Five years ago, my wife’s father died. I was not working then. I lost my job during COVID and was struggling to find a new one. She was pregnant with our third child, and already, life was looking bleak for me. I tried to help in any way I could so she could give her father a befitting burial. She’s her parents’ only child. Her mom died before I met her.
Because I wasn’t working and had nothing in my name, I went to family members to raise money for her. It wasn’t much, but I was able to raise GHC10,000. Most of it was loans, and the rest was genuine help some family members gave me. I gave everything to her, and she was very happy that I could help.
Not only that, I also ensured that I contributed the manpower needed to organise the funeral. Once the funeral was over, her family members rose against her, trying to take her father’s house from her. They wanted to use family technicalities to say they owned the house. My wife got a lawyer, and they battled it out for over a year before the house was finally given to her.
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To be honest with you, I didn’t have the means to help with the court case. I didn’t have money. I didn’t have the technical know-how, but I was with her, listening and getting angry with certain outcomes until she won the case.
The house is in Accra and very well situated. Once she won the case, I assumed we would move into it. She told me there were repair works that ought to be done first.
It wasn’t a lie, but I still felt we could have moved into it while sorting out the repair works. For a while, she talked about speaking to a mason, then a carpenter, then a painter. After some time, I stopped hearing her talk about the house altogether.
One day, something took me to the area, and I realised some people were already using the house. When I asked about it, she told me one of her cousins needed the place to run his start-up, so she had given it to him for one year.
I felt sidelined. At least, if that was the case, she should have discussed it with me. She said it involved family, and that was why she gave it to him. She made it look like she didn’t even take any money from him but rather gave it out because he was family.
We had our third child, and at that time, she was still the one taking care of the family financially, so I let it go.
The one year passed, but her cousin was still in the house. My wife complained bitterly about how family behaves once you give them an inch. Eventually, he moved out, and you could see he had left the house in a bad state.
By that time, I had gotten a job and was earning a little better. I told her to leave the repairs to me. My suggestion was that we should move in first and fix the house gradually while living there.
She said no. She said we should first finish the rent period on the place we were already living in before thinking about moving.
I agreed.
But before that rent period ended, I found out that she had given the house to another tenant. Again, she hadn’t told me anything about it. I didn’t know how much she took from them or what the terms were. She later told me she needed the money to pay off some loans I didn’t know about.
To be honest, I was very disappointed. We had three kids and were living in a single-room self-contained apartment. I asked her, “If you think we are never going to live in that house, kindly let me know so I can stop thinking about it.”
She told me the new tenant had taken the house for two years. She said she needed the money at the time, but once those two years expired, we would take back the house and move into it.
So I held on to that promise.
Our kids have grown to a point where they need their own room. The first two are currently sleeping in the hall, while the lastborn lives with us.
I was very hopeful that, come what may, we would move into the house once those two years were over. We had every reason to, for her own comfort and the comfort of the kids.
But a few months ago, before we could make any plans to move in, I learned that she had given the house out again, this time for another three years.
She didn’t tell me.
I had to go there and hear it from the new tenant. Meanwhile, I was here planning not to renew our current rent because I believed there was already a house waiting for us.
I asked her, “Why are you doing this? I know the house is yours, and you decide what to do with it. Are we ever going to move there? Just make it plain so I can decide where to move my family to.”
She responded, “It’s not that I don’t want us to move there oo. That place is far from where I work. I would struggle to go to work. Unless, of course, I get a new job around there, then we can move there.”
It’s not about the distance. It’s just an excuse she was making. People commute from places farther than this, but they survive. I told her it was OK and that I would look for another place for us to move to.
The kind of rent I’m hearing for even a two-bedroom house is not easy. And you know the funny thing? All the houses we are getting currently are far from where she works, but she’s not complaining about it. She’s fine.
And it’s not as if she’s going to contribute to the rent. She’s looking at me to pay everything because I’m the one talking about moving.
It hurts me so much that a woman I’ve married and had three kids with doesn’t care about the welfare of the family. Even if it’s me she doesn’t want to live in the house with, how about the children?
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I see them at night, and my heart breaks. The way they sleep and how crammed we look in a house that we should have moved from long ago. If we didn’t have the means, that would have been another discussion, but my wife owns a whole three-bedroom house, yet we are crammed like fish in a sardine tin in this house.
I will keep looking until I get what my money can afford. Even if we have to live in Navrongo and go to work in Accra, it doesn’t matter. Such a woman still walks around this house with a smile on her face and asks me why I’m not happy.
Would you be happy if you were in my shoes? Or am I asking for too much where I don’t deserve what I’m asking for?
—Opoku
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Mr man, if you value your respect and dignity as a husband you will look away from that house and by all means rent a decent place for your family.
Or better still he should start saving towards buying a land and building his own house and register the land documents and house in his children’s name. At least someone has built for their children, he should also do same for his children.
Once she has started earning money from the house, there is no way she will allow any free movement so the earlier you save your respect as a man by providing shelter for your family, the better it will be for you.
It was improper to call your family sardines, secondly the fact that her father left her a house does not mean she has to move in and also as a man you could have bought a land and pay gradually and erect a structure on it. You should’ve taught about this rather than trying to ask her to go live in her father’s house that she can make money from. So Mr you are not right at all because you are proving that your dignity is very low
I perfectly understand your point however, why does a couple needs to warm each other?
There are many reasons two different individuals get married and are called couple.
Marriage is like a company you built and make sure there’s a way to sustain its life.
It’s only in Africa our culture makes it for the man to carry the burden a relationship.
Every man in a situation like this would surely think like this man did. Let’s stop the pretence and speak the fact.
Are the children not equally for her?
The death of her father should be a typical example to her to behave better towards the husband and the children in terms of accommodation, why saying this? Because as it stands now she’s the one enjoying from her father’s. Marriage is helping your spouse by lessens the burden when you are advantage.
She’s a selfish woman and doesn’t even care about her immediate family.
Hello, Mr Opoku, you are asking for something you don’t deserve. Just as Peter said, if you value your dignity, kindly ignore the existence of that house and look for a better place for your family. She doesn’t want you to live in that house thus the excuses.That is her inheritance and you don’t have to ever think of moving into that place. Be wise.
Man if you value respect and peace please look for your own place, if the dignity of the kids are important to you, get you own place, even if quater plot to start something. if it mean working twice as much. Cos that house you are not moving there. Dont be angry with your wife, women are like that. A word to the wise
You’re a man, instead of making a plan for your family you’ve sat back waiting for your late father-in-law’s house. No sense of shame do you have.
Will it be wrong to lessen the burden on a partner? One purpose of marriage is to help each other. If the man has the means and is refusing to provide, that’s another thing,but genuinely from what he’s saying, the means not there. If it were the man doing this,he’d be backlash but for the woman, she’s right. Yoo beema na anom aduro aa eenyono. Then if pressure kill him,they’ll say more men are dying than women. Man,God be your helper.