When I met Kwame, he was already married. I knew it from the very first day. There was no confusion, no lies about being separated, and no excuses about sleeping in different rooms. He told me plainly that he had a wife and two children. He also told me something else that made me stay longer than I should have. “My marriage died a long time ago,” he said. “We are just living together because of the children.”

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I didn’t plan to fall for him. It started with long conversations after work. He spoke about how lonely he felt in his own house, how his wife had become cold and disrespectful, and how he felt trapped in a marriage that no longer had love in it. I listened. I sympathized. Slowly, I began to feel like the only person who truly understood him.

The first time he held my hand, I told myself it meant something deeper than what he had with his wife. When he kissed me, I convinced myself it was because he had finally found real love. In my mind, I was simply the woman who came at the right time. I made things easy for him. I didn’t play hard to get. No “Let me think about it” or “What if your wife catches us?” He was going through a lot already, and I had no reason to take him through a lot of my own.

At first, I would ask about his wife. I wanted to understand what kind of woman she was. But over time my questions changed. Instead of asking about her, I began asking about the future. “Do you think you will ever leave?” I asked one evening. He didn’t answer immediately. He looked tired. Days later, he told me, “Nothing is impossible, looking at what my wife is doing.”

Our relationship became deeper. He spent more nights with me. He complained more about his wife. He told me she didn’t respect him, didn’t understand him, and didn’t appreciate everything he did for the family. The picture he painted made it easy for me to see myself as the better woman.

Soon, I began to believe that his wife was the only obstacle between us and happiness. I started leaving evidence and traces of my existence in his life so his wife would see them. I did it for several months until one evening I received a call from her. She asked, “Do you know the man you’re chasing is married?” I asked, “Who am I talking to?” She answered, “I’m the wife.”

I got so angry that I started giving her a piece of my mind. I accused her of being the witch stalling the progress of her husband. “If you were a good woman, do you think he would have come for me?”

I didn’t notice when she cut the line, but I was still ranting when I realized the phone had become quieter than usual. I checked and saw that she had ended the call. I called it victory. I felt I had planted a bomb that would explode and blow their marriage to ashes. I was young and foolish. I won’t blame it on my age. I was simply stupid.

I waited for his call to ask what had happened between me and his wife, but that call never came. Later, when we met, I thought he was going to ask about it, but he didn’t. I wondered if it had been a prank someone pulled on me and not actually his wife.

He was with me one evening when we heard a knock on my door. I walked casually to open it, only to see his wife standing there. She pushed me aside and entered my room. I was confident he would defend me. Instead, this man started pleading with his wife, asking her not to take things the wrong way.

Before I could process what was happening, the first slap landed on my face, and it turned into a huge fight in my room.

He ran away and left us there. My TV on the wall came crashing down. Everything in my room got scattered. I couldn’t breathe. I started screaming for help. Before help arrived, I was swollen in different places. All this while, the man was parked outside.

The wife said, “This is for the insult you dished out to me on the phone. I’m not fighting you because of my husband. He’s a community product, and I know it. You can keep him, but next time learn how to talk.”

Can you believe this woman went to sit in her husband’s car and they drove away together?

I was stunned. Wasn’t this the same man who said his wife was a monster? Why was he begging? Why didn’t he support me? Too many questions, and none of them had answers.

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

He stopped picking up my calls and stopped responding to my messages. Our relationship ended the day his wife came to beat me in my own house. The pain is still fresh. I curse him wherever he is for the lies and for putting my life in danger.

Ultimately, I blame myself for believing in a married man’s lies. If I had died that day, it would have been as a result of my own folly.

—Philo

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