I spent a lot of our dating days fighting off her ex-boyfriend. She told me right from the beginning that she had an ex who was troubled. She said, “He can’t just accept that it’s over. He’ll text me in the morning, in the afternoon, in the night, and even at dawn telling me that he wants a comeback.” I told her, “It’s normal, especially when you are the one who left him.” But the ex never stopped coming back. I was there for her. I was ready to give her the necessary support to win over that ex. 

One evening, she called me, “He’s here.” I asked, “What does he want? She said, “He’s yet to say.” I asked her, “Should I come around? She said, “Be on the alert. If anything goes south, I will call you.” I asked, “Do you think you are safe? With him in there with you?” She said, “He’s not violent. That one I can assure you.”

She assured me but I was worried. I held my phone close to my chest, waiting for it to ring so I could do my superman job. It was 8pm, my phone didn’t ring. At 9pm, my phone didn’t ring. I started getting worried. I called her, she didn’t pick. I called her again, she didn’t pick. I started off to her place. I was on the way to her place when she called. She said, “Sorry I couldn’t call when he left. I’d wanted to but I don’t know when I fell asleep.” I said, “Good to hear from you. I thought you got killed when you were not picking my calls.” She laughed. She said, “He’s not violent. He’s only annoyingly persistent. I’m thinking of leaving this place to a place where he can’t find me.” I said, “Let’s do it.”

Two years after dating her, this guy was still pursuing her. I got worried. She showed signs of weariness anytime she spoke about him. So one day I asked her, “What happened between you two that he can’t seem to let you go?” She said, ”It’s a long story.” I said, “You always tell me that. Today, I have time. How long can the story be? Just start.” She laughed. She said, “It’s a past I really don’t want to visit. The mistake I did haunt me. When I talk about it, regret washes me off the ground and leaves me sad and lonely. I don’t want to go there.”

She got my interest peaked. The more she talked about her unwillingness to talk about the story, the more I salivated. I pressed her. I coerced her. “Dear, if we are going to do this forever, I will need you to lay your past down, however bad they may sound. I’m not judging you and I will never bring it against you in any form. I have my past. The bad. The ugly. The mad. I share them with you anytime the opportunity arises. I’m better now because I shared. Try it. Share and you’ll be fine.” She was reluctant but later started opening up to me. 

She was in school when she found him. she said, “I keep telling you he’s a guy but he’s not. He’s a man in his fifties. Old enough to be my father. I went out with a friend and his boyfriend one night and we met him. It was my friend’s boyfriend who brought him. He introduced him as his main man.” Her friend was with her boyfriend. Her boyfriend has a lonely friend and she was also alone so they decided to take another table so as to excuse their couple friends. That was when everything started. The man didn’t waste time hitting on her. 

“He told me he had been married for twenty years and he’s tired of married life. He said he wanted someone like me to move around with. He promised he’ll take good care of me if I said yes. He even told me he didn’t have the strength to engage in sex. All he wanted was someone younger than himself to be there for him. That night I said no to him.”

But the man persisted until he got a yes from her. She told me she dated him because of his money and nothing else. While they dated, the man kept every promise he made to her. He paid her fees. Yes, she was struggling to pay fees. He paid her hostel accommodation and gave her a weekly allowance. She said, “After school, he rented this place for me and paid six years advance. He wanted to keep me forever but I grew up. I grew sense. I knew it when the time came for me to move on so I told him that I was moving on. Eight months later, I met you.”

I didn’t judge her. She was a girl fighting to liberate herself from her past. I told her, “You can give me his number. I will talk to him man to man and I know he’ll understand me. She did and the next day I called him on phone. I was polite. I was humble, like a child speaking to his father. I said, “Jenny met me and she wants to move on. Could you please allow her?” He cut the line without saying a word. Minutes later Jenny called me. She said, “He called me. He said you’ve called him.” I said, “Yes I have but he cut the line on me.” “Don’t mind him. The best I can do now is to find a new place. Where he can’t find me.”

We started looking for new accommodation together. I wasn’t looking for a place for her alone. I was looking for a place where the two of us can live when we get married because I had marriage intentions. We got a place. Two bedroom house, big enough to contain a married couple. I paid for it and she moved in. Problem solved. I was there when she blocked his line and blocked every access she had with him. For close to a year she didn’t mention him. I knew the problem was solved.

We got married in April this year and the two of us went to live together. Our marriage was only a month old when she complained of insomnia. She said, “I can hardly sleep these days. I don’t know what is worrying me or it’s something that has to do with new marriage because I can’t understand it. She googled her problem. She said she had found a solution to it but that solution also didn’t work. I will wake up at dawn and see her on phone, reading something or watching videos. She made me feel guilty. “How could sleep be this nice to me but treat my wife with utter abandonment?” Sometimes, I will lay awake with her for a while until I fall asleep again.

That dawn I found her awake again, typing on her phone with smiles on her face. I watched her for a while. She was really into the conversation. I said, “You can’t sleep again? I thought it got better?” She said, “It goes and comes when it wants. I’ve learned to live peacefully with it. I’m ok. Go back to sleep.” 

I turned away and continued sleeping. I dreamt she was still on the phone typing and smiling to herself. I woke again and saw her doing exactly that. I got curious. I wanted to know what was happening. “Who is she chatting with at this time of the dawn? Don’t people sleep? Or she had found herself insomnia community on social media?” These questions got the better of me so I decided to probe. 

Around 4am I could hear her feeble snores. I reached out for her phone and started going through what the insomnia community discussed. Guess who was the chairman of the insomnia community…Her ex. The same man she ran away from while we were dating. The same man she gave her number to me to talk to. That same man she didn’t want to talk about because talking about him brought haunting regrets. That married-for-over-twenty-years man who took escape in her while she was in school. Yes, that man.

That dawn she reached out to the man first. Her first message was, “I can’t sleep.” The man replied almost immediately, “Insomnia again?” She said, “Yeah, that devil again.” He asked, “Where is he?” She said, “He’s here snoring. That’s all he does in the night. He’ll wake up just when I’m also sleeping and be worrying me for sex. Two minutes later, he’ll be down and panting as if he climbed mountain Kilimanjaro.” The man sent plenty laughing emojis.” He asked, “I guess I’m better at my age.” She said, “Way better. Just imagine living like this for the rest of your life.” He said, “Now you understand me. I’ve done this for over twenty years. Clap for me.”

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I have all the screenshots of their messages. I memorized them as if I was going to write exams on it. I read them with pain in my eyes and questions in my heart. So all along, I was fighting a losing battle—the opponent wasn’t even fighting, yet I lost. I put her phone next to her, bathed, and walked out of the house. She saw me leaving but she didn’t ask a question. I was in town when she called; “You didn’t tell me when you were leaving. Where are you?” I simply said, “Don’t let me come to the house and meet you there. I’m angry. I can’t trust myself. “ She asked, ”What are you talking about?” I said, I’m talking about “Two minutes later, he’ll be down and panting as if he climbed mountain Kilimanjaro.” 

He said, “Please don’t get me wrong. I can explain everything. I was only joking. Oh my God! What will I say for you to believe me? Dear, I’m sorry.” I said, “Just leave the house. Else it might turn bloody.” I was standing far from the house whiles watching her leave the house with a bag in her hand. When she was totally gone, I went in there and started crying. I’ve never been a two minutes man in my life but my story is out there that I can’t perform. How could she lie about me to her ex-boyfriend? What does she want and what was the aim?”

She told her parents that I’m rather taking things out of context. I showed them the messages. Her father said, “Jenny, you went too far! Even if it’s a joke, that’s too far off a joke. How could you?” Her parents are convinced that she had nothing to do with the man again but spoke to him out of loneliness and stupidity. I’m convinced she still likes the man. If she could say that to him then there’s still something going on. I’m not a guy to make hasty decisions but for now, I want out of the marriage. I can’t trust her to ever move away from that man. I simply can’t. 

Am I being inconsiderate? Our marriage is new and I still love her with all my heart but I don’t know how I’m going to handle it if I should forgive her. What should I do to bring peace to my heart and joy into my own life?” 

—Owura

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