Maybe, It Was All Part Of God’s Plan For Me To Date A Married Man

I woke up one morning to see ten missed calls on my phone. Six of those missed calls came from a number I didn’t know. The number started calling me around 11pm the previous night when I was sleeping. Four of the missed calls came from my boyfriend. He started calling me from around 4am. I returned my boyfriend’s missed calls first. We had dated for about seven months and he had not called me in those hours before so when I called and he picked up the phone, I teased, “Oh thank God you’re alive. You got me scared. Were you being chased in your dreams or you were being chased physically?” On an ordinary day he would have laughed at what I said but this time he was quiet on the phone. I asked, “Hey Fii…is everything alright?” He sighed; “No. I should have told you this long ago but I didn’t. Now there’s a problem.”

My heart started beating faster. From the way he said it and the calm in his voice, it felt like the problem was grave. I asked humbly, “What could be the problem? Now you’re scaring me.” He said softly, “You had a lot of missed calls from a number last night, right? That was my wife. Sorry, I lied. I’m married. I’m really sorry Jane.”

It was my turn to go silent out of shock. I tried pushing out the words but they refused to come out. I started stuttering. I’ve never stuttered in my life until that day. “Fii, what are you telling me? You’re married? Since when? I was at your house. I met your brother. I spent several weekends at your house. I’ve met your sister and your good friends. There was no indication of a wife in your life so when did the marriage happen?” I was thinking he married over the weekend or maybe he married a few months ago when I was not looking. His answer was, “I married long before I met you. Eight years married.”

I removed the phone from my ears and checked if it was Fii I was talking to. I simply couldn’t understand what was happening. At some point, it felt like a dream I was going to wake up from but every second proved that it was indeed not a dream. I asked him, “So why was she calling me? What happened? How did she get my number?” He responded, “It’s a long story. We’ll talk about it when we meet.” I screamed, “When you and who meet? You think I’m going to have the heart to meet you after this? For what? I swear if I meet you, I’ll do something to hurt you. If I ever meet you and give you something to eat and you eat it, it would be the end of you. How can you be this wicked Fii? What did I do to you to deserve this cruelty?  

I cut the line and also blocked the number of her wife. I’d had enough and was not ready to listen to what the wife had to say. Maybe I should tell you how far I went with Fii before you can understand my feeling. Fii met my dad and my mom. My dad told him, “You’re the first man to be introduced to me. I hope you do the honorable thing very soon.” Fii responded, “We are not going to waste time at all. Plans are underway.” My mom walked in and also said her own. “It would be a glorious day that day. We all can’t wait but don’t forget to invite God into your relationship. We are all sinners and we’ll continue to sin but God should always be at the center of everything.”

Since that day, my parents related to him as their son-in-law. He ran into a financial problem once and it was my parents who came to his rescue. That day I asked myself, “What am I going to tell my parents?” My heart ached for days and the pain came out as tears through my eyes each night and day. A week or so later, I got a call and I picked it up. It was his wife. She never stopped trying. Immediately I picked up the call, she started screaming at me, “God will deal with you, you home breaker. Thunder will strike and paralyze you. You’ll spend the rest of your life in a wheelchair for coming closer to my husband. Do you think you’ll escape punishment for what you’ve done to me and my kids? Never. Then the God I serve is not God enough.”

After several minutes of listening to her ranting, I said, “I don’t know what your husband told you about me but it’s ok. Nice talking to you.” I cut the line and blocked it. I blocked Fii’s number too. That was my lowest moment in life. I’m not a bad person. I met a man I thought was genuine so I gave him my all. For seven months, I played a role of a loving girlfriend who even supported him financially. I was dying. One month later, the pain was still fresh. I took my annual leave and decided to move away from the busy life in Accra to a place I can be alone and let everything out. 

I went to Cape Coast. A day before the travel, I posted on Facebook, “Where in Cape Coast can I have fun and peace at the same time? I need a quiet place during the day and a noisy place at the night.”

I got a few suggestions but I never tried any of the places mentioned. I was three days old in Cape coast when someone sent me a DM. A guy. He said, “If you’re still in Cape Coast and you don’t mind, I know a couple of places.” I went through his profile. He’s one of those guys who wrote a lot of sense on their timeline. He looked decent online so I thought he would be decent in person so I responded, “Yeah I’m still in Cape Coast and I don’t mind at all. Do you live here?” 

We met at the beach along the main road leading to Takoradi. It was around 6pm. We spent over two hours talking about how we became friends on Facebook and why we haven’t interacted since we became friends. I asked him, “Did I send you the friend’s request?” He said, “I might have sent it, I don’t remember but I see your post often on my timeline.” I said, “I swear I don’t remember seeing your post on my timeline. I would have reacted or something.” He asked what brought me to Cape Coast and I answered, “I’m running away from a bad situation. I hope I’m in a good place because I really need a mental reset.” 

We met again the following day and he took me to the Kakum Forest. While he was there laughing and being chatty and expressing his fear of walking on the canopy walk, I was there thinking, “What if I jump off the canopy walk and end it all. I got on the canopy and I started shivering. It took my mind off the pain. At some point, I stopped and stared at the long trees for a very long time. I didn’t want to leave the place. I did everything but no matter how long you stay at a place, the night will finally come and it will be time for you to leave. We left in the evening. We went back to the beach where we met and spent the whole night there.

The following day we met again. He went to work so he came around in the evening. Another night spent with someone I barely knew but had become the friend I needed. I spent a week in Cape Coast. I was with him constantly for four days. The day I was leaving, he took me to the station and waited until the bus moved before he left. I was looking at him while the car was moving. I looked back to watch him leave until he disappeared from view. I said in my mind, “Thank you for everything, Ronald. You don’t know what you’ve done for me over these few days.” I got to Accra and gave him a call, “I’m home. Thank you for everything.” He responded, “It was good meeting you. I hope you’ll come back soon.” I said, “How about you also come here?”

A month or so later, he was in Accra. He gave me a call and I showed him where he could find me. I took him home so he knows where I live. Communication between us intensified. There wasn’t a day that we didn’t talk. One day I saw myself opening up to him the way I’ve never done to anyone since the issue came up. I said, “You met me at my lowest. Had it not been the distraction you provided, I wouldn’t have been here.” He said, “It’s all part of God’s plan. Ours is to pick the lessons and move on with our lives. If we live by the lessons, we’ll have a better life.” 

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A couple of months later, he proposed. I said, “No, not in this state that you found me.” He said, “You’ll heal one day and you’ll definitely love again. The longer you dwell on the past, the faster the present passes you by. Both of us connect on different levels. Let’s make something out of this. I know it will work.” I believed him but I wanted to take my time. I didn’t believe myself to be a better person for him at that time but he persevered with his proposal so I said yes. Yes with a caveat; “I’m a whole rickety package. Take the rose but don’t ignore the thorns. I will give my best again hoping this won’t be the relationship that finally kills me. Let’s do it.”

It was September 13th, 2021 when I sent my acceptance message to him. On March 26th, 2022, we walked the aisle. When we had to exchange our vows, something hit me from the inside. Something that said, “This is the final vow that seals my fate in love.” He made things easier. He didn’t seek to change anything or make me a different person. He worked with what was available and all the while assuring me of his love and commitment. I was even scared to introduce him to my parents when the time came for us to do the introduction. In my mind, the question was, “What if this too fails? How many men would I introduce to them before the final vow?” 

Everything else fell in place right after that introduction and we moved from a good time to good times. It’s all part of God’s plan. I had to run away from what was hurting me to meet what would finally heal my wounds.