I will never forget the day it happened. It was a calm Saturday. I was sitting in the car in a coat. A black coat. I was supposed to wear a white one, but the tailor disappointed me, so the day before I walked into a boutique somewhere in Accra and chose the one closest to what I had planned in mind. I wore it and it looked so good on me that I took it immediately.

In the car it was hot, so I rolled down the glass and tried to take in some air. People were walking by and waving at the car and I waved back at them, shouting on top of my voice. I was not mad. I was actually screaming at the caterer who was nowhere to be found at the reception.

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A few minutes after the shouting, my wife-to-be arrived. I walked down the aisle first, then she came. Slow steps. A smile like an angel. We said our vows, and when I said mine, I meant every word from the deepest part of my heart. Till death do us part. In sickness and in riches. Let God help us. I was almost in tears when they finally pronounced us husband and wife. Finally. It had been a long time coming. I was a husband, and the girl I met years ago was finally my wife.

That was eight years ago, but the picture still rings in my head. The kiss she gave me that day, sometimes I can still feel it on my lips. We were young, in love, and ready to build a life together.

I knew something was wrong the day she woke me up one dawn. She tapped my shoulders in the early hours and whispered, “Wake up, I have something to tell you.”

I was drowsy from sleep, so I asked if we could not postpone whatever it was until later in the morning. She gave me a look and shook her head. That was all I needed to know.

“Talk. I’m listening.”

What woke me up completely was when I heard the mention of a church. Her former church.

That place?

I asked her why. She said she felt led to go back to her former love.

“So does it mean that if you feel led to your former boyfriend too you will do it?” I thought about saying it, but I kept it inside my head.

Her church. One of the things that drew me to her was that she loved God genuinely. She was not just a churchgoer who showed up on Sundays to tick a box. I was on the same path. I wanted to grow a family in the Lord. As Joshua said, as for me and my house we will serve the Lord. That was the picture I had always imagined with her.

When I met her, she was already a Christian. But her church was the kind that placed spiritual matters a little above the bridge of reason. They had strange beliefs. Doctrines that tied them down. In their lives, in their careers, in almost everything they touched.

When it comes to people like that, you do not fight them on their beliefs. They have been indoctrinated so deeply that only their doctrines feel right to them. So I did not try to drag her away from it forcefully. Instead, I discipled her slowly when we first met. For me it became a quiet mission to guide her toward the freedom of the gospel. I kept reminding her that the love of God brings freedom, that faith should not feel like chains around your life. That she did not have to live in the shackles of a church that refused to let people breathe or grow.

Over the years, something began to change. She started reading widely. She began listening to sermons outside of her church. We would have long conversations about faith, about grace, about the character of God. Slowly, she became a member of my church. It took months, maybe even longer than that, but what mattered was that she seemed free.

So hearing what she said that dawn was the last thing I expected. We had come too far to go back to our vomit

We had children who were curious and always asking questions. We had jobs that paid us well enough to put food on the table and fund our dreams. Our home was comfortable. Not perfect, but good. I was not ready to take ten steps back to the place she once came from. A church that dehumanised anyone who was not part of their group.

My children could not grow up in that environment. And I knew I could not survive in it either.

If I had fought her immediately, she would have fought back. So I stepped back and asked God to take the wheel, because in my own strength I felt weak and helpless.

The next Sunday while we were rushing to prepare for church, she suddenly picked up her bag and walked out of the house without saying anything. She went to her former church.

That was the beginning of my troubles.

Sometimes I think maybe I should have stood up and fought that decision harder. I am the man of the house after all. Maybe I should have forced a conversation, drawn a firm line. Sometimes that thought haunts me because it feels like it was just one service that turned her into someone I barely recognise.

She has turned almost everyone around us into an enemy.

She wakes up at odd hours to pray and turns the house into what feels like a prayer camp. I cannot sleep. The children cannot sleep. Tenants have knocked on our door in the middle of the night to complain.

And woe betide you if she feels the spirit has revealed something about you. She will confront you without hesitation.

The landlord barely speaks to us anymore because my wife has accused her of things. Witchcraft. Theft. Even being a mammy water agent.

Some days it is the tenant who looked at her the wrong way and now he is planning evil against our family. Another day it is the woman who sells kenkey by the roadside. According to my wife, the woman is using her head spiritually to sell, so we must never buy food from her again.

Another time it was the headmaster of our children’s school. Apparently he is a ritual man.

“You do not have spiritual eyes,” she tells me whenever I question her. “So you cannot see what I see.”

Sometimes she calls me a carnal man.

And I laugh.

Everyone in our compound, according to her so called spiritual eyes, is a demon. Every single one of them. She even studies the demons and calls out their names when she is praying loudly in the night.

We come back from work or school and find powder sprinkled on our belongings. Sometimes anointing oil poured on our things. There are so many things we cannot do in this house anymore because she has returned to that church.

Honestly, when it first started I told myself it would pass. I gave it a year.

But now we are almost two years into this nightmare.

In those two years I have been denied many things in this marriage. Even sex has become a battleground. There is always an excuse. This week she says she is having intimacy with God. Another week it is intimacy with Angel Gabriel. Sometimes Angel Samuel. Sometimes one of the founding fathers of the church.

If I try to touch her or even hold her gently, she suddenly shouts.

“You have spoilt my intimacy! You have ruined it! Look at what you have done!”

Then she begins screaming in tongues.

Remember when I said I laugh when she calls me a carnal man?

The reason I laugh is because I am actually an elder in my church. My faith is deep. I have called on God many times in my life and He has answered me. I have served God for as long as I can remember, and I believe I know when devotion to God begins to take a dangerous turn.

I am not saying this out of pride. God hates pride and I am not trying to judge anyone either. We have been warned not to judge.

But I cannot pretend that what is happening in my house feels like the God I know. Sometimes it reminds me of how the people of Moab worshipped, full of fear and strange rituals rather than love.

There is also the part where her pastor has told her not to support the house financially anymore.

So I am slowly going broke.

Everything now rests on my shoulders. If anything happens to me tomorrow, my wife might simply accept it as the will of God because spiritually she believes she should not help her husband financially.

Our home survived for eight years on two incomes. We never sat down to formally assign roles, but we understood each other. We knew what to do and when to do it. It worked for us.

Eight good years.

Now everything is going down the drain.

All of a sudden the vows we shared mean nothing anymore. The kiss she gave me that day tastes bitter when I remember it.

The children are becoming quieter. They have seen too much. They are losing their friends because their mother refuses to let them play with the other kids in the neighbourhood. Word has spread, and life is slowly becoming unbearable for them.

Life is getting darker for me too.

This house has become toxic. There are things I cannot do. Things I do not even dare to do anymore.

Sometimes I go to work and sit quietly and wonder if this is it. If this is the place where I finally give up. If this is some kind of test from God.

But which test is it? I do not even know.

These days I can barely pray. When I kneel down, words refuse to come out. My vocabulary fails me. All that comes out of my mouth is a quiet “hmm… hmm…”

I honestly hope that is enough prayer for God to hear.

My back feels heavy. My heart feels tight with grief.

I am torn between my duty as a husband and my role as a church elder. I feel like I have reached a breaking point. Sometimes I even think about resigning from my position in the church and abandoning my faith completely.

I am ready to face whatever consequences come with it. Even if it means divorce.

But before I take such a drastic step, I need guidance.

Am I doing the right thing, or am I running away from my responsibilities?

Right now I am lost.

And I need someone to show me the way.

—Evans

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