There are two kinds of men. Not in general speaking. When it comes to weddings, there are two kinds of men. There are men who stay in their rooms and pray on the eve of their wedding. The night before their wedding, these men won’t go anywhere because they know what is at stake. They stay indoors and plan the final lap of their wedding. They’ll usually call their wives in the night and talk about the little details such as who will be sharing the Jollof and who will ensure no one joins the queue twice. They’ll hold hands in spirit (in spirit because at this time they are not supposed to see each other until the wedding day) and pray for their wedding. They’ll then get a lot of sleep so they can wake up with beautiful faces for photos during the wedding. 

And then there’s me and my kind who sneak out in the night and go and party with friends. Not that we don’t know what is at stake. We do. But we also realize that it’s the last night of our bachelorhood. It’s our last night to do whatever we want to do without asking permission. If we don’t chill for the last, we’ll wake up the next day asking our wives, “Sweetheart, can I go out with my friends? I promise I won’t keep long.”

So the night before my wedding, I gathered a few friends and went out to chill. They were friends I hadn’t seen for so long. They were friends I wouldn’t have met had it not been for my wedding. We went to a bar nearby, had a lot to drink and a lot to eat. When a woman walked by our table, they will tap me and say, “Shoot your shot. After tonight, you’ll have no voice to tell another woman that you love her.” My mind was on the drink and food than it was on women. The night was good. The spirit of comradeship was all over the place until I went home at 3am. 

Just when I decided to catch some sleep, my stomach started aching terribly. Just within some seconds, I hit severe diarrhea. I might have eaten something that did not agree with my stomach. I went to the toilet every five minutes. It was too late to buy medicine so I stayed awake all night visiting the toilets. Early morning, I got some tablets that would ease the diarrhea. I took my shower and went to the church in a mellow mood as if I wasn’t the guy who was out there chilling all night. 

Throughout the wedding, I was in pain. My mind was on the pain than it was on the event unfolding right before my eyes. It looked like the drug didn’t work. While the wedding ceremony was going on, I still had to visit the toilet. I was on the toilet when they called us to exchange our vows. I rushed out, dressed anyhow, and run to the altar. My wife was looking at me thinking something was wrong. She asked, “Is everything ok? I said, “I’m fine. Don’t worry.” I soldiered through the whole event until the reception time that I told her what was wrong with me. She wasn’t convinced. She thought I was developing cold feet at the eleventh hour. She thought I was leaving her. She got suspicious of something I wasn’t aware of.

She carried that suspicion to our honeymoon. “Abey, what is it that you’re not telling me?” She asked. “There’s nothing else apart from what I’d already told you.” When our wedding photos came, she went through all of them and then called me. She said, “Look through all the photos yourself. You never smiled in any of them. Dear, something is wrong.” I said, “The diarrhea man has no reason to smile. I was going through a lot to afford a smile. Please forgive me. We are married. That’s the most important thing now. I’m fine. I can smile wide and laugh out loud. Let’s look to the future than to the past.”

She started digging for answers that were not there. When I hang my trousers, she’ll go through the pockets looking for only God knows what. I see her but I don’t ask why. In the night when I’m deeply asleep, she would wake up and start doing her investigative work, looking for an answer to a question she herself had created. In the morning she will wake up with questions; “Who is Adjoa and why did you send GHc200 to her on the 11th of May 2020 at 9:17am?” I will explain in detail and even give her Adjoa’s number to call and verify.

If there was a message I sent to another woman, she’ll read and ask questions. When my phone rings, she’ll pick and talk to the person before handing over the phone to me. On weekends when my phone doesn’t ring all day, she’ll ask me, “Why is no one calling your phone? Or it’s on flight mode?” It got suffocating so one day I told her, “We need to talk.” she came to the conversation looking defensive. I said, “We dated for a year and a half before we got married. Did you suspect me of cheating when we were dating?” She said, “Not really. You answered my questions so I was fine.” I asked, “So why do you suspect me now? Are you not tired of looking for what is not there? Is it all because of what happened during our wedding?” She said, “Yes. And it’s because you didn’t tell me the truth.”

“What’s the truth then?”

“I suspect something happened that night when you went out with your friends. You might have met an ex. Something might have happened between you two that made you develop cold feet. You didn’t tell me everything that happened that night. You were only using that diarrhea as a coverup to your confused state of mind that day.”

“How did you arrive at this conclusion? If I had an ex I still loved—an ex who was ready to sleep with me, why would I leave her and marry you?” 

We talked about the whole thing extensively. I tried my best and hoped I succeeded in allaying her fears. Our marriage was four months old when we had that discussion. She didn’t stop searching and I didn’t care because there was nothing I was hiding.

Our marriage is a year old now. The problem didn’t go away. It only changed face. Now the problem is about our sex life. At first, it was five times a week. Then it reduced to four. Then three. Now it’s twice a week. She’s asking me, “Who are you giving the three to?”

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Before God and man, I wasn’t counting how many times we did it in a week. I’m an accountant. I deal with figures. I never for once thought shakushaku (yeah we have to call sex shakushaku again before the algorithms descend on us.) figures were worth keeping. My wife is into administration. She has no business counting things but she was counting the number of times we did it. Now she’s looking for answers so I gave her one; “Darling. My one and only sweetheart. The fact that we have two remaining doesn’t mean someone has subtracted three out of the whole. Life happens. We get tired. We grow. We become forgetful or sometimes we simply forget to perform certain duties we owe to ourselves. Honestly, there’s nothing wrong. Twice a week isn’t that bad. Is it?”

She screamed, “If twice a week was ok, why then were you doing it five times a week?”

I couldn’t answer that question. She talked and talked and talked. The problem isn’t the number of times we do it or not do it. The root of the problem is trust. When she picked up the mistrust on our wedding day she never dropped it. I’m at the end of my wits here and don’t know what else to do to get her to trust me. So I’m sharing this story in the hopes that someone here had met a situation like this before and has answers. Please help me before I give up on her.  

–Abey

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