My girlfriend had rent issues. She said her landlord increased the rent beyond what she could pay, so she spoke to her friend and agreed to live together so they could split the rent. We were not dating then. I met her a few weeks after she had settled with her friend. She was walking with her friend when we met. I loved her right from the start and told her about my feelings. This same friend advised her against dating me, but she didn’t listen, and that was the beginning of their problems.

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They fought often, and she told me about it. When the relationship between them wasn’t good, she would come and stay with me for a while and later go back. We were thinking about what to do—whether to get her a new place to live or find a way to settle the problem with her friend once and for all.

She didn’t want to live with her friend again, but I also didn’t have money to help her rent a new place. So when their rent expired, she moved in with me so we could figure out what to do next. She loved it here with me because it was easy for her to get a car to go to work. She only had to pick one trotro and she would be at work. She told me she wanted a place around here.

The problem is that rent is very expensive. We tried for several days to secure accommodation, but each time we tried, the amount they mentioned scared us away. I’m able to live here because I don’t pay rent. The house belongs to my uncle. He has rented most of the rooms out, and I’m here helping him manage the tenants and also keep them in line. Here they call me landlord, but I don’t even know the price of cement.

When she heard me being called landlord, she thought the house belonged to me. I laughed at her belief that little me could put up a house like this. When we tried and couldn’t get a place for her, we decided to go on a search break and come back later. So for the last few months, we’ve been living together—until her mother came to join us.

I didn’t know her mom. She hadn’t introduced me to her mom or even mentioned her before. She told me her mom was coming to Accra and wanted to visit her and asked if I was okay with it. I wasn’t comfortable knowing that I hadn’t married her and was living with her. I asked, “How are you going to explain our situation to her?” She answered, “Oh, she already knows.” I asked again, “And she doesn’t have any problem with it?” She answered, “She’s even grateful that I have a place to live because of you.”

Her mom came in the evening—a very nice, young mother. The two of them look like sisters. She was very happy to meet me and even encouraged me not to disappoint her daughter because I’m the only person she has ever talked to her about. “She loves you. You people look good together. Don’t let me hear a few weeks later that you’re no longer together.”

Three days later, she was still with us. I asked my girlfriend, “You said she was passing through. What’s happening now?” She told me her mom was waiting for money from her uncle so she could afford the lorry fare back home. After a week with us, I decided to give her the money so she could go back home. She was so grateful and thanked me profusely. When she got home, she called and thanked me again for the money and for the hospitality.

A little over a fortnight later, she was back living with us. My girlfriend didn’t tell me she was coming because she herself didn’t know she was coming. We were both shocked when late one evening we heard a knock at the gate and it was her. She spent six days living with us before she finally left after I had given her money again.

I remember my girlfriend warning her not to come without telling anybody. I saw them arguing about it, but I stayed in my corner pretending I didn’t hear them talk. When she left, we didn’t hear from her again, but a month later she called to say she was visiting a hospital in Accra, so she would pass through after the hospital visit.

She came in the evening. She ate and slept. My place is just a single-room self-contained apartment, so when she comes around, she sleeps in the hall. She said the doctors told her to come for a check-up after a week, so she stayed until the week was over. She went and came back again, telling us the doctor wanted to see her the following week. My girlfriend suggested, “Then go home and come when the time is due.”

She retorted, “That’s a waste of money. What’s wrong with me staying here just to visit the hospital?” Then she turned to me and asked, “Or you’re not happy with my staying here?”

I was caught off guard, so I responded, “That is not the case at all. I’m not complaining.”

My girlfriend got angry with me for not telling her the truth. In the room with her, she was furious, saying her mom would have respected my words more than hers, so I should have told her the truth. She had a point, but with all due respect, me telling her I wasn’t pleased would have sent the wrong signal.

She’s still living with us. She has been here for over a month, using hospital visits and doctors’ recommendations as the excuse.

The last time she told us the doctor said it wasn’t right for her to sit in a car for that many hours. She’s young and healthy-looking, but she talks about sickness as if they were neighbors.

The whole thing is getting annoying. Her daughter is my girlfriend. We are not married. We are not even close to being fiancé and fiancée, yet her mother lives with us as if we were married and she had come to visit her in-laws.

Last night we were putting together a plan to push her out. My girlfriend has fought with her for too long, and now she doesn’t take her seriously anymore. She sees that I’m not happy with her staying here, but she’s pretending not to notice it until I say it right to her face. We are Ghanaians. We were not raised to talk to elders like that. We tolerate them or find a better way to get our way with them.

So we’ve agreed that once she leaves, my girlfriend will call to tell her we are no longer together and that she has gone back to live with her friend. When she was living with her friend, her mom never visited. She came to Accra and left without looking for her. Currently, what we are grappling with is how to get her to leave.

I Left Him Because He Didn’t Help In The Kitchen

I told my girlfriend we shouldn’t force her out. Maybe she’s doing all this knowing very well she will leave one day and not come back again. That’s what I want to believe. But what kind of mother is this?

Sometimes I feel bad for her more than I feel bad for our situation. A mother accepting our situation as normal looks weird, but what can I say?

—Roland

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