I hit rock bottom for over a year ago. I lost everything in my name that made me a man: money, friends, family, and half of my being. I was selling while I was working. I was doing it with a friend. He would import the goods, he would give me a quota to sell for commission. I’m a very good salesperson and because the commission was good, I went through thick and thin to sell everything he gave me. We did this for over a year and the money I was getting from these sales was three times my salary.

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At some point I decided, “Why don’t I quit my job and concentrate on doing this, since it was fetching me enough money?” I talked to my friend about it and he told me it was a great idea. He showed me where he was getting his goods and the suppliers I could speak to and how to expedite imports when things are getting slow. I thanked him for being the great friend he had always been, went home and told my wife, “I’m resigning. I’m going to go into this import and sales full time.”

She told me not to resign but rather do it for a while first. I sensed the fear in her voice when she said it. A salary is always a safety net. Entrepreneurship doesn’t offer that safety net. If anything, it rather takes it away. We had two children and lived in a home where bills never stopped coming. I told her, “Babe, I’m not starting a new business. This is something I’ve done for years and am earning more from every day. Just believe.”

So I asked her to give me a loan to top up with what I had so I could import in huge bulk. She reluctantly obliged and gave me what she had in her account. I lost everything. Immediately after I paid for the goods, the supplier disappeared. My messages went unanswered. My calls didn’t go through anymore.

I rushed to my friend and complained, “The guys you gave me, they are no longer responding after I’d paid them.” My friend went through the deal and studied the communication between me and the supplier and screamed, “Shit! You’ve been scammed. You should have told me to verify before making payment.” I said, “But you gave their details to me. You should know where they are, right?”

We went up and down and even made it a police case, blaming my friend for making me lose money. It was tragic, but what ensued between me and my friend afterward was a war that escalated into curses and name-calling. I never got my money back and that was the beginning of my rock bottom.

I had nothing to my name. I was owing my wife, but she was the only one I could fall on for daily sustenance. She didn’t complain. She was scared of the future but she was grounded in faith that things would turn out well. She did her best for the house while I was out there looking for new opportunities. Sometimes, I couldn’t go out because I was too shy to ask my wife to give me bus fare and something I could use to buy food. When everything began to look like an uphill battle, I told my wife, “Help me. Don’t you have connections you can speak to on my behalf?”

She started talking to people, but my greatest enemy was my qualification. I didn’t have a degree but every opportunity that came my way was looking for some sort of degree I didn’t have. One day she took me to a man she said wanted to help me. After that man, we went to see three other top men who heard my story and said they were willing to help. They would talk to me nicely and promise good things, but the next day, they wouldn’t pick up calls.

But there was Mr. Sasraku. He picked my calls no matter what. He would speak to me nicely and say, “Just stay put. I will call you as soon as things go through.” I trusted him and called him as often as I could. Sometimes he would give my wife a message to give to me.

I went to town one day and my phone got stolen. Only God knows why I didn’t collapse when I realized my phone was gone. It was my only connection to the world of help and favor, but it was gone. I told my wife and the next day she came home with a basic phone and said, “When the month ends, I will get you something better.”

I would ask for my wife’s phone to check something on the net and she would go through it for a while before she gave it to me. It didn’t happen once or twice. Anytime I asked for her phone, she would tell me, “Let me see something” or “Let me send a message first.” She would use those few minutes to clear what ought to be cleared before handing over the phone to me.

I never suspected her about anything until she started doing that. So I started going through her phone when she was not watching. Several nights I did it but saw nothing. One Saturday, it dawned on me that I hadn’t heard from Sasraku for a long time, so I used my wife’s phone to WhatsApp him. I said, “Hello Mr. Sasraku.” He answered, “Ah, why are you calling me Mr. Sasraku? Have you been kidnapped?”

I sent a laughing emoji and started playing along. “You’ve missed me?” he asked. I answered, “Yeah.” He said, “So you want to sneak out? I can meet you at the usual place.”

My heart stopped for a while. I didn’t even know what to say so he wouldn’t suspect it wasn’t my wife talking. I replied, “He’s home. It won’t be easy.” He sent a shocked emoji and asked, “What’s happening to you today? It sounds like I’m talking to a different person.” I texted, “Don’t worry. I will call you later.” He texted back, “Are you coming or not? I want to know and plan accordingly.” I said, “Let’s see if I can swerve him. It looks like you want to swallow me today.”

The next line of conversation is something I don’t want to repeat because of the feeling of shame it brings me anytime I think of it. This man was graphic with his words, spoke about styles and things I never thought my wife had ever experienced. He made me feel I was treating my wife like a holy communion while he drove her through rugged roads.

My heart was thumping while I deleted the messages one after the other, thinking I was hiding my crime. Thinking deleting it would end the conversation and my wife wouldn’t know I had spoken to him as if she was the one talking. After that, I went inside and lay quietly with my heart beating loudly like an overworked engine.

She had been a good wife since my issue started. She never complained no matter how hard things got. She was frustrated about my idleness but was kind to me regardless. I saw a woman trying hard to hold a family of four together. I saw tiredness. I saw creases of worry on her face even when she was relaxed. “Why is she sleeping with him? Is it because of my situation, or had she been doing it even when I was providing?”

While I lay quietly with a broken heart, her phone rang and she came for it. She kept saying, “Huh, huh,” while looking in my direction, so I figured it was Sasraku on the line. The communication faded. I saw her going through her phone vigorously, maybe looking for the conversation Sasraku was talking about. She kept looking at me like she had a question to ask but couldn’t ask because she was scared of the answer. She looked at me suspiciously as if she was waiting for me to ask her questions, but I kept my cool while dying on the inside.

The month ended. She bought me the phone she promised me. I said thank you while asking myself, “When are you going to talk about the elephant in the room?” I know I will talk about it at some point, but the question I ask myself every day is, “After that, what? Am I going to leave her?” No, I won’t. Not because I can’t. I can, but I think about so many things and I tell myself, “This is marriage. Things happen. The highs and the lows. The darkness and the light. This might be our low and our darkness.

A month ago, I got a job my certificate couldn’t have gotten me. I got it through favor. The person who favored me was from her network, a woman who employed me and later said, “I’m sorry about everything you’ve been through. Now you can build from this point, but don’t forget the kind of woman you have as a wife. She never let me rest because of you. When you find yourself in the light, take her along.”

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I wake up grateful, but the pain still lingers and sometimes inhibits our marriage. It’s a ghost we both see but are unable to scream about and run from. My next move is to go back to school, build myself up so I don’t find myself in this situation again for someone to play with my wife. I’m not going to talk about it until I’m convinced of the way forward after talking about it. She knows I know. Sasraku must have sent her screenshots. If she rips the band-aid off one day, I’ll be ready. If she never does, I’ll be ready when I have figured out how to walk forward from this—together or apart—without destroying the fragile light we are finally beginning to see.

—Adjine

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