I am a preacher’s daughter. My father is a pastor while my mother is a very dedicated woman of God. They raised me the only way they know how: in the love and fear of God. I grew up spending most of my days in church because of the values they instilled in me. I also fell in love with the work of God. I started doing ministry work at a very tender age. I enjoyed it. I knew I wanted to end up with a man who would also do ministry work like me. That way we can grow together in the love of God.

I was in the university when I met Kwame. I liked him. While I was a student who worked in the church, he was a small business owner who also worked in the church. I liked that our passions aligned. When we started talking he mentioned that he was an Asante. Due to tribal differences, I asked him, “Your people don’t pair well with mine, so where are you hoping to go with this?” He answered, “Oh, don’t worry your pretty head over such things. My mother is a woman of God. She understands that we are all one people. We don’t discriminate against other tribes in my family.” I said okay, and allowed myself to get to know him.

When he proposed to me I told my senior pastor about it. My pastor and I agreed to pray about him together. We both received confirmation that Kwame was the one for me. It was then I finally agreed to marry him. Later, my pastor came to tell me that I shouldn’t marry him and that he wasn’t the one for me. Just around that time, my ex who left me because I didn’t keep our relationship a secret, came back into the picture. He wanted me back. I became confused.

Kwame saw that I was distancing myself from him and pleaded with me to stay with him. Honestly, I didn’t see any sign to prove what my pastor said. However, I was conflicted about him. There were times when I was sure I wanted to be with him. And sometimes too, I felt I didn’t want to be with him. Considering the way my ex left things between us, I didn’t trust him to take him back either. Besides, he wasn’t a Christian. He has this belief that we’ve been brainwashed by the white man to believe in Jesus.

When I finally made a decision, I chose Kwame. I chose him because he was a Christian like me, and he understood my mission to work for God. We were going to do it together. When we were both sure that we would get married, he took me to Kumasi to meet his family. His mother was lovely. I met his sister too. Later, I met his family. They all seemed wonderful.

Our families gave us their blessings and we got married without a hitch. On our wedding night, my husband spent half of the night on the phone with his mother. I wasn’t bothered that night because we were both tired. Also, I thought it was a one-time thing. But it happened again the next day, and the days that followed. When his habit started to get to me I told him, “Babe, I understand that you love your mother but kindly learn to adjust to the new changes in your life. You ignore me for hours because you are on the phone with your mother.” That habit of his was just the tip of the iceberg of what the marriage had in store for me.

Three months after we got married, Kwame’s sister moved in with us. Nobody told me she was coming until she arrived with her luggage. When I objected to it, he got angry and yelled at me that I didn’t like his family. I wanted to prove him wrong so I let her stay. She did so much to antagonize me in my matrimonial home. She lived with us but she wouldn’t do anything to ease the workload. She would wake up after everybody in the house had woken up. Sometimes she would bring her male friend over and they would stay in the hall till very late in the night. When I complained about her behaviour to my husband, his only response was; “I will tell my mother to talk to her.”

Less than a year into the marriage, the troubles were many. One dawn my husband woke me up and told me, “I have decided to go into ministry with my mother as my partner.” That was not the plan. We were supposed to do this together as husband and wife. I was livid. Nonetheless, I couldn’t have forced things to happen my way.

I had to take a break from work when I got pregnant, because of the way the pregnancy took a toll on my health. I could barely move around but his sister who lived with us did nothing to help. When I finally had the baby, my mum came to stay with us to help me. His mother was nowhere to be found. Her excuse was that she did not have money for transportation. Yet his sister continually disrespected my mother until she got tired and left. She told me to come home instead, so she would help take care of the baby in a more peaceful environment.

Could you believe the evening I left home was the same evening his mother arrived at our home? One of our neighbours heard her on a call the next morning. She was loud. My neighbour asked me, “Is everything going on well in your home? I heard your mother-in-law saying she came to dissolve the marriage.” I thanked my neighbour for her concern and told her, “I am not sure she was talking about my marriage. Everything is fine.” After the call, I called Kwame and asked what was going on. He assured me that everything was fine.

Along the line, Kwame and I booked a counseling session with our pastor. When the time came, he canceled on me and showed up with his mother to meet the pastor instead. They discussed me without giving me the opportunity to be present for my own judgment. According to the pastor, my mother-in-law said she hated me. “Did you know about this before you entered the marriage?” he asked. Of course, I had no idea.

My dad summoned Kwame to get to the bottom of the issue but he chose his mother’s side. Regardless of everything, I returned home after staying at my parents’ place for a month. When I got home I realized his mother used his sponge to bathe and slept in our bed. There were no healthy boundaries between mother and son, and that was the root of our problems. The next day, Kwame went to work and returned with a twisted hip bone. That was the day after his mother returned to Kumasi. His sister was around but he wouldn’t help take care of him. I had to tend to our one-month-old baby and my almost immobile husband at the same time.

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At night I would sit in a chair, while Kwame and our son slept in bed. The baby would cry for breast milk. And Kwame would wake up saying, turn me like this. Turn me like that. I would change the baby’s diaper and change Kwame’s diaper too. It wasn’t easy to do it all but I tried my best. When he started getting worse, I took him to the hospital. Taking care of a newborn while tending to a sick person at the hospital was another hell on its own. None of his relatives were present. It was all me.

For my husband to have surgery, I had to fall on the benevolence of my friends. Luckily, they didn’t disappoint me when I needed them. My mother-in-law didn’t show up. She said she was looking for money to buy us foodstuff. In the end, I was the one who sent her money to buy foodstuff and transport herself to come and visit her son.

I Discovered He Had Another Woman But I Couldn’t Leave Him

After everything I did, when my husband recovered and was discharged, he still chose his mother over me. I even heard he was going about telling people it was his mother who took care of him when he was sick so he owes his alliance to her. For two years, I fought to make my marriage work but I was only one fighting. When I couldn’t take it anymore, I returned his drinks and rings to him and moved on from the marriage.

They spent the next three years trying to get me to return to that toxic environment in the name of marriage but I refused to go back. The damage had already been done. It’s been five years since the divorce. I have healed. I have moved on. Now, all that is left is for me to someday experience true love.

—Favour

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