After years of hard work and praying, I got the promotion I was waiting for. It had passed around me for years, but this one didn’t pass me by. The letter was given to me on a Friday. That weekend, we celebrated the promotion like a three-day festival which ended with prayers at church.

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The promotion came with all the good things you can think of and also threatened to change the trajectories of our married lives. It meant I had to move from Takoradi to Accra. We’d lived all our lives as a couple in Takoradi. That was where we met ten years ago, dated for two years, and got married. My husband hails from Takoradi and hadn’t lived anywhere else apart from there. I was there because of school but later found a job there.

Before I moved to Accra, we had an elaborate plan to slowly get my husband to also move to Accra someday. He couldn’t just leave his job and move with me, so we decided he would stay for a while and start looking for a job in Accra. Once he got one, he would also move so we would be together again as a family. He agreed, and I moved with the kids.

He was visiting every weekend. He complained it took a toll on him, coming and going back every weekend. I said I was praying he got a job soon so he could join us. One day he came to visit and said, “I’m not going back again. I’ve resigned. I’ll stay here and find a job. That will be easier.”

That wasn’t the plan, but I respected him as the head of the family and also believed he knew what he was doing. His job was better than mine before the promotion. It wasn’t a job you just get up and leave. It was a great job a lot would die for, but he left it behind to come and stay with us. I called it dedication to family or love or commitment to our union.

A year later, he was still home. He wasn’t even trying to get a job anymore. Of course, I was concerned. I needed my husband to be the husband who called the shots, and to do that well, he had to be occupationally grounded. I complained, I nagged, I encouraged, I motivated him to not stop searching. Later, he said he would use the time to do his master’s while waiting for a job opening.

I paid for the master’s program and every cost that came with it. He would have done the same for me without thinking twice if he were in my shoes. He didn’t apply for any job while he was schooling, but I could forgive him because he was in school. He passed very well and graduated with hopes of landing a great job with the master’s.

He was still home, not expecting me to complain about him finding a job. Since he wasn’t doing it, I did the search for him. I talked to people on his behalf. I gave his CV to my connections while he stayed home being a husband. Regardless of all the time he had on his hands, I was the one doing all the domestic chores. He would wait for me to cook and serve him. He would tell the kids to come to me for help with their homework. Everything was me.

One day he told me he was going to school again for another master’s. He was going to do a professional program that would make it easier for him to secure a great job. I wasn’t happy, but I trusted he knew what he was doing. If he started going to school in March, then in April, one of my connections had a job opening for him. The role was flexible and the pay was good. On the day of the interview, my friend called me and said, “Your husband didn’t come for the interview. Has he changed his mind?”

When I called him, he told me, “The role doesn’t excite me. I’d rather finish this program and find a suitable job.”

He didn’t discuss it with me or even tell me about it. I was livid. “What do you mean it’s not exciting? What things should the role have for you to consider it exciting? Why can’t you take it up while you wait for your exciting role?”

In fact, I was angry and was all over the place. He got angry too, and it turned into a fight. “You want to dictate my life because you’re the one in the driving seat now? You women forget too soon. I left a well-paying job because of you, remember that. If I don’t have a job, it’s because I sacrificed it to be with you and the kids.”

He said a lot of things I could have debated him on, but tempers were high so I let them go. I paid for the second master’s and every cost associated with it while paying to keep a family of four afloat. The kids’ fees were on me. Utilities and food were on me. His parents call for assistance and he comes to me. I could do that because I was hoping he would find a job soon and be able to take on some of the burdens.

He’s done with the second master’s and he’s home calling friends and arguing about football. I read his messages one day and he was teasing his friend to marry well. “Marry a woman who can take care of you when you can’t,” he boldly wrote. “It’s not always that you should take care of a woman because it’s a manly duty. Marry well, my brother.”

I read the message and I smiled with disdain. These days when I talk about a job, he gets triggered. He tells me I have enough to take care of us, so why am I complaining as if we are going down the ditch tomorrow. I told him, “If it’s in your head that you wouldn’t work again, let me know so I stop bothering you about it.” He answered, “If a year from today, I don’t get a job, I’ll start something on my own.”

“Why don’t you start now so that by next year you’ll see some growth?”
“Where’s the money to start?”

He expects me to provide the money if I desperately want him to start something. I won’t risk that amount. I know it will end up in the drain because he desperately doesn’t want to fix himself. He sees his situation as my problem more than his, but you know what? A year from today, if he doesn’t have a job and he’s still not trying, I’ll make a decision.

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No, I won’t leave him. I don’t believe this should destroy our marriage, but I’ll ask him to leave us alone, maybe go back to his parents in Takoradi and sort himself out before he comes back. After all, his existence in this house is not useful to any of us in any way. I don’t think we’ll miss him when he’s gone. He’ll have to go home and learn to be the man I met and come back.

If he wants the marriage as much as I do, he’ll fix himself and come back to it again; if not, there’s no need for a man like this in my life and that of the kids. Am I going too far?

—Gyanwaa

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