My dad’s death broke me into pieces. I still haven’t healed. Three years later, I go home and look around for him. I hear his voice even when no one is talking. He was only sixty-two years old. They say time heals, but I’m the one making time bleed. The pain he left behind is permeating my marriage. I fought with my husband a moment ago. He’s become one of the reasons I wish my dad never died.

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We are only two, me and my younger brother. Our mom died four years before our father. So we are orphans. My dad left behind properties. Some, we didn’t even know he had until he died. Trucks, cattle, a cocoa farm, houses, and money. Some of the cars had to be sold so we could split the money with the family.

After all was said and done, I inherited GHC275,000 in cash, two houses, several pieces of land, and farms. I was at the meeting with my husband when these things were handed over to me. My brother and I decided to keep the cattle together and also keep the farming going and split the proceeds.

Two years prior, my husband resigned from his job to start his own business. I invested heavily in the business, but two years later, I hadn’t received any dividend from him though he kept telling me the business was doing well. He told me, “Let’s invest fifty percent of the inherited money into the business, invest thirty percent into our project, and save the rest in the bank while we wait for the proceeds from the farms.”

It’s my dad who died. I was the one going through the pain all alone, but he had divided the money into areas that would benefit him. I told him I would think about it. Honestly, that money doesn’t tip the scale of my life. It feels like blood money. Money I sacrificed my dad for. When my husband kept hammering about the money, I bought treasury bills with it and forgot about it.

Each morning, my husband would wake up and ask about the money and when I was going to invest it into the business. Finally, I told him, “The farms and the cattle are businesses too. They need money to run, so I’m keeping the money for that purpose until further notice.”

I received lectures on how to run a business. A masterclass on where not to invest and how much to invest even if you wanted to. He started accusing me of things I didn’t know existed. “You don’t listen to me anymore since you received this money. You behave like you married me because you have money now. If you really wanted us to grow as a family, you wouldn’t let me talk. Now, everything is about you.”

He has a business he says is doing well, but I pay the school fees for the kids. We have two. I’m not saying he’s neglected his responsibility—no. It was an agreement we made when he started his business. He didn’t have much, and we didn’t need to overburden him with financial responsibilities until the business became established.

Not only school fees. Whenever the need arises, I spend money on what he should have spent money on as a husband. I don’t complain. I do it because I can and I understand why I should do it.

The least this man should do is appreciate my effort, but he doesn’t. He wants more because he believes there’s more.

A company came to me to rent one of the houses I inherited. I didn’t like their terms and conditions, so I said no. They told me they would come back with revised conditions. They haven’t called for weeks. My husband says the money is good, so I should take the money and pretend the terms and conditions didn’t exist.

“This money could help our business, you know. I need a push, and this will resolve it completely,” he lamented.

Trust me, all is well with his business, though he hasn’t given me a penny out of it yet. He talks about expansion and a lot of things that exist only in his head—all because of my inheritance. Because I don’t listen to his advice on how to spend my money, he’s sulking. Little things turn into big fights. He would nag for days, wouldn’t eat from my kitchen, and wouldn’t help the kids with their homework.

He has even stopped giving housekeeping money. The last time I asked him, he asked where he was going to get the money from. When I drew his attention to how stingy he’d become, he told me it was my fault. I have riches and have decided not to help his dreams.

He has folded his arms on everything financial. I don’t have a car. He drives the car we bought together, but when it breaks down, he leaves it there until I pay for it to be fixed. I always do because, if not, I would have to take Uber to get the kids to school and bring them back. He wouldn’t lift a finger until I get the car fixed.

So I told him, and I was very frank, “If you won’t be the man of this family because of another man’s money, please let me know so we know how to handle things. No matter how you look at it, all that money and those properties remain in the family, so why worry?”

I didn’t mention divorce. I wasn’t even angry when I said what I said. It was a conversation, and I expected him to come to the table with reasons of a man, but he asked me, “Are you threatening me with divorce? You’re now the head of the family, the husband, and the provider, so you want to scare me with divorce? Go ahead. I should have known how this little money would change you. I was just naive.”

I care about this marriage. I loved how things used to be before my dad’s death. We were a team. We consulted each other and played different roles to make things work. Nothing has changed on my side, but everything has changed on his side, and he still blames me because he wants something I can’t give.

Can he ever move past this money issue so we become the husband and wife we used to be?

I don’t act like I have more than him. It’s rather he who perceives me to be. I play my role diligently and even play most of the roles he should have played as a husband. I don’t complain, so why is he always on my neck?

What should I do to restore calm?

Call a Friend and Ask For Thousand Cedis (A Prank)

No, I won’t give him what he asks for. Maybe not now. It also tells me that he’s not clever. You can’t always take with anger and manipulation. If a woman feels loved, safe, and cared for, she does crazy things in return. Maybe, just maybe, if he went back to who he was before the inheritance, I would have softened my stance, but he’s here behaving like a man, the lord who ought to be worshiped.

—Akos

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