For the past three years I have been living with a secret my wife doesn’t know. Currently, I don’t know how my marriage will be if the truth comes out. I have a loving wife. I’m scared there will be no love when the truth finally comes out.

FOLLOW US ON WHATSAPP CHANNEL TO RECEIVE ALL STORIES IN YOUR INBOX

The girl arrived in our office as a national service personnel. She was young, quiet, and eager to prove she belonged in a place where most people treated service workers like temporary furniture. Her name was Abena.

At first I barely noticed her beyond the usual office interactions. She asked questions about work, stayed late to finish tasks, and thanked everyone politely whenever they helped her. I looked at her and her dedication to work and told myself, this girl has to be maintained after national service.

Somewhere along the months my conversations with her started stretching beyond office work. Sometimes we talked during lunch. Other times we stayed back after closing hours discussing things that had nothing to do with the job. One day she mentioned my marriage. She said, “You talk about your wife a lot and you talk about her fondly. I like that.”

Slowly, the texture of our conversations started to change. It was subtle at first, and then it became bold and louder that something was growing between us. Our conversations became more personal and more comfortable. A certain level of familiarity grew quietly until one day we suddenly realized the line between friendship and something else had disappeared.

One night we finally crossed the line. We had stayed late to finish a report. The office was almost empty when we finished. I offered to drop her home because it was already late. That drive should have ended at her gate. Instead, it became the beginning of something I told myself would never happen again. It was short and done in fear but it didn’t cease to be an intimacy.

From that day, we started an affair that existed quietly in hidden spaces. We tried our best not to let the world in on what was happening between us. Our calls became late-night calls. We met secretly at places where no one knew who we were. And our conversations in the office ended whenever someone from the office appeared.

I kept telling myself it would end when her service ended. That was the plan, but plans have a way of collapsing when real life begins interfering. A few weeks before her service ended, Abena asked if we could meet somewhere quiet and talk. Her voice sounded strange on the phone, like someone carrying news that had already changed everything.

When we met, she didn’t waste time with small talk. She went straight to the point, “I’m pregnant,” she said.

For a moment it felt like the world was caving in on us. The first thought that entered my mind was my wife. We had been married for six years. She trusted me in the quiet, ordinary way wives trust their husbands. I asked Abena what she wanted to do. She knew what I was talking about. She knew I didn’t want to have the child. She shook her head slowly. “I’m not destroying a child because of our mistake,” she said. “Doing this with you was the greatest sin I’ve ever committed. I won’t add this guilt on top of it. Let’s have the child.”

The pregnancy remained a secret. When her national service ended, she moved to where she came from, a town not too far from where I live. I continued living my normal life with my wife, going to work every morning and returning home every evening as if nothing had changed, but something had changed. In fact, a lot had changed, but I played it cool while I sweated beneath my skin.

Nine months later my son was born. The first time I held him, the weight of my choices finally became real. He looked at me with the calm curiosity of a child who had no idea his existence was built on a secret. It broke my heart, the kind of life he was about to live because two adults decided to eat the forbidden fruit.

I have been living between two lives since Abena gave birth. In one life I am the husband who comes home every evening, eats dinner with his wife, and talks about work. In the other life I visit a small house in another town where a little boy is growing up. A boy who belongs to me but none of my family know about it.

He is growing fast. Yesterday he was just a baby in a little cot. Today he walks and touches what he’s not supposed to touch. You tell him to stop and rather he runs toward the danger. He laughs easily, and his eyes light up when he sees me. Every visit makes the truth heavier because one day he will grow old enough to ask why I don’t live with him. And one day my wife may discover the child who carries my face and decide our marriage is not worth keeping alive.

Lately I find myself staring at her when we sit quietly in the living room, wondering how a single sentence could break the life we have built. How do you tell your wife that somewhere outside your marriage there’s a child that bears your name? How do you in all honesty confess that you have a child with another woman and still expect to have your marriage intact?

It’s Not God’s Law For A Man To Apologize To A Woman

I wish I had these answers. I wish I was that kind of man who can bully through his marriage even when he was wrong. I’m not that kind of man in this marriage and my wife isn’t someone you can scare into silence or push to live with you after telling her this truth. So I go out and come in as if all is well and my marriage is the healthiest marriage alive, but just one truth, and we may all come falling apart. Life.

—Kobby

This story you just read was sent to us by someone just like you. We know you have a story too. Email it to us at [email protected]. You can also drop your number and we will call you so you tell us your story.

******