Friday evening, around 7 p.m., I was going to an all-night programme because my husband had travelled, and I wanted to use the opportunity to spend the night with God. If he was with me, he would complain, so once he wasn’t around, I decided to go to church.
The traffic was heavier than usual, so you know these trotro drivers and the winding routes they would take once the traffic was heavy. We branched onto a rough road along the way, and I saw a car in front of us that looked like my husband’s car. It’s a popular car, so I didn’t mind until I saw the number plate. I screamed, “Jesus! Is he not supposed to be in Kumasi by now?”
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Then his car turned left towards the entrance of a hotel right ahead of us. I told the mate I was going to alight. He asked, “Here?” looking shocked that the side route they took had led to someone’s home.
I got down and walked backwards, still contemplating if that was my husband. I checked the car again, and it was him. I texted to ask what he was doing, and he said he was too tired and was about to sleep when I called. I responded, “You’re sleeping before 9 p.m.? You must be tired.”
He said he was even dozing off while talking to me. I said bye-bye, took a photo of his car and sent it to him, and then stayed next to the car.
I waited for a few minutes before he responded, “What’s that supposed to mean?” I responded, “I’m standing next to your car. Please come out.”
This man came out, and I asked who he was with in the hotel room. He turned the whole issue around to make it look like he was rather hiding in a hotel and would later come home and check if I went out when he travelled.
I was like, “Do you think I’m a child?” He responded, “If my assumption is not true, then what are you doing here? Who did you come here with to see that I’m here?”
I have three children, and we’ve been married for over eight years. Not a single moment in our marriage have I suspected that my husband was cheating on me. And I hadn’t given him any reason to suspect that I was cheating. I would tell him I was going to church, and he would wave me goodbye, or sometimes he would drive me to church and drive back.
I always had a fight with him because of that. He would only go to church on Sundays. He wouldn’t attend any service after Sunday. He would tell me God is worshipped in the heart and not only in church. When it came to all-night services, he didn’t want to hear about them. He stopped me from going because he said the service was for women who were looking for marriage.
He didn’t want me to go because of the kids. He didn’t want to be the one to take care of them while I was away. But that day, I had to take them to my parents and leave their house straight for church until I found his car.
For several minutes, we sat in his car arguing about who was on their way to commit adultery. I said, “If you have nothing to hide, let’s go to your room and check who is there.” He said he didn’t have a room. He was just at the bar. But standing in front of the hotel, you could see the bar, and my husband didn’t appear from the bar.
He said I wasn’t looking where he was coming from, but he came from the bar and then spun the story around to tell me to confess. “Who were you going there with that you saw my car?” I answered, “I can swear on the God you and I worship. Call my mom and ask where I am, and she will tell you I said I was going to church. Who else knew you were here because you were trying to catch me cheating?”
He moved the car and said, “Fortunately, I didn’t catch you cheating, but don’t make it look like you caught me cheating. I was only staying here for a while and would come and check if you were in the house. Thank God you found me before I found you. Maybe God knows we are both not cheating, and He found a funny way to let us know.”
One month later, I’m still fighting with myself. I’m asking myself why I made the move too quickly. I’m asking myself why I didn’t wait until I saw who he would come out of the hotel with. I feel defeated, but my instinct and everything in me tell me that my husband was there with a woman, but I gave him an escape route because I handled things badly.
I have asked him to confess to calm my restless heart. I told him I was ready to forgive and forge ahead if only he would come clean. He shouted angrily, “Why do you want me to accept the wrong story? You have built a narrative in your head and want me to accept it as the truth? Okay, it’s true. Are you okay now?”
And then he would go days without talking to me. His phone is a no-go area. I know the password to his phone, and he knows mine, but every single app on his phone has a different password, even Photos. I asked why, and he asked me, “What do you want to see in those apps that you can’t ask me to tell you, or you don’t trust me again?”
For the past one month, I’ve never known happiness. My first son looks at my face and asks why I’m in a bad mood. I get angry quickly, and little things make me cry. I swear it would have been easier if he told me the truth than play games with me. I desperately want to know the truth so it sets both of us free, but my husband is bent on hiding the visible and making the truth look like a lie.
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This is not an issue I can discuss with anyone I know without putting my marriage in a bad light. So I’m asking my good people here, what do you think should be the next step for me? I want to set my heart free. I want to be happy again in my marriage. I want to know the truth so we can start rebuilding and get to a place where there’s calm. I don’t intend to divorce him, but he’s making everything difficult for me.
Where do you go from here to be happy again if you were in my shoes?
—Beatrice
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