They say to have conversations about everything before you get married. We didn’t do that. We were young and in love. To me, if you love a woman, you marry her, so I did. I was twenty-nine years old, and she was twenty-seven years old when we got married. We dated for only a year. Half of our dating period happened distantly. I was in Accra, and she was working in Aflao. When we got married, I pulled all the strings I could and got her a job in Accra.

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I saw her salary. It was twice more than what she was receiving in Aflao. She jumped up and danced while calling me the best thing that had happened to her.

When she came to live with me and we started life together, I thought it was natural that she helped around. They say your wife is your helper, and I thought it came to wives naturally to help, but she kept her money under her bra while I spent mine on everything.

When we had our first child, I had traveled. I was away for two weeks on a job trip. When I came back home, happy to see my first child, she pulled the drawer and handed me the receipts of every penny she had paid while at the hospital. For three days, she constantly disturbed my ears, asking me to pay the money she spent at the hospital. I paid her in full.

Those days when she was going for antenatal, she would ask for lorry fare to the hospital. It got me angry. I talked about it, but according to her, she was the only one carrying the pregnancy, so I had to pay up the financial debt that arose due to the pregnancy. I was there when the second child came. I took her to the hospital and paid everything.

During the naming ceremony of our second child, my mom gave us an envelope containing money because we named the child after her. I don’t even remember the time she took the envelope from me. I wanted to invest the money for the baby so that in the future, we could use it for something. When I asked her to give me the money, she asked me if I was the one who carried the baby. I said, “The money is for the baby and not for the parents.” She told me, “I’m the mother. If I keep it, it naturally goes to the baby.”

She told me she was going to invest the money, but she never did. It got to a point where I realized that if I allowed financial issues to come between us, our marriage wouldn’t survive, so I shut up and carried the load on my shoulder like the man is expected to do.

When her father’s sickness happened, I visited. Whenever I did, I gave money to her mother. I’m not going to say it was a large sum, but something to keep the house going for a while. I did this behind my wife’s back, but I believed her mother told her because one day she told me her mother had asked her to thank me on her behalf.

Then one morning, I saw medical receipts on my table. I actually didn’t pay attention to them because I thought she accidentally left them there. I was wrong. It was intentional. She wanted me to see them and make a move. When she waited and waited and I didn’t say anything, she asked me, “So you mean you haven’t seen the receipts I left on your table? Anyway, you need to give me money because I don’t have anything on me now.”

My answer was simple: “I don’t have anything on me either.” She asked, “So when?” I answered, “When I have excess money, I may decide to help, but I don’t know when I’m going to have that excess money, looking at everything I’m paying for in this house.”

She didn’t like my answer, so she started ranting that I always make excuses whenever there’s money involved and asked if her dad hadn’t given birth to her, would I have had the opportunity to meet her? I said in my head, “Your dad, koraa, he has worried me paaa. All this wickedness from you, and you think I’m happy to have you?”

Usually, she would give me the silent treatment. I didn’t bother. I talked to the kids and played with them. She wouldn’t do anything right, baiting me to talk so she could bring up a fight. I refused to talk.

When her dad’s sickness took a different turn and the medical bills kept piling up, she came to me with a plea. That was when I posted this question, asking if I was being harsh. She pleaded that I should help her pay the bills because it was breaking her head. I asked what her other siblings were doing to help. She told me they were also doing their best but were mostly looking up to her.

That night, I checked her phone and read the notification from her bank. The amount she had sitting in her accounts was something I could only dream of. I said, “Herh, this girl is wicked!” I listened to the advice I was given on this page. I didn’t even have a choice because I didn’t have the money.

And then her father died. He was sixty-eight years old. I saw it on her status that day, mourning and eulogizing her dad at the same time. She had made the last post two hours ago, but she hadn’t told me about it. I called her mom; she was crying. I didn’t even know how to console her, but I did my best.

All day, I waited to be told, but the call never came. She had gone home to her parents’ house that morning but said nothing to me. In the evening, I called her. She talked to me angrily because, according to her, I had seen it on her status that her dad had died and I didn’t call her until late. I could understand the situation she was in, so I apologized and tried to console her. She was quiet until I finished, and then she said, “Isn’t that all you wanted? He’s gone; you should be happy.”

Again, I understood where she stood in grief, so I said nothing back.

She came home three days later, and she wouldn’t talk to me. Anytime I made an attempt to talk, she snapped at me, so we lived in the house as co-tenants. I went to her house with my parents to greet them. She was still giving me attitude. When they did the one-week memorial, I was there. She treated me like a ghost. It was her younger sister’s husband who came to ask me if there was something we had to do as husbands.

Anything I knew about the funeral, I either got it from her mother or saw it on her WhatsApp status. I was in constant talk with her mother, asking what I needed to do as a husband, and she gave me directions. All the contributions I had to make, I gave them to her mother directly.

Two weeks after the funeral, and my wife hadn’t come home. Unbeknownst to me, she had taken leave from work and decided to stay at her parents’ house. It was just a simple call to ask when she was coming back—come and see insults and accusations. To her, I had killed her father, so I had no right to determine how long she decided to mourn. All I asked was, “When are you coming home?”

When she finally came, she said she came because of the kids and not me because, through her struggles, she had realized that she married her enemy and not a man who loved her. For a long time, I allowed this comment to pass until one dawn it blew into a fight. Again, she accused me of killing her father and told me, “You’ll do that to me because you don’t know a father’s love. You never had one.”

She was on a mission to hurt me, but I remained impenetrable until she mentioned divorce. That everything that had happened had made her aware that she didn’t have a support system: “I’d rather be single than remain in this marriage.” I answered, “I’m here. Whenever you’re ready for a divorce, let me know. I’ll collaborate so we have a peaceful one.”

How The Death Of Our Son Nearly Brought Our Marriage To An End

She hasn’t said anything about the divorce again. She goes about her business quietly, trying so hard not to have a reason to talk to me, but I’m fine. I’m not fighting her. I still remain her husband with a clear conscience that I didn’t do anything to speed up the death of her father. If I had money in abundance, then this wouldn’t be a problem between us. God knows I’m stretching myself thin already, but no matter how thinner I become, I can’t cover all the surfaces.

—Dabo

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