When I met her, I was still trying to establish myself financially. I had a decent job, but my salary wasn’t anything extraordinary. She was also working, and we understood that whatever future we wanted, we would have to build it gradually.

She was the first person I called whenever something good happened. When I had problems at work, she encouraged me. Sometimes, she visited my place on weekends and cooked enough food to last me several days.

We weren’t rich, but we were happy.

After three years of dating, we started discussing marriage. I met her parents, and they welcomed me warmly. A few months after meeting her parents, we performed the knocking rites and began preparing for our traditional marriage.

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Our plan was to have something modest. I didn’t want us to borrow money for a wedding and spend the first year of marriage paying debts, so we started saving and buying things gradually. Sometimes, she sent me pictures of wedding decorations. Other times, she called to discuss the colours she wanted us to use.

Then she met a half-caste man. He was Ghanaian but had been living in the UK for several years.

The changes started with little things. She became less interested in our wedding preparations. Whenever I brought up something we needed to buy, she acted nonchalant, as if I was the only one interested in the wedding. She would miss my calls and not call back.

One evening, I asked if everything was fine and whether both of us were still aligned concerning our wedding.

She said, “Don’t you feel we’re rushing things?”

We had been dating for almost four years, so I wondered what kind of rushing she was talking about.

She told me it was only a feeling she had and that she could be wrong.

A week later, she came to my house and told me she wanted us to rethink the wedding.

I asked which part of the wedding we should rethink, and she said, “Everything. As time passes, I start to shiver. The whole thing is scaring me.”

I told her her feelings were valid.

“I get scared sometimes too, but the love I have for you assures me that everything will be alright.”

She retorted, “Love alone can’t make it work. We need more.”

Everything she said that day was about trying to dampen my spirit about the marriage. I asked whether she had stopped loving me.

She said she still cared about me, but she just wasn’t sure about so many things.

After this conversation, I didn’t hear from her for three days.

I went to her place three times, even at night, and she wasn’t there. I called. There was a time the line was busy, but after that call, she didn’t call back.

I was going crazy.

Everything was changing so quickly.

I went to see her parents and met her mother. I told her everything that was going on, and she said, “If a woman doesn’t love you anymore, why don’t you leave her? Is she the only woman in the universe?”

I was shocked, but I maintained my posture.

I said, “Mom, you know how far we’ve come. We have to reap the results of our suffering.”

She retorted, “You’ve come far, so you’ll kill yourself for a woman? Eiii. You go. I don’t have time for this conversation.”

Her mother got up and left me there.

If I didn’t understand what was going on before, her mother’s attitude made things clear to me.

The next time I met my Diana, even before I could ask where she had been, she said, “It’s clear it’s not working. Let’s not force it. If you need me to pay for the things you’ve bought, feel free to tell me. I will pay.”

I asked her whether she was seeing someone else, and she answered, “Should I see someone else before I know what is not working? You want to tell me I don’t have a mind of my own?”

Everything she said hurt.

Her words sparked like a match and turned a small fire into a flame.

The hurt was too much, so I stopped pushing, and that was when the love died.

When I stopped calling, when I stopped checking up on her, when I stopped talking about the wedding, everything died down like leaves exposed to a burning fire.

A few months later, she was parading this new half-caste man around as the love of her life.

Every little space she had was filled with photos of her and this half-caste guy. WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram. Everywhere.

The biggest shame came from friends who called to mock me, saying I’d watered a flower for four years only for a half-caste man to use one day to snatch it.

I laughed along, pretending it didn’t hurt.

But it hurt like hell.

I sold what I’d bought for our wedding. I gave some things away too. I wanted to forget quickly and move on with my life.

I even travelled out of town, came back, and left the area where we lived for a while so I wouldn’t hear about her from other people.

A little over a year later, there was no half-caste man, no marriage he had promised her, and no life in the UK he had promised her.

According to what I heard, he had promised to make arrangements for my ex-girlfriend to join him. She had already started telling people that she would soon relocate.

But after he left Ghana, his communication with her ended.

I saw her once, and she wasn’t looking good at all.

I even asked mutual friends if she had been sick, and one of them said, “She’s reaping the fruits of the lies she sowed.”

I didn’t understand that proverb until recently.

One of her friends called me.

She said, “Do you know she still talks about you?”

She told me my ex-girlfriend had been crying about how she treated me. According to her, she now says leaving me was the greatest mistake she ever made.

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She said my ex had gone to the extent of seeing pastors to pray for me to change my heart towards her so that the day she returned to me, I would gladly accept her back without any resistance.

I laughed and thanked God for not being a man.

I told her friend, “I’ve been hurt and healed. What she’s going through is normal. She will heal too.”

Not long afterwards, I saw my ex calling.

I looked at the phone for so long, even after the call had ended.

Then my heart started beating abnormally.

She called again.

I shook my head, cut the call, and blocked her.

A few days later, that same friend of hers called to tell me that a pastor had advised my ex to look for me and ask for forgiveness. Until then, she would go through a lot of hurt and might not even be able to marry.

I told her, “I pray what the pastor is saying is not true, but there’s nothing here to forgive. She won’t see me, so she should stop searching for me.”

—Perry 

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