When I met Agyemang, he was driving a nice car and living in a beautiful house. He was comfortable. He dressed well, took me to nice places and made me laugh whenever we were together. A man with a nice car and beautiful house looks stable and well made but those weren’t the things that attracted me to him.

I had dated men who had more money than him, so his financial appearance wasn’t particularly impressive to me. He was thoughtful. He listened when I spoke and remembered little things about me. Sometimes I would casually mention something I needed, and he would remember it weeks later. Those were the qualities that drove me to him. I wanted a man who genuinely loved me and he let it show.

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We started dating after talking for two months and some weeks. The first time I visited his house, I was very impressed about ow the house was well put together. I complimented him on how beautiful it was. He smiled and said, “Thank you. That’s what hard work gives you.”

He gave me a lecture on how he had suffered to put up a building at his age. The sacrifice he had made, the kind of family issues he had to swerve to be able to build that for himself. Then he took me to a part of the building and said, “I want to make changes to this area when we get married. I need to make it fit my status as a married man.”

During our two years of dating, I got to know his family. He had an elder brother living abroad. They were very close and spoke frequently. Sometimes his brother would call while we were together, and Agyemang would spend almost an hour talking to him.

I admired their relationship. He even travelled abroad once when we were dating. He went to visit his brother and returned with gifts for me. After his return, his brother called me and said, “Kindly take good care of my brother for me. He’s all I have.”

That made my head swell. I spoke to his brother for several minutes. He told me he would give us visit once we married and I told him, “Then make it ready because we are getting married very soon.”

After two years of dating, we decided to get married. When he received the list, I told him I would like to contribute in buying the items and he said, “Wow, you’re truly a woman worth taking home. You surprise me everyday.”

We ended up sharing some wedding expenses, and I contributed willingly. We had a beautiful wedding, moderate but classy.

After the wedding, I moved into his house. I started making the place feel like our home. I changed the curtains, bought some kitchen items and rearranged the furniture. All was well in my husband’s house.

Then, about a year after our wedding, his elder brother called to tell him he was coming to Ghana. From that day, every arrangement Agyemang did felt like someone was coming to live in the house. That wasn;t the problem but the way he tries to shrink our existence in the house to accommodate that someone drew my attention. I asked what was going on and he said his brother was coming to live in the house with us. I asked, “Why must we leave the master bedroom for a visitor? I know he’s your brother but aren’t you doing too much?”

He responded, “He’s not just a brother or a visitor. This one coming is everything you don’t know.”

I returned from work one day and everything in the kitchen is packed and some of them have been taking to another room. I said, ‘Agyemang, what;s happening here? Then let;s leave the whole house for him and come back when he’s gone? Becaue I just can;t understand this.”

He said, “Do you have a place in mind we can live for two or three months?”

I stood akimbo looking at him with amazement in my eyes. I asked, “What are you not telling me? or the house belongs to your brother?” He retorted, “But you alreadsy knoew the hosue belongs to him? I told you the very first day I brought you here that it’s for my brother. I’m only a caretaker.”

I laughed because I thought he was joking. I could recall clearly what he told me that day and it had nothing to do with the house belonging to his brother. We fought about it. He said I didn’t hear him well. I told him I wasn’t deaf and I had the memory of the elephant. For days we didn’t talk. I would sleep and my heart would be beating out of order. I felt deceived and manipulated. I told him I would leave the house before his brother comes because it was embarrassing the way we had to shrink for his brother to be bigger.

A week before his brother arrived, I packed a few things and decided to go back and live with my parents. His brother was coming with his family. The hoise wasn;t goping to contain all of us, especially when we had to move into one room for them to take the rest of the rooms.

When I was leaving he asked me where I was going and I told him I was going to my parents. He said, “You’re leaving because of this small issue? Aren’t you a woman? “Aren’t you my wife? help me build the fortune you thought I had. Isn’t that what marriage is about?”

“Marriage is about the truth first before anything else,” I responded and walked away.

When his brother returned and didn’t see me in the house, he called me. He asked what was going on as if Agyemang hadn’t told him everything. I narrated the whole story to him and he said he could understand me but he was not coming to occupy the house forever and once he’s gone, the house belongs to his brother. He asked me to return. I told him I prefer being with my parents until he left. He insisted. I also insisted. He said, ‘It’s a big house. It can contain all of us.”

I told him there was so many things I needed to discuss with his brother before I returned. He still didn’t understand me. So he drove with his family to my parents house to come and carry me away. Agyemang also came. He was sitting at the back of the house with the kids of his brother while his brother’s wife sat in front. Then it dawned on me that the car might not be his too.

His brother talked and tal;ked. His wife added her voice. I told them I wan;t leaving the marriage but I want this space to figure out the next phace of the marriage now that I kow I’d been lied to. Agyeman was there. he didn’t say anythig. When they left, I called him. I asked, “It looks like the car too is not yours, right?”

He gave up a loud sigh. I said, ‘That;s fine. I’ve gotten the answer but tell me, what do you have in this world that’s your own. I mean your bonafide property.” He stood on the phone breathing in my ears and had no answer for my question.

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He’s been a caring husband in many ways, and I cannot pretend our entire relationship has been bad but I’m struggling to accept that the man I trusted enough to marry deliberately misled me for two years. I would happily stay by his side and help him build a kingdom if he told me he didn;t have one. I’m that woman. I build. Where my parents live now, I singlehandley renovated the house to a respectable standard when my salary was only GHC1,500.

I’ve started thinking about not returning to that house again. It feels stained and I rather live here than there and  I don’t know where that decision will take our marriage. At this moment, I don’t care even if it breaks apart because the foundation on which it was built is currently broken to pieces.

—Claudia 

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