I Didn’t Know She Was Born-One Until Our First Pre-Marital Counseling Session

How long does it take to know a person? A year? Two years? Forever? Or you’ll never know a person no matter how long you live with them.

Several years ago, I thought it shouldn’t take more than a year to know a person, especially when that person is someone you see every day, go out with, play with and sometimes sleep with. So when I met Akosua, I gave myself a year. I met her at a church program. We both attend the same church but in different branches. We had a regional program and we met.

It didn’t take me a long time to propose to her. She asked me, “What’s your plan? What’s the end game of what we are about to start?” My answer was simple and short, “Let’s give ourselves a year to know each other very well. If everything goes according to plan, we should be married a year by this time.”

Because of her, I rented a big place. Because of her, I saved more money than I needed to. Because of her, I became a better man. I had my heart committed to the relationship and had my eyes on only her. She didn’t do anything that suggested that she loved me any less. We were the couple that didn’t go anywhere without each other.

A year later we were still not married because things didn’t go exactly as planned. I lost money. She lost her job so we gave it another year to see if the tides would change and it did. Early this year, I went to see her family in all humility and officially announced my intention to marry their daughter. I took the list and started getting the items.

During our first counselling session, the pastor asked me, “What are you hiding?” I answered, “I’m not hiding anything.”

“Do you have a child?”

“No, I don’t.”

“Is there another woman in your life?”

“No there’s no one.”

“Is she pregnant? I mean this woman you brought here today for counselling.”

We all burst out laughing. She wasn’t pregnant. We were sexually active but we were careful not to get pregnant before marriage.

He asked my fiancée the same set of questions and she also answered no to all of them. The pastor asked, “But you’ve had a child before, right?” She hesitated before nodding in the affirmative. The pastor said, “Yeah I remember that event very well. I don’t mean to recall your pain but is he aware something of that nature happened?”

At this moment, a lot of things were going through my head. I thought I knew her but that story was never told. I was very close to her family when we were dating. It never came into our conversations and nobody made a whimper of it that my woman had a child at some point.

Two years before we met, she had a child with a guy who was abroad. According to the stories surrounding the issue, the guy refused the pregnancy because according to him, what they had was not enough for her to get pregnant. The guy’s family made life very difficult for her, telling her she was forcing a child on their son because he was abroad. They agreed to do a DNA after delivery and they did. Truly the child was for the guy abroad.

A year after the child was born, he died. According to her, the mystery surrounding the baby’s death was hard to take and it was the reason she didn’t tell me. “I no longer had the baby so I thought the story wasn’t important,” She said. I responded, “How can a story like this not be important? It’s been two years. We’ve had a lot of conversations about children. Why didn’t you say it? Why do I have to know it here in this moment when we are making this giant step?”

She said sorry. Our pastor intervened with a lot of scriptures, encouraging me to forgive and forget. But it was news to me and I needed time to process it. I asked the pastor to give us some time to think through things and get over it before we take the next step. I was sure it wasn’t the end but I wasn’t ready to brush things under the carpet and pretend it was alright.

READ ALSO: My Wife Thinks Our Inability To Have A Child Is The Devil’s Doing

She called every day to say sorry. I told her I needed time to think about it. I asked what else she was hiding from me. She answered, “You don’t trust me again because of this? I have nothing to hide except what you heard there.”

She called every day. She wanted to know where she stood in my life. I was confused, to be honest with you. Inside my head, there was a voice that kept telling me she was born one and that wasn’t what I signed up for. The same voice kept shouting in my head that she had a lot more to hide than this one. “There could be abortions. There could be a past wildlife she won’t talk about. What if you marry her and you’re not able to give birth again?”

I spoke to people. I narrated the story to them in a third-person voice and asked what they would do. Some said they’d take their time with such a woman. Some also said they wouldn’t trust such a woman and marriage could be difficult. Some said love conquers all, including deceit so if the woman was remorseful, they would go ahead with the wedding.”

At some point, we were not talking often. A few words through a chat and then we could go a day or two without saying a word to each other. I used the time available to me to pray about it. Now, I’m convinced the right way is the way forward to the altar.  I called to tell her and her answer was, “You have to come and talk to my family first.”

I went home to meet her parents and a few family members and what they said was, “Our child is no longer interested in the marriage because of what has been going on in these few months. You don’t forgive easily and to us, it’s worrying. We know this issue would be a ghost haunting the marriage in the future so it’s better we bury it and bury the ghost too.”

I was like, “How come? I only took a few weeks to think through what I heard. Was that wrong?”

I called Akos. She told me she was standing by what her family had told me. I asked why and she repeated exactly what her family said. I spoke to my family about it and the two families met. Their stand is still the same.

I Might Cheat On Him Because I’ve Tasted Some Waters

The last time we met they told us they’ve left the issue in the hands of Akos to decide. She doesn’t even pick up my calls and doesn’t pick up any calls from my family members. I’m leaving her alone but I want to know if I did anything wrong. Who wouldn’t be hurt? Who wouldn’t take a time out to think through this? Pastors have intervened, church leaders have spoken to her. She says no, she’s moving on. I guess I have to move on too.

—Bro Philip