We met at a friend’s wedding, and all through the wedding, anytime I turned in his direction, he was looking at me. My friend, Kukua, asked, “Do you know the man in green on your left? He seems to be looking at you and smiling.”

When I was leaving the church, he met me at the entrance and said I looked like someone he had met before. He asked for my number, and I gave it to him. He called, and the first thing he did was confess that he hadn’t met me anywhere, but he saw me and was intrigued by my beauty and wanted to know more about me. So we talked every day and became friends.

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I learned he wasn’t living in Ghana through our conversations. I even asked if he had dreams of coming back to live permanently in Ghana, and he said no. By the time he was leaving Ghana, we had gone on several dates, and everything pointed to the fact that we were interested in each other. My problem was the distance, and through our conversations, I told him I didn’t want to be in a long-distance relationship.

When he finally travelled back to Canada, he proposed. I told him, “Have you forgotten I said I didn’t want to date long distance?” He answered, “That’s why I couldn’t propose when I was with you, but I’ve been thinking about you every day, and something tells me we can make it work. If you say yes, I promise we will marry very soon so you can join me here.”

I still didn’t buy into the idea of dating him, but he insisted and even gave timelines. He said he would be home every year, and by the time he came the second time, it would be for marriage. I told myself he was away, so it’s not as if we were going to be having sex and later he would disappear. I said I was going to try and see how it would go.

He made an effort. When he couldn’t make the effort, he gave me reasons why. We didn’t talk every day or chat every minute because of his work and also the time difference between Ghana and Vancouver. He was also schooling, so communication wasn’t very consistent, but we did our best.

A year later, as he promised, he was back in Ghana. Right from the airport, he came to see my parents. He told my dad he was going to marry me the next year, so my dad should prepare the list for him before he left Ghana.

My dad gave us his blessings and promised to make everything easy for us to get married. I followed him to his hotel, and everything else followed from there. He took me to meet his friends and even his siblings. He told his friends I was his wife and told his siblings I was their in-law. His mom was dead, and his dad was also in Canada, but he told me his dad knew everything about me.

When he went back to Canada, our communication pattern went back to default, where we hardly talked, but whenever we had the opportunity, we spent forever talking. He left with the dowry list as my dad promised. He would send me money and ask me to buy things. “Buy the clothes with this money,” he would say, or “Buy the kente with this one.”

I was hoping for a grand white wedding and even made huge plans for it, but he later said, “I have very little time when I come to Ghana, so I want us to do the traditional one, and later when you come to Canada, we can do the court one here.”

I didn’t like the idea, but it wasn’t the end of the world. He came to Ghana as planned, and we got married. It was the happiest day of my life. I had doubts. I had fears. I thought everything was just going to fall apart midway, but it happened. After the wedding, he spent only one week in Ghana and went back to Canada.

I didn’t hear from him for over a week. When he came back, he said he was sick and also had car issues with the police, which finally ended up in court, and other stories I found hard to grasp. I was happy he was back and we could talk again. He even assured me he was going to start working on my papers very soon.

And then he disappeared again and reappeared two weeks later. And then he disappeared again. The whole disappearing act wasn’t making sense and was making my heart heavy, so I started asking questions I should have asked long ago. I went to his elder sister, who was very instrumental in the marriage, and asked what was happening. She said, “Oh, my brother? He’s like that ooo. He even does that to my dad in Canada, so just don’t be bothered.”

When it happened again, I went to the man who represented his dad during the marriage. That man was a church elder, so I trusted I would get some truth from him. He also said he hardly talked to my husband, so he wouldn’t know what was happening.

I searched his name on Google. I was scared I had married a criminal. The Google search led me to a Facebook account he had abandoned ages ago, and then to the LinkedIn profile of a white lady who had my husband’s surname. I took my time and went through that profile carefully. She was also in Vancouver and had made a post about a company where my husband had once worked.

I sent her a message asking her about my husband. Later, when I checked, she had blocked me. That was my first red flag. And then my husband called after I hadn’t heard from him for a week. He was pissed. “Why did you contact Melissa? For what? How did you know about her? Do you want to end my life here?”

That day, I asked him to confess. He had been married to Melissa for over six years, and they had two children. When we got married, Melissa got to know about it and had threatened divorce. So all the disappearing acts were because he was trying to rebuild their broken marriage. He didn’t tell me this even when I asked him to confess. Maybe he will read this story, so I wouldn’t want to leave a clue as to who told me this, but it’s someone very close to him.

All I did was scream. For days, I would sit quietly and all of a sudden shout, “Eiii, hmmmm.” I didn’t even see myself doing that, but I did. It was hard for me. My marriage was less than a year old. Who do I talk to? How do I start? My enemies were going to jubilate. Those who envied me for marrying a man abroad would sing for joy. So guess what? I didn’t tell anyone, not even my dad.

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I was quiet for several months while I was dying inside and my ring was cutting my finger off. When I couldn’t bear the pain any longer, I told my dad, and then he told my mom. My dad went to meet the man who stood in as a father. The man said he didn’t know my husband was married. He was just a distant family member he consulted because his dad wasn’t coming.

I’m officially single after two years of pretending to be married. I’m even lucky that it wasn’t a court wedding. Yeah, so this is my story. I married a married man.

—Rose

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