My husband would chase anything in a skirt. I brought my cousin in to help when I gave birth. I had to send my cousin away because twice my husband made an attempt on her. That girl was too mature for her age. She told me the very first day it happened. I doubted it. I said maybe my husband was only trying to be nice. She said, “Sister Boatemah, trust me. He walked in while I was bathing and asked if he could join me.”

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I trusted her immediately because of that phrase, “Can I join you?” When we started dating, it was his favorite thing to do. And each time he came, he asked the same question even when he knew he could just join. So when my cousin said it, I told her to leave everything to me.

My husband denied it and even threatened to deal with my cousin for telling me what was not the truth. A wise man would have stopped, knowing my cousin had reported him. The next time, he went with money and asked her to collect it and allow him to go ‘through’ her. He even promised to give her more if she allowed him.

My cousin eventually said she was leaving the house and I agreed for her to leave. When it was obvious she was leaving, my husband started shouting, “Sack her from this house or I will do it myself. How dare she say things like that and think I will let it pass a second time?”

When my cousin left, I sat down with him and poured my heart out to him that my cousin was speaking the truth and it was uncalled for him to go that far. He got angry and said I was supporting her because she was from my family. “It’s today I’ve realized you’ll sell me for a penny if it came to it,” he said. “How can you believe that from a girl her age?”

It took us several months to heal from this problem. He gave me the silent treatment for calling him out as if he were the victim. He wouldn’t give me money for accusing him wrongly. He played the victim part so perfectly that I even felt guilty for asking him about it.

Months later, a call started coming to his phone late at night, sometimes when we were sleeping. The person would call and call and call until he would put his phone on flight mode. I didn’t ask questions. I just went through his phone and saw messages between him and that number. He hadn’t saved the number but, judging from everything going on, it was clear he was in a relationship with the person.

I took the number with the intention of calling but I never did. We had come from one such trouble not long ago and we had recovered with our thighs fractured. I didn’t want to start a war too soon, especially when I didn’t have all the evidence.

Once in a while, I would go through his phone. Same girl, same chats, and places they had been. It was breaking my heart but I was looking for something concrete until one night I read a different chat between him and a girl who lived not too far from us. Her mother owned a store where the neighborhood bought from. Jemimah.

She had completed SHS and was home waiting for her results. According to the chat, my husband lured her into our house and forcibly did it with her. He even took photos of the girl and sent them to her, telling her she was beautiful. When the girl complained of pain and bleeding, he sent her GHC500 to buy medicine and even prescribed medicine that would stop the bleeding and the pain.

I was doing my own bleeding through the heart while reading the messages. The girl kept telling him about the pain and all my husband said was, “By the time we do the second one, you won’t have any pain again.”

No sympathy. Just a raw desire to consume the girl whole. I wanted to confront him and bring up my cousin’s issue as a supporting case but, knowing the kind of man my husband was, I knew he would fight me, play the victim and later give me the silent treatment.

I used another number and called the girl’s mother and told her everything. I told her if she asked her daughter and she denied it, I would provide evidence of their chats and the photos my husband took in our house. In the evening, the woman and her husband stormed our house with their daughter. They had spoken to her and the girl had confessed. They went through her phone and discovered the evidence themselves.

My husband had nowhere to run but to beg. The girl’s father was very loud. My husband was begging in a low tone, asking them not to make a scene because I was there. That even infuriated the man more and made him say all he wanted to say. I knew what was going on but I didn’t come out.

Nosy neighbors had already gathered to ask what was going on. I was so ashamed. I must admit I regretted my action right then and there but when he walked in and I asked him about it, he said, “Their daughter is putting a case on me that I’ve had something to do with her. It’s a lie. How could I? A girl her age?”

I shook my head and looked at him sternly. He said, “I know you don’t believe me. When push comes to shove, I know you’ll be the one to put the nail in my coffin but God knows my heart. I’m innocent.”

The girl’s father said he was taking the issue to the police. My husband was on the phone for several minutes talking to people I don’t know. Early in the morning, his parents met him at the girl’s house and begged for mercy. I asked him, “You said you didn’t do it so why are you begging?” He answered, “I don’t have any evidence that I didn’t do it, that’s why I’m begging. If it gets to the police, they’ll believe the girl.”

There’s this relief that falls on you when you know the truth but the other person is lying about it. I was happy about the stress he was going through. He couldn’t sleep. He was always on the phone. He would call and say, “I’m not coming home tonight but don’t tell anyone about my whereabouts.” Meanwhile, I didn’t know his whereabouts myself.

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They are trying to settle the case at home. The girl’s father is another paaa. He’s falling for money instead of taking the case to the police. He’s negotiating a monetary settlement instead of making my husband face the tune of his own music but once all this is over, I know he will learn his lesson and he will also meet a new wife. The embarrassment is too much. The finger-pointing and the name-calling. Sometimes I have to hide, all because of a husband who doesn’t know how to keep his thing where it belongs.

—Boatemah  

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