Last year, my life took a terrible turn, both financially and in love. It has been over six months, and I am nowhere close to healing. Honestly, I do not know if I ever truly will.

My work takes me from place to place, and that is how I met her. I met Yayra in 2020 and instantly took an interest in her. I proposed, but she said she would love to have me yet couldn’t. I didn’t even know she was pregnant until she told me herself. Three months gone, carrying her ex-boyfriend’s child. He wanted nothing to do with it and demanded she terminate the pregnancy, but she refused. The truth is, I liked her too much for any of that to scare me away.

I asked her for just one thing: honesty. I told her that if she truly had nothing going on with that man anymore, we could move forward together. She agreed, and that was how our relationship began. I took over the responsibility of caring for her throughout the entire pregnancy until she gave birth. I stood by her through it all. I sent money for diapers, for weaning, for baby food, for anything they needed. I was already paying for everything a husband was supposed to do for a wife.

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By 2021, we were already talking about marriage. Long-term plans, family arrangements, the future. Everything about us pointed in that direction, so we decided we would marry in 2025 to give ourselves enough time to prepare. I kept taking care of her and the child like they were mine.

Ours was a long-distance relationship. I would travel from Tarkwa to Mankessim while she came from Bogoso to meet me halfway. It was exhausting, but I believed she was worth it.

In the middle of all the love we shared, I was very uncomfortable. Like a man who had stolen something and kept looking over his shoulder. I had a feeling she was not keeping her end of the bargain, the honesty I had asked for, whether she had truly cut ties with her baby’s father. Every now and then I would ask her, and every answer she gave left me more restless and more convinced something was wrong. She would remind me of all the heartbreak she had suffered and say she could never do that to another person. She swore that even if we broke up, she would remain single for the rest of her life.

I had no evidence. So I swallowed my doubts and kept loving her.

Then 2025 came and my life started falling apart financially. Work became slow. Everywhere I turned, people gave me promises and empty assurances. “We’ll call you when a contract comes,” they said, but the calls never came. I started surviving on my savings.

And it was not just me I was taking care of. There was Yayra, her daughter, and sometimes her family. Everything I had, I poured into them, the way you pour and keep pouring because you believe in what you are building.

Then one day, in the latter part of 2025, I came across wedding photos online. I rubbed my eyes to make sure I was seeing clearly and that it wasn’t AI-generated. There she was, dressed beautifully in kente, smiling like a woman living her happiest day. Beside her stood the groom in matching colours. I zoomed in, hoping my eyes were deceiving me, but they were not. It was her baby daddy. The same man who had abandoned her when she was pregnant.

I went to confront her and she denied it immediately. Even with the photos staring back at her from her own phone, she still denied it. She told me the pictures were fake, that someone was trying to destroy what we had. But there were videos too, videos of her stepping into the ceremony with bridesmaids dancing around her while she smiled like a woman in love.

Eventually she realised I was no longer buying the lies, so she finally told me the truth.

According to her, her family forced her to marry him because they already had a child together and because he had now agreed to take responsibility. But then she looked at me and said I was still the one she truly wanted. She said if I still wanted her, she would return the drinks his family brought and start life with me instead. They have been married for three years.

Men Don’t Like It When Women Do The Paying

From last year until today, I have not been okay. I keep thinking about everything that man put her through before I met her, and how I was the one who picked up the pieces. I was the one who loved her when she was broken. I was the one who stood beside her when nobody else wanted to.

And I was the one sending her money every single month, and whenever she needed extra, I sent that too. Which means my money was feeding that household. My money was putting food on the table for a man who did nothing while I did everything.

And as I write this, she is pregnant and only a few months from delivery. My mind keeps going to dark places. Very dark places. The strength to pull back from them is what I pray for every day.

—Tim

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