This is What I’ve Learned About Marriage After Dating Four Married Women

The women were not the ones you would expect. They posted family photographs, attended church with their husbands and spoke warmly about their children. If you met them at a wedding, you would never imagine they were arranging to see another man before going home.

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The first happened almost by accident.

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We boarded the same bus to work. She had been married for eight years and had three children. At first, we exchanged greetings, then started talking during the journey. She liked sitting beside me and eventually asked me to reserve the seat whenever I arrived first.

I did. It became a routine. Some mornings, she would board breathlessly, see the empty seat and smile as though I had done something extraordinary. One day, she said she wanted to thank me in a special way. I asked what she had in mind.

“Let’s have lunch to discuss that.”

At lunch, she asked whether I had a girlfriend and whether I intended to marry. I answered honestly, although I wondered why a married woman was so interested in my plans. Before we parted, she said an afternoon meeting wasn’t enough. She wanted us to go out at night.

We met at a beach one evening. There was music, food and more alcohol than she should have had before driving. As the night went on, she became affectionate. I blamed the drinks, even when I knew her interest had been growing for weeks.

On our way back, she turned onto a secluded road and parked. She seemed familiar with the place. We got intimate in her car that night.

The following Monday, I expected embarrassment when we met on the bus. Instead, she was cheerful, talking and laughing as though we had merely shared a meal.

“We don’t have to be seen together often or people will begin to suspect.” She said.

We stopped reserving seats. We rarely spoke during the journey. But at night we continued seeing each other, careful about where we went and who might recognise us.

Her husband sometimes called when we were together. She lied without pausing, and that ease troubled me more than I admitted. One evening, he called while we were being intimate. He was asking loudly whether she was coming home. She smiled into the phone.

“You miss me? Just say it.”

He got angry and started shouting on the phone. She held the phone away from her ear and laughed.

“Where was this man born? He’s not romantic at all.”

We continued for almost two years. Eventually, she withdrew. maybe she found another guy better than me or maybe she wanted to concentrate on her marriage. I didn’t try to persuade her to stay because by then, Barbara was already in the picture.

Barbara’s husband had become a pastor in the middle of their marriage. From her account, he had changed almost overnight. Every evening belonged to a church meeting, a prayer session or somebody who needed counselling. Their conversations revolved around his calling, while the ordinary things she wanted from a husband waited.

She had been married for nine years and had four children. Outwardly, she seemed happy. Only when people called her Sofo Maame did I see her face change.

She said that title had swallowed her name. People expected her to dress, speak and behave in certain ways, while nobody asked whether she liked the life she was living. I sometimes joked about the danger of dating a pastor’s wife. But the fear was real. I kept imagining her husband praying to God to reveal his enemies and we would come into the picture.

“Your husband will one day pray for us to be caught,” I told her.

“I didn’t ask him to become a pastor.” She said it lightly, but there was bitterness underneath.

Our relationship lasted less than a year. My conscience wouldn’t leave me alone. I ended it before my fears would come through.

There was another married woman after Barbara. That relationship was shorter, and we never allowed it to become part of our everyday lives. She would kiss me and regret it for days. She would ask for us to find a hideout and do out things and later act as if I forced her to do it.  Her conscience didn’t allow her to enjoy the relationship. We met a few times before she decided the risk wasn’t worth it.

The woman I’m still seeing has been married for four years. She has a two-year-old daughter and says her marriage changed after childbirth. She felt unseen, and the arguments at home grew more frequent. She wants a divorce, but her family is against it.

“I need to fashion my own happiness before my family make me rot in that marriage.”

Apparently, I am part of the happiness she has fashioned.

We’ve been on and off because she makes me nervous. Of all four women, she’s the most demanding. She calls at odd hours and expects me to be available immediately. If I don’t answer, she calls again. When I suggest we take things slowly, she accuses me of abandoning her like everybody else.

One dawn, she told her husband she was going for jogging only to end up in front of my door knocking. I opened the door to find her standing there in trainers, breathing hard and happy with herself. I was frightened someone in the neighbourhood would recognise her.

I asked her to be careful. She shrugged and said “I wish they’d deliver what they see to my husband so he’ll leave me alone.”

I couldn’t understand how she could be so reckless when she had a young daughter at home. She said she was tired of pretending. But whenever we quarrel, she returns to the same marriage she says she wants to escape.

When A Man Cheats And Doesn’t Disrespect You, It Should Be OK

These days, married women seem to cross my path more often than single women. Perhaps I’ve become the sort of man they recognise as willing to go that mile.  That is uncomfortable, because it means the pattern isn’t happening to me by accident.

I have heard enough unhappy stories to question what we assume about other people’s marriages. The smiling wife at an event may be carrying resentment nobody sees. A woman who rarely speaks may have a whole private life her husband knows nothing about.

But I also know four affairs don’t tell the story of every marriage. But still, I want married men to understand something. Don’t assume your wife cannot cheat because she is quiet, religious or devoted to the children. Don’t assume that providing for the household tells you everything about how she feels. I’ve seen enough to know that unhappy wives don’t stay unhappy forever. They’ll eventually look for what makes them happy and sometimes what makes them happy is another man.

—Duke  

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