My family is asking me to forgive him and give him another chance. They are using the same phrases I have heard people use for years when men act carelessly: “Just forgive him, you know how men are.” A man who shattered my self-confidence and turned me into someone I couldn’t recognize when I looked in the mirror.

My uncle, in particular, has the loudest voice on this panel of elders. “The point is, he will take care of you, and your child too. He’ll take you abroad to continue your education. Your family will enjoy me, and I will enjoy it too before I leave this world,” he’ll say, ending with a hysterical laugh.

In 2015, after I had completed senior high school, I fell in love. I was certain it wasn’t just a teenager’s child’s play. By then, we had just finished school and returned home. Noah was charming. He knew it, and he used it to lord over any girl he wanted. He was the kind of man every girl wanted for herself, the kind every parent would love as a son-in-law.

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Fighting off girls and winning was all worth it… until 2017. I got my worst heartbreak when I noticed that a girl he was involved with was pregnant. When I asked him, he admitted he had impregnated her. He begged. “It was the devil,” he said. I asked him, “Was it the devil that invited the two of you into bed?” I cried over him every day and every night. He pleaded, “We can do this, let’s continue the relationship.” I disagreed. I told him, I am one of many things, but a stepmother I could not be. That heartbreak was one of the most terrible things I have ever had to deal with. I don’t think I would have survived it if not for school.

We later found out he wasn’t the actual father of the child, but because he had also been with her, she chose him to pin it on. When I heard the news, I felt vindicated. It felt like the heavens were giving me a sign that Noah was truly mine, that not even a child could separate us. So, that first call with him, almost two years later, was so relieving. His voice, his accent, even just a picture of him… it all came flooding back.

He made loads of promises. To stop cheating, to love me unconditionally, to help me become a better version of myself, to make me his wife. He had a way with words that made my heart dance, so I believed every word that came out of his mouth. Until I went to visit him and finally got hold of his phone. Even his gallery wasn’t spared from his acts of cheating. Different girls, of every colour, size, and stature. To each girl, he had promised the same thing: the better life, the dream wedding, the house, children, and riches. It was like copy and paste, ditto and ditto. That time, I forgave him. I didn’t even tell him what I saw. I just placed the phone down and quietly rethought my life decisions.

Days later, he came to me and said, “I knew you saw those messages, but forgive me. I’m doing it for our future. It won’t happen again.” I asked him what part of our future involved him cheating with so many girls. He just brushed it aside and said, “Let’s move on, wai.” I obeyed. I gave myself permission to just grow into the life he was building for us. A life where it was very much okay for him to cheat and had no problems with it. After all, it rained everywhere.

When he knocked me up and I got pregnant in my final year at teacher training college, he said to me, “Because you think you are pregnant doesn’t mean I will stop cheating. That thing you girls do to tie a man down, let me tell you, you can’t tie me down with a baby.” He gave me a condition: “I’m going to stay with you, but I can cheat. Yes or yes?” I was lying down when he gave me that ultimatum. I nodded yes to him, and tears filled my eyes. “Don’t worry, if you are worried about infections, I will make sure I treat it.” That was it.

For a man with treacherous cheating ways, he was surprisingly involved in my pregnancy journey. He was there for most of the first milestones with our daughter, sending money and taking care of things, even after he travelled abroad.

Recently, I’ve heard whispers of his involvement with other women. I have the latest from the grapevine—whether it is the true detail or just hearsay, I don’t know. But I knew that I recently had a conversation with myself. I had a very heartfelt conversation with myself while standing in front of the mirror. I am beautiful, kind, smart, very resilient… and yet I had been reduced to my lowest because of some crazy love I had for Noah. I can’t talk about all the craziest things I did for love here, but I have been dumb. I demanded honest answers from myself, and when I couldn’t give myself one, I made a decision. Stalling would change me, so I just sent a breakup text to him.

Since then, I’ve had elders strolling in and out of my house, churning out advice, telling me that I should forgive and forget, and let things go. His friends have been heating up my phone: “Our guy is sorry, oo, just give him another chance.” Last time they were here, they came with a gift from him. He is going to work to take me abroad—me and the child—to continue my education and to stay and work there.

For a decade, I have permitted myself to be a fool, a participant in my own wreckage. I take the blame. For ten years, I’ve allowed myself to be moulded in every direction when it comes to love and intimacy. Everything I knew, I learned from this experience with him.

It’s Not God’s Law For A Man To Apologize To A Woman

I have told them point-blank: no. I know they aren’t convinced by my answer. They will come again. But, the thing is, I am not convinced of the answer I gave them. I mean, I can consider the opportunity before me—utilise it to travel and establish a life for myself in that setting. After all, those could be the two best things I got from these ten years with Noah: my child and living abroad.

—Felicia

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