I have been married for the past twelve years with three kids. My husband is the type who finds it difficult to apologize when he is at fault. He is a military officer based in Accra whiles I am a prison officer based in Kumasi. Somewhere in December last year I visited him and saw female clothing in one of his suitcases. I know my husband, he would have lied if I asked him about the clothes. So I took them to Kumasi. When I arrived I sent him voice notes asking; “I found some female clothes in your bag. Whom do they belong to?” He listened to the voice notes but he did not respond.  

In June this month, he called to ask me, “There were some lady clothes in my stuff. Have you seen them?” “Yes, I saw them,” I responded. Then he asked, “Where are they?” I told him “I burned them.” His voice took on an angry tone all of a sudden, “You don’t know what you have done. You’ve bitten more than you can chew.” I decided not to engage him because of how angry he was. So we ended the conversation there. The next day I called to talk to him about the clothes and he repeated the statement, “If you’ve truly burned those clothes then you’ve bitten more than you can chew.” I hadn’t burned the clothes so I took a car to Accra to show them to him and get some answers. But he wasn’t home when I arrived.  

 I left the clothes with one of the women in the barracks and took a bus back to Kumasi. The following day he sent me a text message explaining that he picked the clothes from the stuff his colleague bought from Kantamanto to clean their aircraft. I knew it was a lie but I decided not to drag it out. In July I visited him unannounced and it seemed like there was a lady in the house. That was the day I got to know that I married a man who is as cunning as a fox. Somehow he managed to let the lady escape without me seeing her. I had no evidence of her presence so I couldn’t confront him about it.

This vacation my eleven-year-old son went to spend the holidays with him. I was there one evening when the boy called me, “Mummy, daddy brought a woman to the house. They are in the bedroom.” I called my husband immediately and we spoke. He acted as if there was no one with him and I also acted as if I didn’t know there was anyone there. It was around 9:30 PM when I boarded a bus to Accra. I arrived around 3:30 AM and called him to open the door for me to get into the house. He delayed before opening it and I went straight to the hall. I believed he brought her out of the bedroom to somewhere in the hall thinking I would head to the bedroom and he would let her get away. But I beat him to his game and sat in the hall. 

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I was sitting there when he came to ask, “Why won’t you go to the bedroom? You must be tired.” I retorted, “You just want me to get up so that the woman you are hiding here will escape. I’m not going anywhere.” I sat there for almost two hours, and he was on edge the entire time. One of his friends who was on transfer and was perching with him was sleeping in the hall while all this drama was going on. What I didn’t know was that the lady was lying beside his friend. The entire time I was looking for her, she was hiding in plain sight. I went to the washroom and my husband woke his friend up to send the lady out on his behalf. I heard them and quickly returned to the hall to see my husband’s friend looking very confused as he followed the lady out of the house. 

While they were heading out I asked the guy, “Swear by your Quran that this lady you are escorting out slept with you.” The guy couldn’t talk and the lady had guilt and embarrassment written all over her face. I did not speak to her, she was not my problem. My husband could easily discard her and go for someone else. The person I had a problem with was my husband. 

I went back to Kumasi in the morning and my son called in the evening saying, “Mummy, daddy said he will beat me for telling you about that woman.” I tried to do something about it but I was far away. And he truly beat our son and took away his phone. His friend called me the next day to apologize, “I am sorry for what happened yesterday. I had no idea what was going on but I had to play along. I want you to know that I don’t condone what he is doing.” I accepted his apology even though I didn’t think he owed me one. My husband on the other hand hasn’t spoken to me since I left Accra that day. I can’t sleep, I am not even able to eat well. I don’t know what to do about this situation. A part of me feels like the long distance played a role in this but I also know that distance doesn’t matter to a faithful person. He hasn’t admitted that he is doing anything wrong. What do I do about this?

—Ruth

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