I was 23 and in high school when I first saw him. He was a national service teacher at the same school, but we barely spoke beyond classroom interactions. At some point, I realized the teaching method at that school wasn’t working for me, so I transferred to another school. Just before I left, he gave me his number. That’s how we became friends, and eventually, started dating.

Before I met him, I was already taking care of myself. So when I fell in love with him, I treated him the way I treated myself, with complete devotion. I was solid in his corner.

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Sometimes he even looked at me and asked, “Are you for real?” I didn’t blame him. He had never been in a stable relationship before me. That’s why it amazed him just how much I contributed to his life.

I provided him with emotional support. I listened to his problems, and offered helpful solutions. And oh, I cooked his meals. I am not a gourmet chef but the kind of dishes I prepared for him would make you sign me up for a cooking show. I even made him homemade juices; soya milk, bissap, and fresh fruit blends.

His laundry never piled up because I did it for him. In addition to all this, I cleaned his apartment, and scrubbed his bathroom. Looking back, I don’t think I have done any of these things for a man since that relationship ended.

I knew he respected me, but he never loved me. He was dating another girl alongside me. She is Ga. When I found out, he told me, “If Lamle offered me even 15% of what you give me, I would have married her by now.”

And yet, I didn’t leave. I was so in love that I kept trying to prove I was worthy of his love. This same person wasn’t even consistent with phone calls. Every once in a while, I would come to my senses and try to break up with him, but he always found a way to pull me back in.

While I held on to him, his other girlfriend was taunting me. She’d call my phone, and insult me while her friends listened. Despite this, she would visit him and mess up his place, and then I would go over and clean up after her.

One day, after an intimate moment, I found a pack of medication in his room. Treatment for STDs. I should have been furious, but I wasn’t. Instead, I sat him down and asked if any of his women were also taking the drugs to prevent reinfection. He said no. He wasn’t even sure the medication was working. “Meanwhile, this gonorrhea thing is painful,” he added.

Can you believe I arranged for proper treatment for him? He didn’t even have money for food, so I fed him and nursed him back to health.

The entire time I was taking care of him, his Ga girlfriend kept calling. Eventually, I picked up. The next day, when he felt a little better, he insulted me for touching his phone.

A few days later, I found messages between him and Lamle. When I confronted him, he finally admitted the truth.

“I never loved you,” he said, “the whole time you were both all over me, I never loved any of you.” He also confessed that there were other women in his life besides us.

Then he looked me straight in the eye and said something I will never forget.

“The day you found out I had gonorrhea, and you were still patient and kind, it pissed me off. I kept wondering, why is this woman still here after everything I have done to her? Doesn’t she respect or love herself?”

That was the moment I broke. I looked at him and said, “Joojo, even though I love you, this time, I will leave and never look back.”

He scoffed. “Oh, don’t I know you? You always leave, but you always come back.”

My heart shattered in its cage, but I made a silent promise—I would never go back to this man who took my love for granted.

Not long after the breakup, the gonorrhea he infected me with started manifesting. When I called to tell him, he didn’t even care. He knew how painful the infection was, yet he never checked on me. I went through treatment and recovery alone.

By the time I got better, I had learned my lesson. I finished high school and moved on with my life.

While I was in school, he reached out and we started talking again. This time, he was full of regret.

“Losing you taught me I wasn’t living a good life,” he said, “It took a lot of work, but I changed. I’m a better man now.”

By then, he had met another woman. They had a set of twins and were living together.

“I wanted to come back to you after I changed,” he confessed, “but I remembered how much you cried when we were together. I couldn’t come back and bring you more pain. So I decided to leave you alone so you could meet someone who would love you right.”

As the years passed, our friendship grew. When I completed nursing school and started selling cosmetic products while waiting for my results, he became one of my biggest customers. When men came into my life and I pushed them away, he encouraged me to give them a chance.

But I had changed. After my experience with him, I became truly wary of men. I took my time, examined their intentions carefully—like sifting through grains of sand on a stony beach. I just wanted to be a good woman who didn’t fall into the wrong hands again.

Then, last year, he made a proposition.

First, he brought up marriage. I laughed. Then he spoke about having a child.

“I want us to have a child,” he said.

I reminded him about Obaa Yaa, the woman he had twins with.

“I’m not married to her yet,” he replied. “Anything can happen.”

I ignored him, but he kept pushing.

“You’re thirty-three, but you don’t have a family to call your own,” he said one day. “If your sister gets married and something happens to your parents, you’ll see how lonely you are. So if you know marriage isn’t happening, let’s at least have a child.”

I still didn’t take him seriously. He even offered to buy me a car. “I’m not the kind of woman who falls for material things,” I told him.

Over time, his words started chipping away at my resolve. Societal pressure didn’t help either. Last Christmas for instance, I took some neighborhood kids out for the holidays. A neighbor who saw us said, “So this is how you’ll spend your Christmas—taking other people’s kids out because you won’t marry and start your own family?”

It stung. This kind of talk only re-echoes the loneliness of a single woman.

I’m not proud to admit it, but eventually, I fell for it. I fell for the grand talk of my toxic ex and got back together with him. After all, isn’t the devil you know better than the one you don’t?

But as our relationship progressed, I noticed something—he was crazy about Obaa Yaa. He never hid it. He went above and beyond to provide for her, but when it came to me, he did the bare minimum.

He saw me as a hardworking woman who could take care of herself. So he never felt the need to go the extra mile for me. Meanwhile, he provided everything for her. Even the little things she craved—he sent her money for them. But the only time he spent money on me was when he visited me, when we went out on dates, and when I run out of cash and asked him to cushion me till my next salary.

He talked big about how he would take care of our child, should I get pregnant, but his behaviour didn’t give me any assurance he would. I felt he wouldn’t go all out for our child the way he did Obaa Yaa’s children.

And for his talk about having his next child with me, I ran into Obaa Yaa in town and she was pregnant with their third child. That was the moment I knew he was taking me for a ride.

He never loved me then and he didn’t love me now. Obaa Yaa is the woman he truly loves. It was no wonder he brought up her name in all our conversations. One time I asked him, “The way you talk to me about her, can you talk to her about me? You plan to perform the traditional marriage rites after she gives birth to this child she is carrying. But if I should have a baby for you, that child would be a secret, right?”

In response, he reminded me of my age and how he was the only man present for me. All I heard was, “You are lonely and desperate. I am doing you a favor by being with you.”

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I didn’t wait for more signs. I started pulling away. When he noticed it and asked questions, I told him, “You love Obaa Yaa. So focus on her. I too deserve a man who will treat me the way you treat her.”

I’ll be thirty-four this year, but I’m no longer worried about not having a man. Joojo taught me that men go above and beyond for the women they love. I was just never that woman for him.

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As I share this, he and Obaa Yaa are living happily in their three-bedroom home with their three children. Yet he has been knocking on my door again with big promises but I know I will never make the mistake of letting him in again.

Exes always come back when they think they can still have you.

But I finally know my worth. And I will never settle for a man I know isn’t good for me again, just because I am lonely or feel my biological clock is ticking.

—Dorcas

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