If you haven’t read the first part of this story, here’s the link. Kindly read it before starting this one.

When I first started working, things continued to be blissful. However, a few months down the line I started seeing certain things that unsettled me. All the changes and lies he told pointed to the fact that he was having an affair. I convinced myself that I was mistaken. This is Ofori we are talking about.

I started digging for the truth. When he realized that I was on to him, he tried to cover his tracks. That only exposed him further. I found everything out. My heart was torn into tiny little pieces. I felt betrayed, let down, and disappointed. I couldn’t stop myself from crying. Unable to contain the pain, I decided to leave the marriage.

Ofori wouldn’t let me go. He knelt down and begged me to stay. “Please, give me one more chance. I will never look at another woman again,” he pleaded. The affair ended before I found out so I thought of my children and decided to give him another chance.

He got a bigger and better apartment and moved us from the old place a few months after the incident. It looked as if he was doing his best to give us a fresh start. I began to put his past indiscretion behind us. That was until I took his phone one night and saw some inappropriate conversations between him and other women. When I confronted him, he apologized and explained that nothing was going on between him and those women.

I did not want things to escalate so I reported him to his father. His father counseled him, and Ofori promised not to encourage such conversations in the future. I believed him until September 2020. I was lying on his chest one night when a message from another woman popped up on his phone. I didn’t ask him anything but he started denying having any amorous relationship with her.

It brought a lot of friction between us for months. I moved out of our matrimonial bedroom to the guest room. However, I was counseled to go back after a while so I did. Things stabilized and we lived somehow happily. He was still performing his role as a father and the head of the family, but his movements were suspicious. To add to that, I started having dreams and nightmares of another woman fighting with me over him. Each time I narrated the dream to him, he swore I was the only woman in his life.

While I still held on to hope that my marriage could be saved, my husband would leave the house and spend the night outside. On the days he returned, he came home late. The entire time he is away, he wouldn’t answer my calls. When I had our third child, a woman befriended me on Facebook and sent me a message one day. The message read, “I am your husband’s girlfriend. He told me you two are about to get a divorce. Is it true?” In as much as I was hurt, I patiently responded to the woman, “We are still very much together. We’ve never spent a week apart since we met.” She didn’t believe me.

This same woman went ahead to befriend my sister-in-law on Facebook and introduced himself to her as Ofori’s girlfriend. My husband’s sister warned the woman to stay away from her brother because he was happily married. While all this was going on, Ofori denied having anything to do with the woman. the way he lied was so believable. If not for the fact that the woman contacted me directly, I would have bought all his lies.

Tears and sorrow became my companions. He even hit me once because of her.

Just around the time this drama was unfolding, my husband lost his job. He went into debt so he sold all his properties to pay his creditors. I thought this would straighten him up and make him bring his mind back to his family but he was still seeing her.

He got arrested because of his debts. Later, I found out that while I was busy looking for money to bail him out, he was chatting with his girlfriend on his cellmate’s phone. After he was released and returned home to us, he secretly moved some of his clothes to her place. This enabled him to leave the house empty-handed but he would stay with her for as long as two weeks while lying to me that he was out of town searching for a job.

I keep asking myself if this is marriage. I’ve become a shadow of myself. I did not grow up with either of my parents so I am determined to ensure my children grow up with both parents. This is why I haven’t left this marriage yet.

When things started getting worse, I informed our pastor and he was called for a meeting but Ofori refused to see him. Out of frustration, his father told me to get a small place, and move the children and a few stuff, and live there until he comes back to his senses. I thought about it but where is the money? I had to step into his shoes and start providing for the family when he lost his job. So financially, my hands are tied.

I remember waking my husband up at dawn to have a conversation with him. I asked him, “Tell me where I have failed you as a wife. Tell me everything I am doing wrong that is driving you into the arms of another woman. Let me know where I fall short so I can work on it.” He looked at me intently and said, “You are perfect. You haven’t offended me in any way.” Even his father asked him what I was doing wrong but he couldn’t respond.

When the ban on social gatherings was lifted, Ofori refused to return to church. He made his statement clear by leaving all the church WhatsApp groups. Meanwhile, our marriage was built on the foundation of the Christian faith. Now, my husband has stopped listening to preachings on the radio, and the television. He also lost interest in family and marital shows.

I realized at this point that I was fighting a losing battle. So I informed my family of his behavior over the years and my decision to move out but they didn’t support me. They were concerned about the children. “You should not separate them from their father,” they advised.  My heart was broken and my life shattered but I too was worried about the effects a broken home would have on our children. So I stayed.

I prayed, fasted, followed directions given to me by men of God, and ignored his actions but nothing changed. For three years now he has been jobless but much has not changed. I’ve been to the Achimota Forest to pour my heart out to my maker. Maybe he has forgotten me. It seems the windows of Heaven have shut on me.

As if all these were not enough, I got pregnant again and had a son. The only one among the children. During the pregnancy, he kept seeing the other woman and anytime they had a fight, she found ways and means to hurt me by letting me know that my husband was still seeing her despite all the promises he made to me that he had ended everything with her. I blocked her numbers but she looked for other avenues just to cause me pain.

My family came to see him but he denied all the allegations I levelled against him explaining that in his current situation, sex or a woman was the last thing on his mind. He is so good at lying that even if you know he is lying, you will believe him. That’s how he got both of our families to leave him alone.

Things are bad for us financially. He does odd jobs here and there but he doesn’t earn much. Most of the financial responsibilities still fall on me. I am deep in debt because of this. All I want is for this man to get his priorities straight, and focus on getting a job so he can support me with the upkeep of our family, but he doesn’t listen to me. The fire I saw in him when we were students is quenched. His determination to stand on his feet and win at life has vanished. I don’t know if he was pretending all along or if something caused this big change in him.

When I try to encourage him to do better, he tells me I’m nagging him. I’ve personally paid so much money to people just so he could get a job, but he does not put in the effort required to seal the deal so we are still here. He doesn’t listen to anything I or anyone says. He has a mind of his own. He is so disconnected from us that he does not join the children and me for devotions anymore.

I want to associate the changes in him to his extramarital affair but that wouldn’t be right. I can count about five different women he has slept with since we got married, but it is this current girlfriend of his that has stirred up a lot of trouble in our marriage. He breaks up with her but later goes to make up with her. He won’t touch me at home because he has a lot on his mind, but he would go to her and have sex.

Just this past Monday, I collected a SIM card of mine that he was using. It didn’t take long before this other woman called to ask of my husband. “Are you still dating my husband?” I asked her. She got angry, ended the call, and sent me a message that read, “If you have any problem, deal with your husband. I am not the one forcing myself on him.” She concluded by saying that she has a baby for my husband.

I called her to confirm and she told me it was true. I took permission from work and came home to confront Ofori. He asked me to sit down but he couldn’t say a word for ten minutes. I sat there patiently thinking he was going to deny it but he confirmed it.

That day I cried like a baby unto God. I asked Ofori if he ever loved me or if it was all pretense. He did everything to calm me down but I cried the more. He told me he stopped seeing the girl a year ago just before she informed him about the pregnancy. He did all he could to make her get rid of the child but she refused and so the baby was born. He begged me not to leave him.

After grieving, I packed a few stuff and left the house but I had to return because I couldn’t stop thinking about my children, especially the baby. The next day he told me that he had nothing to do with the woman any longer and that even if I left him, he wouldn’t marry her so I should forgive him for all the pain he has caused me.

He is acting like a new man. He doesn’t go out anymore unless it’s for a job interview. “I am going to sit up and get a job at all costs,” he promised. “I will never sleep outside the home again,” he made another promise. Honestly, I don’t know what to believe anymore.

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My issue is, that he dated this woman on and off for almost three years and now they have a child. Is it possible for him to truly leave her? Even if he does, what’s the guarantee that there won’t be another woman to fill her spot? I am also wondering if it is true that my husband loves and respects me but was still able to keep another relationship with another woman. Why would he cheat on me yet beg me not to leave him when I find out?

These are questions I have asked him but he has not answered me. So I am throwing these questions to the men here. Please, advise a drowning sister.

Did Marriages Last Longer In The Past?

Another thing on my mind is, what should I do now with myself and my children? He said he has changed and he is acting like it but I don’t trust him anymore. I am still in pain because of everything he did in the past. So I am afraid that if I don’t leave, I will develop a terminal illness. I am forty but hardship and pain have made me age radically. I don’t know what to do.

It is almost midnight as I write this, but I have not eaten supper. If I leave now, where will I go and stay with my children? I cannot afford to renew our rent at this place, let alone afford a new place. I thought marriage was going to grant me the happiness and peace of mind that I didn’t enjoy when I was growing up, and it did for four years. But the rest has been one level of hell after another. I need help. Most importantly, I need counseling and prayer support. Lord knows I am going to need more grace and strength if I am going to rise from these ashes.

—Mummy

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