I had been living in America for eight years when I decided to get married. I had dated a few women here, but none of those relationships worked. My mother kept telling me to come home and marry a Ghanaian woman. According to her, the women here had become too independent, and if I wasn’t careful, I would grow old alone.

I didn’t agree with everything she said, but I wanted a family. I wanted to come home from work and meet someone who would ask me how my day went. I wanted children who would run to the door when they heard my car.

That’s how I met my wife.

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She was a friend of my younger sister. We started talking on the phone before I visited Ghana. Every evening, she would call to ask if I had eaten. Sometimes she would stay on the phone with me until I fell asleep. The time difference didn’t matter to her.

When I visited Ghana, she treated me like someone she had known all her life. She cooked for me, washed my clothes and followed me everywhere. My friends teased me that I had finally found someone who could control me.

I fell in love with her.We got married a year later. After the wedding, I returned to America and began processing her documents. Anyone who has gone through immigration processes knows how stressful they can be. While going through the stress of immigration processes, I was taking care of her in Ghana. I paid her rent, supported her business and sent money for her personal expenses.

Eventually, her visa was approved and she arrived in Maryland. When I saw her coming through the airport with her luggage, I got emotional. She ran into my arms and held me for a long time. She kept saying, “Finally, baby. Finally.”

For the first two months, our marriage was everything I had imagined. We cooked together, went to church and discussed buying a house. Then she became friends with a Ghanaian woman at church. This woman had been living in America for almost fifteen years. She was divorced and lived alone. My wife became very close to her.

Soon, their outings became frequent. My wife started returning home late. Whenever I asked where she had been, she would say, “Can’t I go anywhere without you questioning me?”

A few weeks later, she got a job. I was the one who helped her prepare her résumé and took her for the interview. After her first salary, I suggested we start saving towards our house.

She asked, “Our house?”

Then she said I was always making plans for her without considering what she wanted. This was the same woman who had sent me pictures of houses in America and chosen names for our future children.

She stopped wearing her wedding ring. She became secretive with her phone. Our conversations turned into arguments, and when I tried to be intimate, she said she was tired.

Two weeks later, exactly six months after she arrived in America, I returned from work and found two suitcases in our bedroom. I asked, “Where are you going?” She was sitting on the bed, pressing her phone. She didn’t even look up when she said, “I’m moving out.”

I asked whether I had offended her. She said she wanted to be free.

“Is there another man?” I asked.

“No. I just don’t want to be alone for a while.”

Nothing she said made sense. I reminded her of everything we had gone through to be together. She became angry. “You always think because you brought me here, I owe you something. Do you honestly think I couldn’t have come to America had it not been you?”

Those words finished me. When she walked out, her friend from church was waiting in the car. While they drove away, her friend cast a last glance at me and she smiled.

For weeks, I struggled to sleep. I called and asked her to attend counselling with me. She refused. Eventually, she stopped picking up.

Three months after she moved out, a mutual friend told me she was dating someone. The man was also a Ghanaian living in America. According to what I heard, he was doing very well financially. He drove an expensive car, dressed nicely and was always taking her to expensive restaurants.

I didn’t want to believe it until someone showed me pictures of them on Facebook. In one of the pictures, she was sitting on his lap with a glass of wine in her hand. The caption was, “Finally experiencing the happiness I deserve.”

I didn’t confront her. I simply called a lawyer and started the divorce process. For the next few months, I concentrated on my work and tried to put my life together. It wasn’t easy, but gradually I started getting better.

One evening, I received a call from an unfamiliar number. It was my wife. I hadn’t heard her voice in almost five months. She was crying. She kept saying, “Please, I need to see you. Please.”

We met at a restaurant. She was looking like a ghost. Apparently, the man she had been dating was not the successful businessman he claimed to be. He had told her he owned a transport business and was planning to expand. He promised to marry her after our divorce and told her they could build a comfortable life together. At some point, he convinced her to invest in his business.

She gave him all the money she had saved from working in America. She also transferred money from her savings in Ghana. When he asked for more, she took a personal loan because he promised to pay it back within three months. Altogether, she said she had given him almost $20,000.

Then he disappeared. His phone was off. His apartment was empty. The business address he gave her was false. She reported him to the police, but she hadn’t recovered any money. She had called me because she had also lost her job after repeatedly missing work while searching for him and the friend she lived with wanted her out.

I asked whether she would have come back if the man hadn’t taken her money.

She looked down. She couldn’t answer.

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Since then, she has called almost every day trying to get me to give her a second chance. She has told my mother, who now wants me to forgive her. Last week, she appeared at my apartment carrying a small bag. She asked to stay with me until she found somewhere else.

I remembered the two suitcases she carried away when she told me she didn’t need me. I couldn’t let her in. I gave her money for temporary accommodation and asked her to leave.

The painful part is I still love her. Our divorce hasn’t been finalised. She says God has punished her enough and I should give our marriage another chance. When she had a job, money and another man, she didn’t need me. Now everything has fallen apart, and she wants me back. I said I still love her but may God punish me with epilepsy if I take her back and also make me walk with a limp so by my walk everyone will know how stupid I am.

—Godwin

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