I met him through an old school friend I had lost contact with after SHS, and that friend was his colleague at the Takoradi Naval base. This was back in 2014. They were both fresh into military service and I didn’t like him one bit. There was no specific reason for it, I just didn’t like him. But as life would have it, my friend kept speaking well of him, and he was consistent with his calls and the way he presented himself, so I thought, since I’m single, let me see what will come of it. I accepted him, and around that same time, I gained admission to a nurses’ training school up north.

I left with his promises ringing in my ears. He wasn’t doing well financially, but that wasn’t a problem for me because I already had what I needed before going to school. Somewhere along the way, we became serious with each other and officially started dating. I had a soldier boyfriend, I would tell my friends and course mates. During vacations when I came back home for clinicals, he would be around if work brought him to Accra, or I would travel to his end in Takoradi after my clinicals. When I came back from school, I would be working in my brother’s shop, and if he was also around in Accra after his official duties, he would come around to help me, we would sit in the store, we would talk and laugh. Even the customers were gushing over us. When I was visiting him, I never visited empty handed, I was either carrying a basket full of food or a gift bag of menswear for him. When he had money, he would spend it on me when I was around, but mostly he didn’t have it, so I usually shared what I had for anything we wanted to buy or do. His money always had somewhere to go, whether it was his mother wanting a TV or his mother wanting this or that. The first time I got something from the relationship was when I had issues with my phone, and he got me a new one.

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I used to visit his brother’s wife and offer the little help I could when she gave birth because she liked me and she was a nurse, just like who I wanted to be. At his base, I knew his friends and we would all go out and have fun until we got tired and departed to our homes.

One day I was about to travel to Takoradi when a lady called me and introduced herself, saying she was dating this guy and he had made her lots of promises, but she had just realized I was in the picture and wanted to know about me. I just hung up, but she followed up with WhatsApp messages about how she found out about me and how the guy lied to her that my family didn’t want him to marry me, along with many other stories. I engaged her there, and I wasn’t angry, I just sent him a screenshot and told him to let the girl back off from me. He started with his emotional blackmail, saying the girl was not mentally okay and all that, and I wasn’t even angry, so we just moved on.

His mother didn’t like me the first time we met, she had various kinds of reasons not to like me. First, she said as an Akyem girl, I was not welcome in her home, my surname was the same as one bad neighbor she once had when she was younger, and my church people were not good. We went to visit his mother alongside his friend, and he was a witness to the spectacle that happened and he complained about it all the way. “Your mother didn’t do well at all.” He kept apologizing until his friend departed, and he too left when a call came through. Normally, he would tell me that as soldiers, once you get a call, you pick up at once because you don’t know if they are calling you for deployment. This particular call, the person’s tone on the other end was screaming mumbled words I could not hear, but I heard him asking, “So has she thrown your things outside?” and he left me.

He had been living in a small single room in a traditional house where bathing was a problem. I had to bathe inside and walk a distance just to access the public latrine. So when he said he wanted a bigger space, I was happy, and someone called him to come and check a room somewhere. We were on our way when he made a statement, “You won’t live in that house, this one that you are happy.” Maybe he didn’t know he said it aloud, but I stood in front of one local beer bar and told him I would sit there and wait for him. He acted surprised, but no matter what he did, I didn’t go with him, and I didn’t show anger. I went in to buy malt and sat there to wait till he came back. The following day, I left, but deep within me, I knew the days were foggy. I didn’t hear from him again until he went on an official assignment in one of those mining towns, and I had been there to visit him before, I went and came back to treat an infection, so I knew what it meant when he was going.

Out of the blue, one day he broke up with me. “The Lord is calling me to become a pastor and I want to follow the Lord’s voice,” he said, “so it means that you and I are over.” But if you want to become a pastor, we could still be together and do the Lord’s work, no? He didn’t mind me.

That was the end of us. It was later that a lady in their home told me that he had impregnated a lady who was living with her sister, the salesgirl who sold the phone to us in Accra central that day, the only thing I got from him. It was that salesgirl he went to impregnate. The girl’s sister threw her out that day, and he took her to live with his brother’s wife, so the house hunting we were doing was for him and his baby mama, and I didn’t get a hint until after everything was over that this lady told me this. Meanwhile, I too had gotten pregnant for Jim and we threw it away.

I never called him again until he called me one day to say he was sorry and that he was wrong to treat me how he did. That relationship was anything but beautiful, I was just a naive girl feeling amorous love for the first time, so it’s normal. I wasn’t a virgin when he met me, so I lost nothing, just the waste of time and some money I could have saved for my future, and some suitors I could have done so well with.

Men Don’t Like It When Women Do The Paying

I am almost 35, but since that nine years ago, I haven’t been able to trust men ever again, and even the dabidabi ebeyeyie are showing me shege. My life is still fine, and I am doing well in my field, so I know things will be better soon. Maybe I wasn’t made for love, or maybe I am meant to be alone.

Maybe things can change overnight, so I have left all in the hands of God. He’s all knowing, and He will do things right when the time is right. Surprisingly, it didn’t make me hate soldiers because of this, because there are other professionals who are worse, and one person cannot represent the whole of soldiers in the universe; there are still good ones out there.

— Frimpomaa

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