I still remember the morning everything changed. Kojo woke up, stretched lazily on the bed, and said, almost casually, “I want to travel and when I do, I don’t think I’ll come back to this life again.”

I laughed. After nine years of marriage and four children, how could a man say such a thing with a straight face? But when I asked, “So what happens to me and the children?” he didn’t even blink. He said, “You can find another husband while I take care of my kids.”

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My heart skipped but foolish hope told me he was joking. I laughed again, touched his shoulder, and said, “Wherever you go, we go with you.” He didn’t respond. He just got up and walked out.

For the next few days, his behavior started changing in ways I couldn’t understand. My husband, who used to tell me every movement he made even if he only stepped out to buy bread, suddenly turned into a stranger. He traveled without warning. He disappeared for days. He switched off his phone. And anytime I complained, he fought me as if I had become his enemy.

One day he left for an entire week—no call, no message. My heart was in my throat every day. I imagined him dead, kidnapped, gone forever. Out of desperation, I called his parents. But when Kojo returned home, instead of being relieved or apologizing, he shouted at me, “Do you think I am a child that you’ll send my parents after me? Don’t worry. This marriage is over.”

He walked away. I stood there, stunned, because how do you process the end of a marriage when you don’t even know why it’s ending But then, he started acting it out. He stopped buying food. Stopped supporting the home. Stopped giving school money. Anytime I asked, he said coldly, “I only provide for a woman who is my wife. You are not my wife.”

It shocked me how a man could be so cruel to the woman who bore his four children. For weeks I begged, cried, pleaded. My pride was completely gone. I called his elders, thinking maybe authority would help. They came, sat him down, and asked what I had done.

All he said was, “Ever since I married her, I haven’t progressed in life.” I cried that day silently. I didn’t shout. I didn’t defend myself. I just sat there and let the pain run through me like water down a gutter. Those elders couldn’t help us. They left with the matter unresolved. Then came the emotional torture, the kind that leaves scars you cannot show anyone.

Late at night Kojo would sit on the verandah talking loudly to women. He would flirt, laugh, say sweet things, even exchange I love you, all loud enough for me to hear from inside the hall. Sometimes he put the phone on loudspeaker, almost deliberately, so I could hear every filthy detail. I stopped sleeping. I stopped eating. I would sit on the edge of the bed, listening to my husband tell another woman, “I miss you.” I would stare at the wall and wonder, What happened to the man who once held my waist and promised me forever?

One day, after he spent the whole night talking to a woman, I broke down. I called the elders again. This time they instructed him to move out if he wanted to continue living his new lifestyle. Two weeks later, he packed his things and left the house for me and the children. For seven months, I lived alone with the children. I learned how to fix things Kojo used to fix. I learned how to balance the household finances without expecting help. I learned how to sleep without crying myself into a headache. But most importantly, I learned that life moves on even when love fails.

Sometimes I called him. Sometimes I begged him. I used the children as a bridge, because somehow, even after everything, my heart still longed for him. But Kojo didn’t look back. He was out there living his best life with women of all shapes and sizes while I was home praying and hoping for restoration. Then one morning, everything changed again. He came home. He knelt and said, “Nina, I’ve seen my mistakes. The demons I fought have released me. I want to come home. I’m sorry.”

I looked at him and all I felt was emptiness. Not anger. Just emptiness. I told him to go to the elders and inform them himself. When they came and pleaded, something inside me whispered: “It’s too late.”

I looked at the man who broke me, the man who taught me loneliness inside a marriage, and I said, “I’ve moved on. I wanted the marriage yesterday but not today. Go ahead and divorce me.”

Kojo threw himself on the floor, crying, begging, pleading. But just as he had moved out of the marriage long before he physically left, I had emotionally moved out long before he returned. Sometimes healing looks like letting go. Sometimes strength looks like turning your back on the person you once couldn’t live without. Sometimes survival looks like saying, “Enough is enough”

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I’ve given him time to proceed with the divorce. If he delays, I will initiate it myself. I don’t hate him. I don’t wish him bad but I refuse to go back into the fire that almost burned me alive. I’m choosing peace. I’m choosing my children. Ultimately, I’m choosing myself and strangely that choice finally feels like home.

—Nina

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