I was single for a while until my meddling friend decided to set me up with another friend of his. He told me he was a good guy. He said, “he’s the kind of guy who won’t hurt a woman.” He painted a picture-perfect of him and sold it to me. I believed my friend so I decided to give his recommendation a try. We mostly attach a great deal of trust to things our friends recommend to us. It could be food. It could be a place. It could also be a person. They’ll tell you, “I bought food from this place once and it was awesome. Words from friends are to be trusted, especially if it’s about something they’ve experienced. I met him and he did seem like a perfect man. I was sold. We talked regularly. We got to know each other. I thought he was someone I could be with. He seemed sane.

He didn’t propose. If he did, then I don’t remember. I don’t remember there was an official proposal. When my friend set us up, we knew what we were getting ourselves into so we talked. When the vibe was good, we became a couple.  The first thing I noticed about him was his stinginess. I’m talking about crazy stinginess. We’ve dated for five months and the entire time he has given me GHC500. He also gave me GHc100 one time. Before you say, “But that’s not bad,” listen to what he did after giving me that money. He’ll send me the money and later come back to collect part of it. He’ll invent a story. I’d-swallowed-a-saucepan-so-I-need-money-for-surgery kind of stories. I always gave it to him. I knew it was his money he was coming for so I didn’t fight it.

He didn’t have a car when I first met him. I didn’t have a problem with him borrowing my car. What bothered me was how he’d take the car and use all my fuel. He’d come and park it with an empty tank.  Sometimes by the time he brought the car back, it was faulty. He wouldn’t tell me. He’d just park it as if nothing had happened. Imagine the inconvenience when the car finally leaves me stranded in the middle of a trip. It didn’t make sense that he behaved that way.

One day he came for my car for a trip and later called me, “The car broke down along the way. We need to fix it so kindly send money for the fixing. There was something I wanted to tell him. Something bad. An insult or anything to let him know that he wasn’t being fair with me. I didn’t want to spark an argument that went on and on so I sent the money to him to get the car fixed. After all, it was my own car that has developed a fault.

For someone that stingy, he talked big. He enjoyed making promises he knew he wouldn’t keep. In the beginning, I thought he would try and at least fulfill one of his many promises. As time went on, I learned to accept the promises as background noise in our relationship. My love language is gift-giving, and he knows this. Yet all the time we’ve been together, he has never brought me a single gift. It doesn’t have to be anything grand or expensive. A simple gift. It could even be something mundane. A gesture that showed he thought of me. I hoped he’d even learn from the things I did for him. I spent a lot of money trying to make him look better but he never learned to reciprocate. He was quite unkempt when I met him.

To add to the list, he has been very manipulative in this relationship. The manipulation I’ve had to deal with is so terrible. This man would lie to me, and when I catch him, he would do everything to cover up those lies. Sometimes he would say, “The reason you caught me in a lie is that you are possessed by a spirit. That spirit is trying to delay your marriage.” And then he would make it seem like it was my fault. Then he would demand I apologize to him for finding out the truth. How I ever thought he was sane, beats me. It didn’t make sense the things he made me do but in the name of love crazy things get done.

Big talkers talk about everything including the very secrets of their lives. They don’t care where they stand. If the moment calls for a speech, they’ll say anything to be relevant. He’s just like that. Nothing stays between us. Every private conversation we’ve had becomes public knowledge. He tells his pastor about the things we talk about, even to the smallest details. I expressed my displeasure at his behavior, but it didn’t help anything. He was set in his ways. He believes he knows better. Can you imagine being with someone you cannot openly communicate with? For the fear that whatever you say would soon find its way to the public?

At a point, I told him to be giving me some money monthly, instead of sending me money and asking for a part of it back. He went to complain to his pastor that I’ve asked him to pay for being in a relationship with me. He said it’s side chicks and slay queens who get paid for being in relationships with married men. He said it to throw my past in my face. I opened up to him about a horrible experience I had with a married man and he used it as ammunition against me. I dated a married man who lied about his marital status. This is something I never want to think about but he found a way to bring it up.

I decided to break up with him. I sat him down and said to him, “This relationship hasn’t been working for me. I’m trying to make it work but I don’t think it will work. Let’s say our goodbyes while it’s still early. That way, no one gets hurt.” He then started telling me scary things. Scary spiritual things. He said, “Do you know the spiritual battles I’m fighting because of you? An evil spirit appeared to me to ask me what I’m doing with you. I am under constant spiritual attacks because of my relationship with you.” That was a major turn-off for me. In other words, I should be thankful that he didn’t leave me after the spirit appeared to him. He wants to say he is doing me a favor, by staying with me even when he had received a spiritual warning.

READ ALSO: My Relationship With Him Is Breaking Down All Because I Won A GH₵100 Bet

At some point in the relationship, I became so depressed. I was tired. I felt drained. The toxicity was just too much. I felt trapped. Like I’m in a prison. I never experienced a single day of happiness. It was all about spiritual battles and being assigned different sets of prayers. Never really felt any love. Did I sign up to be in a loving relationship? Or I did enlist to join spiritual warfare? All I feel is a constant fear. Fear that something will happen to me if I run and leave him. He keeps talking about haunting spirits who are after us. It has become his chore to put the fear of evil spirits in me so I would not leave.

Now it seems I have to bend and break my will to please all his pastors. They know everything and they constantly come at me. I have to tiptoe around them so I don’t offend any of them. The pastors keep telling me that we are meant to be. That our souls intertwined until the end. It looks like another attempt at manipulation. I don’t know. I’ve never been happy. If anything, I feel completely used and manipulated.

Even if we are meant to be together, must it not happen as a result of our own willingness? Should we be pushed around with chains of spirituality around our necks?  I felt happier and so much better when I was alone. I thought being I a relationship would better the way I was feeling—make my good better but currently is all about spiritual warfare against things I don’t even know where they come from.  I want to run away but there’s this fear. The ‘what if’ kind of fear. What if what he says about bad spirits are true?

I’m confused. What do you suggest I do?

—Ella

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