My wedding is supposed to happen three weeks from now, but at this moment, I am bailing out quietly. My boyfriend’s sister is fully on my side. She even suggested that I go through with the wedding and reject him at the altar as a way to get back at him. I won’t lie, the thought crossed my mind and it was tempting for a moment, but I am too tired to carry that kind of anger. By the time when he returns, I won’t be here.

This is how it all started.

Two years ago, an opportunity dropped right at my feet. It was a job I had been praying for, for a very long time in Canada. I left my boyfriend, my family, and everything I had ever known growing up. I grabbed that chance and I left.

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Before I moved, my boyfriend and I hardly spoke about marriage. It was always something we both knew would happen at some point, just not something we sat down to plan. Somehow the distance changed that. It made us talk about it more seriously, like we were trying to hold on to something that felt like it was slowly slipping away. He started talking about it, he sold the perfect ‘ever after’ to me. We were on a video call when he went down on his knees and asked me to marry him, as if the miles were nothing and technology made it simple.

Because he was back home, he took care of everything that needed to be done. From the moment he went to see my family for the “marriage list,” to the market runs, to meetings with vendors, and visiting the families that mattered. I didn’t even know that planning a wedding was that tiring until it was my turn. Every night on the phone, I was trying to calm him down over some vendor who was doing the opposite of what he wanted, or how family was stressing him out.

But we pulled through and set a date. Of course, I had to come down for my big day. I packed my bags and imagined at the airport that I was going straight to his house so we could have time to spend with each other and just talk. Instead, he came to pick me up and took me straight to my parents’ house to stay with them while I prepared for the marriage.

I visited him one day and didn’t get the excitement I was expecting. Our relationship had been over texts or on calls for so long, so I decided to go to his place since I hadn’t been there much. The moment I stepped into the house, my heart sank. The place was dusty, neglected, and clearly not cared for. It looked like there had been no cleaning done in ages. While he was away for work, I took it upon myself to clean. A woman could not be in a house and stay in that kind of dirt.

In the master bedroom, I found a lady’s bum shorts tucked into his wardrobe. I brushed it off. I thought maybe he bought them and didn’t even know they were for women. In the hall, while dusting the couch, I saw a female headband in a very feminine color. I figured it could be for his skincare routine. You know how these days men are getting interested in skincare.

It was at the shoe rack that I realized I was making stupid excuses for a man. I counted five pairs of women’s footwear mixed in with his. In the guest room, there were ladies’ bags and clothes hidden behind the bed. From the way they were shoved there, it was a clearly and carefully planned concealment.

I stood in the kitchen and wondered when exactly he started a baking course that I knew nothing about. Baking items, soaked cloves, and containers of hormonal pills were all tucked in the cabinets under the sink.

I can tell you my hands were not shaking when I picked up the phone to call his sister. She confirmed my fears. She told me she met a lady cooking in his kitchen about a month before my arrival. His brother was next. He too said he met a woman over there the last time he was around, but he claimed she was just a colleague.

My fiancé had given me a SIM card to use since I came back because my original number wasn’t working. There was this one number that kept calling repeatedly until I finally decided to answer. The woman on the other end sounded upset, asking why he had been ignoring her calls. I introduced myself as his sister and explained I was using his SIM. Immediately her tone changed. She started apologizing, and then she said it so casually that it almost didn’t register at first. She said she was his girlfriend.

I don’t even know what came over me, but I invited her over. She arrived two hours later, smiling widely and hugging me like we were friends. She sat comfortably in that house as if it was hers too. During our conversation, she mentioned that she had left the house just four days before I arrived. She said she didn’t bother cleaning because he told her he would get someone to do it.

That evening, I slept in the hall while she slept in her boyfriend’s room. This is the same man who told me we should abstain from sex until marriage since we had already waited two years. I believed him, but clearly, he was enjoying intimacy elsewhere.

Now it all makes sense in the worst way possible.

I am leaving him, and this charade. Once I get to my parents’ house, I will book my flight back to Canada. As much as this hurts, I know staying here will only make it worse. What breaks me even more is realizing how much he has been doing for her. He bought her a car, he is paying her rent, taking care of her child’s school fees, and building a whole life with someone else while planning a wedding with me.

The strangest part is that she has no idea who I am. I have decided I won’t tell her because at this point I don’t even have the energy to explain anything.

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By the time when he returns, I won’t be here. But she will be. She will probably be in that same house, in her bum shorts, smiling with her arms open, ready to continue from exactly where they left off, like none of this ever mattered.

—Amanda

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