My husband was so sure he was going to travel abroad. It was the reason we got married at the time we got married. He wanted us to settle down before he goes. Right after our wedding, we started trying for a child. It was part of his dream, to have a child before he leaves. He didn’t know how long it would take for us to join him so he wanted to make a family before leaving.

Those were the best days of our lives as a married couple. There was nothing he wouldn’t give. There was no place that was far for him. There was nowhere he wouldn’t run for me. I look back to those times and I smile. Sometimes I cry sad tears because of how things turned out.

A year after marriage, his plans to travel abroad fell through. He lost a lot of money and nearly lost his job. He owed a lot of people who came after him morning, afternoon and evening. He was a shadow of his former self but as a loving wife, I stayed by his side, encouraging him and sometimes lying to the people he owed so they would let him be. For a while. Life was difficult but a year later, he was able to pay off his debt, a debt I paid more than half with my money. I did it for love. Love was all we had.

Two years after marriage, he started asking questions. “We’ve been on this for two years. Why don’t we have children yet? What’s the problem?”

We went through some checks and we were even placed on medication to hasten the process but nothing happened. He started blaming me because according to him, he got a woman pregnant when he was single and didn’t allow the woman to deliver because he wasn’t ready for a child. He said it proudly, as if that was enough to extricate him from what we were going through.

I’ve gone through the same issue before. Once. I got pregnant for my ex. He wasn’t ready. Later, I got to know I was even the side chick so I had no reason to hold on to that pregnancy. I let it go. But while I was thinking that was the reason I couldn’t have another child, he was thinking that was the reason he should have another.

All our fights happened because of a child that we couldn’t have. We could be fighting about food that didn’t go well but our childlessness will take the center stage of the argument as if it was the reason we were fighting. He would scream at me, “Fa yɛ awoɔ. Nyɛ Nia ehia nie!” I would respond, ” Do you think I’m a tree? Even trees need a capable partner to be able to bring forth their own kind. Don’t blame me for our childlessness. You could also be the reason.”

Then his parents join in the fight. Even his younger sister who didn’t know how to keep a relationship joined the fray to speak against me. At a point, his mother came to live with us. She had no reason to be there with us but she came just to fight for her son. She’ll initiate a quarrel and cry if I respond. Her son would hear of it and start shooting abuse my way.

I got tired but I decided to stay and fight for my marriage. I took things to prayer. My husband mocked me anytime he saw me praying. He would do his best to distract me or make me stop praying. He would say something like, “Eno Marry, open your eyes. Jesus has already come and gone. He doesn’t need a new mother.”

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Four years of marriage without a child has a way of making you look inward or look back at your past mistakes and say, “I’m not conceiving because of this and that.” I pointed at the abortion I did. It was safe. A qualified doctor did it. There were no complications but I pointed at it and said it was the reason. I was a very sad woman. I lost weight because of all the problems. You see me and you see unhappiness written all over my body.

He called for a divorce. One evening his mother made a statement. She said, “I don’t know why my son is living with another man when there are plenty of women in this world he can choose from.”

That statement got me livid so I responded. I told her my mind and told her she didn’t deserve to be called a mother because she had no motherly instinct or empathy in her. She responded, “Only a mother can give birth to a man a woman like you will marry. Show me your own. Where’s the fruit of your womb? Show me.”

After that exchange, I knew I had to leave the marriage but I waited until my husband said, “You insulted my mom? This is the end. We are no longer married. I can’t harbour a woman who’ll dare insult my mother. This marriage ends today.”

Sometimes we are pushed to a direction we ought to have found for ourselves. I should have been the one to say it but I didn’t so I took his word for it and started talking to my parents about it. I think they were also fed up. Once I told them they said, “Come home wai. If you die today, we’ll be the ones to lose a child and not them.”

I took a few things and left to my parents’ house. It looks like when packing the few things to leave with, I mistakenly packed a pregnancy too. I got home and started getting the signs of pregnancy. I checked and I was pregnant.

I remember how that happened. I mean the sex that brought the pregnancy. He woke up one dawn and started touching me. We had fought the night before going to bed. I smacked his hand off me but he persisted. It turned into a struggle. We both hadn’t had sex in one month. He overpowered me emotionally. I thought asking for sex meant he was coming back to his senses. I thought the sex would restore our marriage and prevent future troubles. When he was done, he turned his back and slept. In the morning, he continued ignoring me. I felt used.

The first person I mentioned the pregnancy to was my mom. She told me to tell him. My dad heard it and asked me to keep mute. I took my dad’s advice and kept mute. In one of our meetings to talk about the divorce, he might have seen the change in me. I was five months pregnant so the signs were there for all to see. He came to sit next to me and whispered, “Are you pregnant?” I ignored him. He looked at me very well, checking my body to see the changes. I didn’t answer any of his questions.

He started calling and texting, begging me to tell him the truth so I said, “Yes I’m pregnant but it doesn’t change anything so let’s be in our lanes.”

His voice changed. There was some excitement in his tone. I wasn’t falling for his happiness. I cut the line. I’m currently seven months pregnant. He’s asking me to change my mind about the divorce. I’m not changing my mind. Even my parents have warned me not to fall for his tricks.

He keeps knocking on my door looking like a brand new man, asking us not to destroy our beautiful marriage. What we had was beautiful for only a year. The rest have been misery upon misery. I don’t want to go back again but sometimes I’m like, “Something has to change a man. What if he’s genuinely changed?” Then a voice would bring all the negatives back to me. “How about his mom? Is she a changed person too? What about all the things she did to you, will that also change?”

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I don’t want to go back. I’m trying not to fall for his persuasion. I’ll go through with the divorce or wait till the baby is born and decide what next to do. But it doesn’t look likely that I will do this marriage thing again. It’s stressful. I’ve died many times because of it. He can be in his child’s life but not in my life. That’s also OK.

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—Faith

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