My wife was thirty-three years when we got married. I was twenty-nine years. We were friends for two years, dated for two years before we got married. Right from the beginning, she was interested in me. She made it obvious, did a lot of things for me to know that she liked me. I was reserved. Truthfully, I didn’t know how to react to her feelings towards me but as time went on I grew fond of her and proposed to her. She said, “You think I’m the right girl for you? Remember the age difference.”

She was four years older but nothing about her showed that she was older. She was beautifully smallish and always looked her best even when she was in the kitchen cooking. I told her, “Not at all. I know a lot of men whose wives are older. It didn’t change anything so I doubt this would change anything for us.” She asked again, “You think your family wouldn’t be concerned?” I asked, “My family? Who is going to tell them and what business do they have in the woman I choose as a wife?”

When the time came for us to get married, we faced no resistance from either side of the family. My mom liked her so much because she said my wife resembles one of her friends back in school. The two could call each other and talk for hours. There were a lot of things they were doing that I didn’t even know. My dad—also the same.

One year after marriage, we had no child. Honestly, we were trying to have a child before our one-year anniversary but that didn’t happen. I knew she was troubled by that because she was always talking about her age; “You know I’m in my thirties. I have to do things faster before my hormones give up on me.” I don’t know who gave her that idea that hormones give up at thirty but it was something he said a lot. Because of her desire to have a child by all means, she didn’t let me sleep. She wanted it three or four times before daybreak. I couldn’t keep up. She kept complaining; “A young guy like you, when we bring the party to your house you run. What would you do when you get older?

I wasn’t bothered. I did only what I could.

There’s a teacher who teaches in the same SHS School that my wife teaches. We attend the same church with him and he was a good friend to both of us. He always told me he had something to discuss with me but anytime I pressed him, he would say something like, “It’s not anything important so let’s just forget.” One day he texted me. “You have to put your eyes on the ground. Your wife is up to something and it would be very embarrassing if what we suspect is true.” I called him and we talked for hours. The bottom line was that my wife was dating one of her students. He said it was something most of the teaching staff suspects because of her relationship with two particular boys on campus. He said, “There was a time these two boys fought over her.”

I felt embarrassed. I told him, “I hope it’s just a rumor because this is very serious.” When she came home, I asked her, “I heard two of your students were fighting over you. What’s happening.” She said, “You spoke to Asamoah, right? So, they couldn’t keep the gossip to themselves. Why are these people bent on destroying me? Why would I do that with a boy?” Right in my presence, he called Asamoah and blasted him with insults.

I started looking around for evidence of what Asamoah told me that day. I checked her phone and she had changed her password. I didn’t want to raise an alarm so I kept quiet about that. We lived our lives as if nothing was going on. Three months later, she let her guard down while I was alert, doing everything to be able to get into her phone. When she was pressing her phone, I would watch her from the corner of my eyes. I would see her typing something that looked like her birth date as the password. I would try and it was wrong. I tried my own birth date, it didn’t work. One day as she was typing the password, I followed keenly without batting an eye. I got it. It was the date we got married.

It was when I found the password that I realized my wife sleeps with her phone under her pillow. She’s a very light sleeper. A little touch and she would be awake so I had to play carefully if I was going to get the phone. One night, I tried curdling so I could push her head off the pillow and get access to the phone. She woke up, picked her phone, position it well under the pillow, and slept again. At that moment, my mind was made up that everything I’ve heard about her was true. If not, why would she be overprotective of her phone? Changed the password and still put it under the pillow before sleeping?

She went to the bath with her phone pretending to be listening to music on a loudspeaker while bathing. The phone would be next to her when washing. Wherever she went, her phone went.

But there’s always “One day” in a story where everything turns around. That day came. She was peacefully asleep when I got her phone. I went out of the house so I can have all the time to myself and read. Ten minutes later, our room light came up. I knew she was awake and looking for me but I sat out there under the dew at around 1am reading messages on my wife’s phone.

The first person was the guy who played the keyboard in our church. A twenty-two to twenty-five boy. The messages between them were revealing. Most of the messages had been deleted but you could see the ghost of their conversation and draw conclusions. There was another guy I didn’t know. His name was Thomas. She met him not too long ago but you could clearly see she was drawing the guy’s mind home into an affair. Then I got to those two students she was teaching. One of the guys warned her, “If I see you following Agbana again, it would be over between us.” Me, my wife? A little boy threatening to jilt her?”

One hour later, I’d had enough of the emotional pain. I took screenshots of everything and sent them to my phone.

She got violent when I got home. She was doing everything for me to hit her so she would have a case but I restrained myself. The noise from our room caused some neighbors to wake up. The landlady came out later to ask what the issue was. She was crying. She told the landlady that I hit her after going through her phone.” The next day, she called my mom, telling her I’d beaten her all night without any reason. My mom couldn’t believe it so she called me. She asked, “You did that? Who taught you to lay a hand on a woman?” I said, “If you didn’t teach me, then I never did.”

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While I was thinking through the hurt, looking for a way to resolve the issue, she was up and about selling her story to whoever may listen. I had only one weapon; the screenshot that I took.

When our pastor called us on the issue, she said, “I had nothing to hide on my phone. He read my messages and misinterpreted everything, even the chats between female friends were misinterpreted. I showed the screenshots to the pastor and he was shocked. For some minutes he didn’t know what to say while my wife sat there denying those screenshots. She said, “They are all lies to cover up his abuse. Those screenshots didn’t come from my phone.”

In the end, the decision was in my hand. I asked for separation first. We had been married for almost three years. I’d wanted to see some changes but the woman never accepted the facts of the situation. She kept denying the screenshots and kept peddling lies.

I had no option other than to walk out of the marriage.

–Yoofi

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