My wife bought land without my knowledge and started building before I got to know about it. I dug deeper and realized it was her mother aiding her to put up the building in their hometown and rent it out for money. According to her mother, a woman deserves to have her own place just in case the man dies and his family appears and fights for everything.

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I asked my wife why, and her answer was, “What is wrong if I build a house without your knowledge? Do you tell me everything you do with your money?”

We nearly didn’t survive this phase of our marriage. I broke down and the only way forward for me was to walk out of the marriage. Seven years after marriage, my wife had never supported me in anything. We had two children. Everything concerning the children was on me. She didn’t even know how to pay school fees or buy books for the kids. If she bought a pair of shoes or slippers for the kids, she took the money from me.

I discussed the issue with my dad and he told me, “You know where the issue is coming from so advise your wife against listening to her mom over you. That woman has lived almost all her life alone so she doesn’t know how to live with a man, to advise her daughter to do the same. Just forgive and continue with the marriage.”

I spoke to my wife all night one night, telling her I was not against the building but the idea behind it. “When you retire today, will you go back to live in your village? So why waste money building there when you can support me to build something for our old age?”

She apologized to me and promised that going forward, she was going to support me. But the scar that action left was too huge. We were not the same couple again. The support she promised she would bring turned into excuses. I bought a piece of land and she told me she had nothing to support me with because all her savings had gone into the project she started. I told her to pay the fees for the kids going forward. That also didn’t work because anytime it was time to pay, she came up with excuses until I settled it out of frustration.

We had our fights because of this behavior of hers. I felt drained and sometimes I wanted to run and hide. The marriage was all about me and little about her. Her salary was small; that had been her constant complaint whenever it came to paying for something.

So eventually, I ignored her and took everything in stride. Three years later, another discovery. I discovered through her WhatsApp that she had been sending money to her mother every month and her mother had been sending her updates on the progress of the project. She had built the house to the lintel level.

“Ah, I thought we agreed this would not happen?” I asked myself. Then something a friend of mine told me came to mind. She said, “You can’t tell a woman what to do. Even God couldn’t tell a woman what to do, how much more you?”

I asked calmly, “Efia, you said you don’t have money. Whenever I came to you looking for help, you told me you had none. Is that what you’re using your money for?” She answered, “Isn’t this a better use of my money than wasting it on unnecessary things?”

That day, we didn’t sleep. I think the kids got a hint of what was going on and they became very calm and disoriented. So when they slept, we went over the issue again. I called her mother the next day and told her my mind. “Maybe you don’t want this marriage to flourish. You want your daughter to end up alone. That’s why you’re pushing bad thoughts into her head because no mother will do what you’re doing.”

She asked, “Did you call to insult me because of what your wife has decided to do with her own money? If you can’t carry your load, don’t blame it on the innocent ‘Kahyire.’ How do I even come in?” And then she cut the call on me.

All week I was thinking about what next to do. Honestly, I regretted my marriage. My life had stalled because I was doing everything alone. At forty years old, I didn’t have a car or any other good thing going for me because everything I got went into building my family.

For a whole week I didn’t talk to my wife. One night, when she slept, I picked up her phone again. I wanted to know what she had been telling her mom after the issue. She had recorded a long voice note telling her mom, “I’m even tired of this marriage. I’m giving myself two years. Maybe after finishing this house, I will walk out of the marriage for my own peace.”

If I didn’t know what to do, that voice note gave me clarity. Four months later, I got a new place for myself. A two-bedroom house at the outskirts of town but not too far from work. Our rent was almost due so that was my escape. She was there while I packed out of the house. She was stunned. She kept asking me where I was going. “We are moving from this house and you didn’t tell me?”

I ignored her until I finally packed out of the house. I called her mother and told her, “It’s over between me and your daughter. You can now return my drinks or I will come for them myself with my family.” She responded, “Oh, my son-in-law, does it have to come to this? I thought this issue had been settled long ago?”

Maybe they thought it was a joke until my dad called her officially to tell her the marriage was over and that I needed a day to come home officially to announce it. I had already started the court process. My wife was dazed. Everything started hitting her at once from different directions.

Eventually, my mother-in-law came with her head of family and one of their uncles to apologize. I told the men everything from where it started. And then I added the voice note to it. They sat still and didn’t know what to do. The head of family asked my wife, “Is that voice yours?” She nodded and said she was sorry. The man said, “Then why are we here? You take someone’s son through all this and even plan to leave him within a year, and still bring us here to apologize when he’s leaving you?”

Men Don’t Like It When Women Do The Paying

They thanked us and took their leave. Currently, we are in court because I want a share in that building she’s putting up in her village. She did it while we were married so automatically I have a stake in it. The reason we haven’t been able to divorce is because she’s fighting it. She claims she did everything with her own money and I didn’t contribute a penny, and that it’s the reason I’m leaving her. We are both in court proving our point.

I don’t need it for anything but I want to teach her a very bitter lesson, that she can have it all and still lose it because she listened to bad advice. Even if my share in that building is GHC1, I will still take it.

—Jefferey 

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