Two years ago, Williams asked me to marry him. He was ready and had informed his family about his plans to get married to me. We had dated for two years, and everything was going well between us, but I told him to give me another year to be ready. When he asked why, I told him, “You know my mom’s situation. At least let her get a little better so she can attend our wedding.”

He understood me, but the reason I gave him wasn’t the main reason I wanted to delay our marriage. Two years ago, when he was asking me to marry him, I had three other men in my life. I didn’t love them, but they were in my life to help me pay my mom’s medical bills.

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Williams is a good person. He has helped me in bad times, especially when my mom’s situation got worse. But it got to a point where I couldn’t ask for help again because he was tired of giving to a sick woman who never got better. I’m my mom’s only child. There was nowhere to seek help from, so I decided to make myself available to men who had money to give.

I said yes to a contractor at our workplace. He was married, but that didn’t stop me. He drove big cars and told me he had houses in all the regions in Ghana. He didn’t demand much of my time but gave me money once in a while. Every pesewa he gave me went directly into my mom’s cancer treatment. This contractor didn’t give me money as often as my mom’s medical bills piled up, so I got another man, a CEO.

He had money to give but demanded a lot of my time because his wife was out of the country. I spent weekends with him while Williams was alone, thinking I’d gone to visit my mom. Whenever I spent the weekend with him, I left with money I could use to cater for my mom, so I enjoyed spending the weekend with him.

Williams got suspicious. He said he would visit my mom with me and spend the weekend too. The only thing that saved me was the fact that we didn’t have enough rooms for him to spend the weekend. He told me he would stay in a hotel. I told him, “You have hotel money and my mom is suffering?”

Instead of going with me, he gave me money to buy drugs for my mom. I love Williams. It’s not his fault that my mom is sick, but he has to pay for it in one way or another. That’s what hurts me most about our relationship. Even the third man I was dating, I met him through Williams. The sad thing was, this man knew I was dating Williams, yet passed through the back door to tell me he loved me. He’s also a married man who had money to spend on me.

Two years later, all these men are no longer in my life, and my mom isn’t getting any better. When Williams asked me to marry him again this year, I told him, “It looks like my mom won’t make it past the year. Let’s wait for her to go in peace, and then we can marry.”

Then I broke down in his arms. He held me close. He told me he understood me and was going to wait no matter what. I told him he could marry someone else if he couldn’t wait, if he thought I was delaying his time. He said I’m the only one he sees in this world as part of his future life. I thanked him. I walked through his room and caught myself in the mirror. I looked thinner and slender. My mom’s situation was taking a toll on me, but I also thought it was the number of men in my life. It wasn’t healthy.

I’m currently juggling four different men. Add Williams to it, and they are five men. Three of them are married. The other one is in a serious relationship leading to marriage. I don’t love them, but I love what they give me, money. I love what their money brings into my mom’s life, health.

I asked myself not long ago, “Why should I deny myself good health while looking for the same for my mom?”

I’ve thought of stopping the care so she can go down in peace. Sometimes I feel I’m the one punishing her with a long life. She’s only sixty, at an age when she has to enjoy the fruit of her labor. I want her to be around when my first child arrives. I want to be able to say, “I’ve sent my children to their grandmom for the weekend.” I want her to be alive to see all these good things, but everything I do changes nothing in her health. It’s like I’m pouring into the ocean.

Who Would You Choose, A Rich Man Or A Man Who’s Good In Bed?

I want to marry Williams, but I don’t want to do it and still cheat on him because of my mom’s health. Sometimes I want to let him go. I don’t feel I deserve a man like him, with his patience and good heart. I’m also scared that one day, he’ll catch me with one of these men, and it will break his heart, and I wouldn’t be able to explain his pain away. He might think I love them or I’m doing it for selfish reasons.

When that time comes, I know he wouldn’t understand no matter how much I explain myself, but one thing I’m hoping for is that he should never think I loved him less. He should never feel less of a man because of it. He should just believe I did it for the money because he alone couldn’t help me. My job wasn’t enough, and there was no family to help me, so I had to do it my own way.

—Jemima     

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