Two years ago, Jacob moved abroad. He said the system in Ghana was killing him and making life harder for him every day, so he left. All we were when he left were friends who lived in the same neighbourhood. Things changed when he got there. I knew that being abroad could be hard and lonely, so I made an effort to check up on him every now and then. That is how our conversations progressed and we started dating.

It felt effortless. Natural. Before I knew it, we were planning a life together. It scared me for a few seconds, but I decided to go with the flow.

Not long after, he said he wanted to marry me. We were very early in the relationship but he argued, “When a man knows, he knows.” I nodded because it sounded true. I have always heard that saying, and since I felt I could trust him, and I knew him and his family, I agreed.

His family came to see mine, and I got the list to start buying the items. His mother started calling me “Asew” and before I knew it a number of people had started calling me by his name. That was then, when he was doing all the right things, saying all the right things and reassuring me.

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But things have changed. Time has revealed the real wolf in him and I am rethinking the marriage. In fact, I have accepted that this is unhealthy, so I cannot go through with it. He is not taking it easy with me.

I have received more calls from him now than all the times before, asking me to return the items we bought for the marriage. All the nice things that I somehow paid for. I am contemplating it while I patiently wait for the delivery details and the fee.

So, in the beginning of the relationship he started making promises to me. I did not have extreme expectations from him. I only wanted to see where things would go until he started saying things like, “I will love you so much you will beg me to stop. I will spend money on you whenever you need it. Just send a text. I will make you the happiest woman on earth. Just give me your heart.”

He asked me what I wanted him to do to make me happy.

“I just need you to give me attention, only that.”

“Only that, don’t worry, you have it.” His excitement was out of this world, and I was genuinely ready to see where it would take us. Maybe 50 years later with three children and grandchildren or even more than that. Rather, it was short-lived. Maybe good things do not last, or we were never meant to last in the first place.

One day, when an opportunity presented itself, he said to me, “I take care of my mother and siblings oo, so don’t think I can give you money every time.”

It was not as if I had asked him for money or had any intentions to do so. We had barely started dating and he had just moved there. I was not inconsiderate. I work for myself. For a long time I have been surviving on the money I make from selling clothes and he knew about it.

“Oh, don’t take it in an angry way oo, please,” he added.

I said okay.

After that conversation, he sent me money to keep for him just in case of an emergency. The money barely accrued any interest before he said an emergency had arrived. He said his mother was sick so he needed some of the money. I sent his mother 3500 out of the 4000 cedis he had sent me. I asked what sickness it was that needed 3500.

“Doesn’t your mother have the health insurance? This is a waste of money.”

It nearly turned into a fight so I let it go. Maybe the sickness was more serious than I had imagined.

Somewhere along the months he started asking for favours. Throughout the week before his incessant call for favours came in, he serenaded me with love, with calls, with promises, with sweet names and poems he may have even asked AI to write for him. By the time he asked me, I was overwhelmed and dazzled with his love.

Then suddenly he would start begging me to send money. One time he asked me to send money to his mother for a business startup, his sister for school fees, and even said, “Send 1000 to my friend Kojo, he needs it for something urgent.”

Financial discipline is one of the many things I am strong on. I would not have survived if I was careless with how I spent my money, so I really do not like sending it anywhere just because I have it. I need to know what my money is going to do. But I am yet to receive the money back. I cannot say how much exactly, but the transfers from my account will tell the truth.

The truth is I did not even ask him to pay it back. Genuinely, I was doing it for him because I was blinded by the craziness we called love.

After every favour, the way he doted on me for a few weeks before returning to his former self of ignoring me was heavenly, so I really liked it. If he did not need a favour, he ignored my calls and belittled me.

“You don’t live in the UK so you don’t understand life here.”

Every time, that was his defense. I knew life was tough there, but I also knew that love makes time, so his excuse did not convince me. This was the same man who once told me he could not stay a day without talking to the woman he loves.

When he needed another favour, he would start the same trick again. One time he even sent me 260 Ghana cedis exactly last year in July. It was not my birthday. He said, “Spoil yourself.”

I asked myself, how? With 260? That could not fully pay for hair, nails, eyelashes, or even sanitary towels.

But I said thank you and told him, “Oh, but it is not enough but I will take it like that.”

That was when he said the most annoying thing to me. If the asking of money from me did not change my mind, this one did. Out of all the bragging, gaslighting and manipulation, this one reset my brain.

He spoke to me about my way of dressing.

“You should be dressing like Moses Bliss’s wife. Can’t you see how her beauty is illuminating? Very simple and beautiful and natural.”

For a man who was checking my dressing, who was constantly asking me for money to sort out his friends when he did not have any, for a man who barely spent on me, he really did not have any right to tell me that.

Indirectly he was trying to say I was either sleeping with men for money or teasing them, or something worse than that.

It’s Not God’s Law For A Man To Apologize To A Woman

I am walking away. But when it comes to mind that I was sponsoring his lifestyle, his family and friends, it drives me mad. I do not want to return anything to him or his family. At least this should serve as compensation for wasting my money, time, resources, love and sanity.

Traditionally, I hope there is no law that binds me to return anything. Logically, I do not think there is, so that is why I am here.

For the tears shed, for the weight loss, for the life loosely wasted, what do I do to compensate myself?

The items are here, looking at me.

—Kate

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