreckage; peace, intimacy, union, love and all the good things marriage has to offer.

–Nathan 

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