I met him one day in a church when I visited Ghana. He introduced himself and called me beautiful. He didn’t tell me he was a pastor. When it was time to preach, he ascended the pulpit and delivered a very warm sermon. He would look in my direction while he preached, and our eyes would meet.

After the service, he gave me his number and asked me to call him sometime. He was a visiting pastor in the church I attended. I later got to know his church and visited one Sunday. All this while, he didn’t know I lived in the UK and had only come to Ghana to visit.

We talked for over a week. He would pray with me sometimes and tell me to open my heart to God. I was very open with him because I’d started liking him. When he proposed, I asked him, “Can you handle a long-distance relationship?”

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He laughed. “But we don’t live too far apart. I can see you every day if you want me to.”

Then I told him I’d been in the UK for over twenty years. I only came to Ghana to visit the family once in a while. I told him about my failed marriage years ago that resulted in two children. I told him everything he needed to know to be able to make a good decision about love.

He said it didn’t change how he felt about me and that we could date and see where God would take us. So we started dating.

A year later, I visited, and we did the knocking rite. I went back to the UK and found out that I was pregnant. I asked him what we were going to do about it, and he said it didn’t look good for his reputation, so we should hide it until we did the right thing.

A few months later, we got married. His people went to my house to perform the traditional marriage in my absence, and then we had the court marriage too, both while I was absent. From there, we were free to let the world know I was pregnant.

I lived alone with the children from my first marriage. Having a baby while living alone here would be very stressful, so I asked him to relocate to the UK so he could help with the baby when I delivered.

His passport had even expired. I had to pay for it to be done on an express basis. I paid for everything concerning his travel until he got here one summer.

A week after his arrival, I had the baby.

He would stay home while I went out to work and bring in money. We both had hopes that once he arrived, he would find work as soon as possible to help in the house financially. But a year later, he was still home.

I was the one using my contacts to find him a job, but he rejected every job offer that came his way. It was either the job was beneath him or he felt the work was too stressful. I told him, “Even a woman like me, that’s the kind of work I did before I got the one I’m doing now. Start from somewhere.”

He said he was a man of God before anything else, so he had to consult God to give him his heart’s desire.

While he was home, he helped with the kids. He was so good with them that they all gravitated towards him. He would play football and jump around with them. He would make their meals and eat from the same plate with them. He was even teaching them Twi and made a rule that it was compulsory for everyone to speak Twi in the house.

The kids found it amusing, but they tried to speak the language however badly. I enjoyed that part of him, but financially, I was breaking down. I had to take on one more job to be able to keep the house going.

Three years passed, and he was still not working.

I got tired and gave him an ultimatum that if he didn’t find a job, then he would have to go back to Ghana.

He was angry. He called it a threat, but I told him I was very tired and had no other option.

Later, he said he wanted to start a church in the UK. God had told him his life’s destiny was to serve God only and no human, so it was only a church he could manage.

This place is not Ghana, where you can start anything anyhow. I begged him to at least work first.

What I didn’t know was that all this while we were arguing about work and starting a church, he had reached out to a Ghanaian lady in the UK who had a church and was asking questions. Their conversation moved from Facebook to WhatsApp.

He asked her, “My wife brought me here, but God tells me she’s not the woman I should marry. Can you help with the divorce process so I can commit fully to your church?”

When I read this message, my heart was torn into pieces. While my back was breaking for him, he was looking for an escape. I told him, “No need to ask for her help to divorce me. I’ll give you the divorce myself.”

He fell on his knees and started begging me. He said he had been very ungrateful and regretted everything.

I asked him to leave my house and go to the lady he was talking to. I even called the lady and asked her to come for him.

“If you don’t know where he lives, this is our address.”

I sent her the address and asked her to come for him. She blocked my number. She didn’t respond to any of my messages.

Then he tasked my children to add their voices to beg me.

I cried when they said, “Mom, please don’t send Daddy away. He’s our friend. Please don’t send him away.”

If I throw him out, there would be nowhere for him to go. He doesn’t even have anyone he can call a friend. He’s been home ever since he got here.

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He knows what will happen to him when I divorce him. He would have to return to Ghana.

I feel that’s what he’s scared of.

I feel he’s begging me to forgive him because he doesn’t want to come back to Ghana and start all over again. Now he’s out there looking for work to do. He says he’s ready to do everything to support.

If he could do that, why didn’t he do it all this while until I threatened to divorce him?

I don’t feel his remorse is genuine. He’s doing it to secure his stay in this country.

If you were in my shoes, what would you do? Forgive or divorce him?

—Rita

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