We got married in May. In June I found out that my husband had a side chick. I found out from the confession my husband made about our marriage to the side chick. Apparently, the lady didn’t know my husband was getting married. At some point, she screamed in the message, “George, tell me you’re joking. You’re married? How? When? For how long? But..but you never told me that you had someone like that in your life?” My husband was apologetic; “I’m sorry Liz. I didn’t want to lose you but I’ve come to also realize that the truth will come out someway somehow. It’s better for it to come from me than to hear about it elsewhere.”

They were talking on Facebook. They had dated for a year before we got married. I dated him for four good years before we finally got married. The reason I didn’t know about this girl was that she was not in town. She sounded like a girl she met on Facebook and decided to date. She was in Koforidua and we were living in Accra. He travelled to Koforidua often for work but he didn’t keep long for me to suspect that he might be having an affair there. Our marriage was barely a month old but the skeletons in the box had started falling out.

I didn’t want to upset the phase we were in as a married couple so I didn’t go fighting him. I approached him with calm and clarity in my heart though I was hurting. “George, you had someone while we were dating? Why did you leave it this late to tell her about our marriage? Another woman is hurt and might not trust men again because of what you did to her. Why would you go that far with another woman, someone’s sister?” 

He immediately knew that I’d read his messages on Facebook. “You know you didn’t have to go through my messages, right? Anyway, she’s someone in my past. We were not married when I dated her. I’m married now. Whatever existed between us is over. You saw that from the conversation, right?”

I didn’t talk much about that girl again but the memory of their conversation kept haunting me so one dawn when I couldn’t sleep, I went on Facebook and typed the girl’s name. I went through her profile and checked her photos. I wanted to see the kind of woman my husband dated before we got married; “Is she more successful than I am? Or prettier? What does she have that I don’t have? I spent all night going through her photos and she looked exactly like the kind of woman my husband would fall for.

George has a distinctive taste in women. It’s like the taste you develop for wine after tasting different kinds of wine. He loves them thick at the middle—big buttocks and slender waist. Breast isn’t his favourite thing so he doesn’t go for that. His immediate ex-girlfriend looked exactly like me and I look like the ex before his immediate ex. The only difference is our faces but when it comes to body features, we look alike. There I was in bed, unable to sleep and going through photos of a woman my husband was dating before we got married. The lady has everything in a woman my husband would love. She even has the kind of name my husband would fall for, Selma. 

I became worried. I know some women would move on once they get to know that the man is married but others would stick around. “The harm had already been done so why don’t I stick around, “ they tell themselves. “I’ve come to love him, though I’m hurt that he didn’t marry me, I can’t let him go like that.” Women with such mentality stick around to prolong the inevitable. They share your husband with you and leech his attention by and by. I looked at Selma’s photos and prayed she shouldn’t be that kind of woman but I didn’t keep my eyes closed after my prayers. I opened them so I could see clearly what was going on.

Every now and then I would check on her on Facebook to see what was going on in her life. As if I could see her ways with my husband on her wall. I didn’t see anything but I kept checking anyway. My husband had given me his password to his phone just to enhance the trust between us but I didn’t believe him. Every night when he was sleeping, I would check his messages. I won’t see anything. Then I will go to bed. It became like a prayer, the last thing I do before I go to bed. 

One day I was on Selma’s timeline at dawn when I saw a photo she posted days ago. The background looks the same as the photos I saw in my husband’s gallery. He was in the photos with his friends. I woke him up. “George, tell me the truth. Are you still seeing Selma?” “What are you talking about,” He screamed. “Are you going crazy or you’re dreaming?” I showed him the photos on his phone where he was there laughing with his friends. He asked, “Ahuh, what has that got to do with Selma?” I showed him the photo Selma posted. “She posted this on Saturday. You took these photos on Saturday too. It can’t be a coincidence that you two will be at the same place on the same day unless you planned it.”

He knew I’d caught him red-handed so he fell on the bed, faced the wall and pull the cloth over his head. I said, “No you’re not going to sleep when we have something important to talk about. Get up. Explained the theory behind these photos to me.” He answered while still under the cloth, “Yeah, I met her but nothing happened. I was in the company of friends while she was there so you know nothing can happen!” I slapped his thighs through the cloth; “Lair! George, you’re one crazy liar. Say that to the birds. Say that to whoever is dumb enough to believe you but not me. You’re still sleeping with Selma. She didn’t leave and you’re there showing her off to your friends. You don’t even respect this marriage. We are barely a year old but you’ve broken every vow already. Shame on you George.”

When he’s guilty, he doesn’t engage. That night he didn’t engage. 

It didn’t stop there. I saw their chats every now and then. He was on Facebook commenting on her post and liking her photos. At first, he was deleting messages but he stopped deleting them. He left them there for me to see them and get my heart broken. When I approached him he told me, “You want to read, right? There it is, read everything you want to read.” It felt like I was fighting a losing battle so I decided to approach the girl and let her know that I know what she is doing with my husband. 

“Hello Selma, I don’t know if you already know me but this is the wife of George, the man you’re dating. Can we talk?”

I waited the whole day for her response and it never came. When I checked in the evening, she blocked me. George came home looking at me with guilty eyes. I knew he knows what was going on. I told him, “So you asked her to block me after she consulted with you about my message right? God is watching you.” He didn’t say a word. He walked on to the bedroom as if what I said didn’t matter. That day I told myself, “Maybe I should stop probing. Maybe, for the sake of my own peace of mind, I should stop snooping. If I don’t see it, my heart would be at peace. Ignorance, they say, is bliss.

It was hard but I tuned off. I tried each day to avoid the temptation of going through his phone. Some nights I failed and went through it but slowly I was able to give up and live my life. 

Our marriage is two years old now. Is Selma still around? Yes! She’s not only around, now she’s all over my face, taking space and sometimes dictating the pace of my marriage. I had no option but to report the issue to his parents. George’s parents don’t have a firm grip on him like some parents do. He chooses to listen to them or not and they can’t do anything. They called us home and I ended up being the only person there. He didn’t go. In the last conversation I had with his dad, he said, “We are tired of trying. At some point, if you also think you’re tired, you can leave the marriage.”

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My parents have had a reason to visit us and address the issue but nothing has changed. These days, he talks to me about Selma as if Selma is part and parcel of the marriage, like bile to the liver, you can’t do anything about it. 

“George, where are you?” 

“I’m with Selma. She passed by to deliver a message.” 

“George, I called your phone and your line was busy. Who were you talking to?”

“It might be Selma, who else will I talk to for this long?”

I’m used to this kind of disrespect from him, now it feels like normal. I ask myself, “What’s the worst that could happen? To see him bring Selma home to introduce her to me as his second wife?” It sounds far-fetched but I won’t be surprised if we get there. Sometimes, I believe he would have married her by now if we had a traditional marriage. Where George is now, I’m scared anything at all can happen. We don’t have kids yet. He doesn’t have the time to stay in the nest to make babies. It’s more about Selma than about me.

I was talking to my mom when she said something that gave me the clarity I’ve ever needed in this marriage. He said, “Whatever you tolerate will continue until it becomes part of your life, even the bad things you tolerate will become part of you. I won’t tell you what to do, you’re your own woman.”

I’ve been thinking about this statement a lot and I think I know what to do. I’m only waiting for the courage to start it. It’s the journey after divorce that scares me. I’m thirty-three. Where do I go when everything is dusted? Sometimes I also believe leaving him makes it easier for Selma to win. Why don’t I stay and make things difficult for her as much as she’s making life difficult for me? It’s a battle between the head and the heart at this moment. I only pray for courage.   

–Lucinda

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