I was on a call with my husband. He was on a trip and was calling to check on me and the kids. He called late every night, but this night, he said he was very tired, so he was calling early so he could sleep early. We talked for about ten minutes. He talked to the kids too and said goodnight, and I also did.

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He didn’t cut the call. I also didn’t cut it. For several minutes, it was quiet on the phone. Just when I was about to cut it, I heard a lady’s voice. She spoke Ewe. I didn’t understand Ewe, but I hung on to listen to what was going on. For three minutes, these people kept talking in a language I didn’t understand, so I decided to record it.

My husband hadn’t been innocent when it came to cheating. Twice in our marriage, we’ve had arguments about one lady or another I suspected he was cheating with. He called me insecure and said it was in my head. In one of those instances, he told me I was suffocating him with marriage. “Because I’m married to you, I shouldn’t talk to any woman? I shouldn’t be friends with any woman because you’re my wife?”

The lady in question wasn’t just any woman. I’d seen messages that suggested their relationship wasn’t just normal, but because there was nothing explicit in the messages, he denied it and called me a jealous wife. And then there was another lady called Fafa. My husband is an Ewe, and I’m an Ashanti. I don’t speak Ewe, so whenever I heard him speaking on the phone, he told me he was talking to his mother.

Facial expressions and tone of voice didn’t sound like he was talking to his mother, but my husband insisted he was talking to his mother or an uncle or even his sister. He would then carry the call outside and later come and tell me it was a family matter. One day, I got angry and snatched his phone to check the number to see if it was his mother indeed. It turned into a struggle between us. He won and took his phone from me.

The next person he called was my dad. “Come and see what your daughter is doing here. I don’t know what has come over her. If he doesn’t take care, this marriage will collapse because of her witchcraft.”

He called me a witch in front of my own dad. My dad called me later and asked what was going on. I hadn’t discussed my marriage with any soul, but that day, I told my dad everything in tears. “I know he’s cheating. He’s cheating in his language so I don’t get to hear or see it.” My dad said, “You don’t fight a cheating man who’s trying to hide his sins. You wait. Time reveals everything. The truth will come to you when you least expect it.”

Close to a year later, my husband had forgotten to cut the call after talking to me. I put my phone on charge, put my earpiece in my ears, and listened to my own heartbreak. They would speak English and later turn to Ewe. The lady brought food and told him she was putting it in the fridge. She asked my husband, “Aren’t you feeling cold without a shirt on in this weather?” My husband responded, “You’re here, how would I feel cold?”

I think my husband entered the bath, so the room was very quiet for a while. When he returned, he said something like, “That’s a good view. You see why you drive me crazy?” I don’t know what he was seeing that was a good view. The next thing I heard was the lady moaning and my husband speaking to her in Ewe in hushed tones.

For an hour and six minutes, I was on the phone listening and crying. It was like eating sweet but pepperish food. It burns and you cry but can’t stop eating it. I was crying but couldn’t cut the line. I wanted him to know I was on the line. I even shouted on the phone, “Hello, hello, you see God has removed your cloth?” He didn’t hear me talk. When he finally picked up his phone and realized it was still ringing, he shouted in Ewe and cut the call.

I had the whole recording and cried the whole night. It was like I was in the same room witnessing what was going on. I replayed what happened. My intention was to send the audio to a friend to interpret the Ewe part for me, but it was not needed. The little English part and the moaning told the whole story.

In the morning, he called me, and I played it cool like I didn’t know what happened. He asked if I slept early last night, and I told him I slept immediately after we finished talking. He was probing to see if I heard anything, if I would ask any question about what I’d found out, but I played my innocence before him while holding on to the evidence.

When he returned, I didn’t even wait for him to sit, and I started playing his audio back to him through a Bluetooth speaker. He shook his head and left the hall to the bedroom. I followed him with the speaker. I said, “You can’t listen to your own voice again? Call me insecure. Go ahead, tell me it’s in my head.”

He moved to the bathroom and I followed. He went to the kitchen and I followed. He went outside and I followed. He left through the main gate, and I came back home because of the kids. He came back around 12 a.m. to meet me in the hall waiting. Immediately he sat down, I put on the speaker. He asked, “What’s that for?” I answered, “Answer to your sins. Is that also in my head?”

I was expecting an apology or a man who would break down and cry because he’d been found out. He didn’t do that but rather got angry that I was pursuing him around. The next day, I called his dad and told him everything. Do you know what he told his dad? He said what I recorded wasn’t him but the TV he was watching, and the moaning was coming from the adult movie he was watching.

When his dad told me, I laughed. I traveled to their home with my speaker to play it to his dad and mom. They could understand the Ewe part. I didn’t need to hear them say anything. What was in their heads was clearly written on their faces. They apologized to me and told me they would call him to order.

A week later, my husband hadn’t apologized or said anything to me. He was acting as if it didn’t matter. So I locked the door one evening and asked him to go back to the lady he made moan. He knocked a thousand times; I didn’t open. He left, and I saw him two days later. I asked, “Are you coming for your things? Don’t worry, I’ve folded the ones I could fold. It’s easy. Carry them away.”

When he stepped out later, I locked the door again. His dad called. I talked to his mom. My dad also called to ask me to open the door. I said to them, “I no longer need him in this house. He should go and marry that lady. Obviously, he wants a woman who can moan in his language.”

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It all sounded like I was just angry, but one day, he packed out and hasn’t come back. He calls to talk to the children. He offered some lousy apology that sounded like he was talking to a child. In my mind, heart, and soul, this marriage is over. The fact that I’ve had the courage to share it here, where I know he can read it, tells me I’ve let him go. Too much disrespect for my feelings. This gaslighting from him is meant for a fool and not me, with all my wisdom. I’m not a bad woman. I don’t deserve this at all, and I won’t take it even from the man I’ve loved with all my heart.

—Alberta

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