I was twenty-five years old when I got married. My husband came from a family that has a history. History of wealth and royalty. They are closer to a stool that qualifies them to be paramount chiefs where they come from. They have a heavy name that can easily open doors for you. You know those kinds of people you marry and you lose everything, including your name? You’re no longer the name your parents gave you at birth. You’re no longer your parents’ child. Your identity dissolves into theirs because you’re married to them. You become that person’s wife; “Nana yere” or “Maame lawyer” or “Mama CEO.” Your husband’s identity follows you wherever you go. It’s like a tag you wear around your neck. It’s like without them, you didn’t exist. That’s the kind of marriage I had with my husband. 

At thirty years I gave birth to my third child and it was around that corner he started misbehaving. There was another woman involved somewhere. I got hints of it but didn’t address it. I didn’t wake up one day and ask who that girl was until he started flaunting the girl right before my eyes. There’s a meeting place in our house, that’s where I met him and sat down with him to talk about the lady. “I know you’ve been going around with that woman. It didn’t bother me a lot because I didn’t see it. Now you bring her home? A home where your wife and kids live?”

So he stopped bringing her home and instead took her to the next house that belongs to their family. The girl was given permanent accommodation there. He went there and didn’t want to come home. Sometimes I had to call him in the middle of the night to ask whether or not he would be coming home because: “Your food is running cold.” Or “Your son has been mentioning your name all day.” Or “I have something to discuss with you, would you come?”

I asked these questions pleadingly. As if I didn’t have the right to ask him those questions. As if I was a servant who needed something from her Lord. One night I called and the lady picked. She asked, “Who is this?” I said, “You mean you didn’t see the name on the phone when the call came through?” She said, “No, it’s just a number. A number without a name.” I thought she was lying. I told her to hand over the phone to my husband. I asked him, “Is it true you don’t have my name on your phone? People save their wives’ names with endearing words. I’m not asking for those ones. Sophie. That’s my name. You don’t have that on your phone?” 

I was waiting for him to deny it. He said, “I know your number so when you call I know you’re the one calling. What’s your problem again?”

I’d been married to my husband for five years. In five years I’d seen her phone ring a thousand times. Not once did I try to pick his call and ask the caller who he/she was. I didn’t have the right. If I did, I’m sure he would have had issues with it. I’m sure it would have turned into a huge fight. I never tried it but someone just did. A girl. A concubine had the right to answer his phone. That should tell me the kind of power that concubine wields in my husband’s life. So I went to his father and narrated the whole story to him. His father called us. His father is a man of few words. He loves giving orders. He said, “I don’t want to hear that she’s living in that house. I will send people to go and check tomorrow. They better not meet her there.”

That was all the father said. He didn’t address any of our issues. Maybe he thought driving the girl out would solve all our problems or maybe he thought my issues had to do with where the girl lives. We came home and nothing changed. Actually, something changed. It changed from bad to worse. I spoke to my parents about it. They couldn’t do so much but rather started advising me to be strong. I told them, “I can’t be strong. I’m at the tip of my strength and still can’t bear the pain my husband is taking me through.” They didn’t call him. They behaved like they had no right to call him. They behaved like it was alright for me to go through that. At some point my mother made a comment that summed up all their thoughts, “He takes care of you and the children, so what is your problem?”

I could have ended the marriage when I was thirty-one years old. But I told myself, “I’m old. I have three kids. Who would want an old woman with three kids anyway?” I could have ended the marriage when I was thirty-three. When he slapped me because I asked where he was coming from late at night. I told myself, “My kids need a father. They have to grow around a man’s voice. They have to belong to a man like my husband.” At thirty-four I could have walked out when he traveled outside of the country without telling me. When I realized he traveled with the girl, I could have walked out. 

I was thirty-six but looking like a fifty-year-old woman—tired, worn-out, given up. Being unhappy for that long does something to you. It makes you feel being happy is a mirage. You look back to the days you were happy and say to yourself, “That didn’t happen. It was just a dream.” You forget what it takes to be happy. You see people genuinely happy and you’re angry. You believe they are living a fake life. You think they are pretending. You see them through the filter of what you’re going through and judge that they are all faking their smiles and happiness. I know how it feels because I was there. I witnessed it and told myself, “No, I have to do something.”

I told him I wanted a divorce and he laughed. I told him I was leaving and he asked “To where?” I served him and he realized I was serious. He said, “You’re making the biggest mistake of your life. Unless you don’t want to marry again because who will marry someone like you? Let me tell you this, “You’ll never find a man like me again in your life. Mark it where water can’t erase.”

Four months later he replaced me. I went to the house to pick the last of my things when I met a woman there. It wasn’t the girl he was moving in and out with. Another woman. Someone new. Someone I never met around our marriage. I greeted her, smiled, and asked permission to get my things. She asked me, “Does he know you’re coming? Wait let me call him and verify.” She called. She gave me the phone to talk to him. He was trying to explain to me who that girl was. It didn’t matter anymore. I said, “No problem. I only came back for what belongs to me.” 

A year later, he officially got married to that girl I met in the house. I hadn’t healed fully. I saw the kids and they reminded me of where I had come from. The trouble I’d been through and how I’ve lived with unhappiness for so long. The healing process was so slow and heartbreaking because I lived and walked around with kids who reminded me of my past every day. Two years later I decided to give myself the chance to meet other people, maybe fall in love and see where that would land me. I smiled a lot and shook many hands but no man ever came close to proposing to me. For three years, I never had a man come my way to tell me that he loved me. I wanted someone to even lie to me. Pretend they love and make me play the part of the girl in love. Nobody came along.

“He was right after all. Who will marry someone like me?” When he told me to mark it where the water can’t erase, I thought I didn’t do it. It was during my darkest moment that I realized, I indeed marked it where the water can’t erase. I marked it in my heart and mind. I always remembered his words because those marks couldn’t be erased.  

On my forty-fourth birthday when I blew the candle on my cake in front of my kids and they asked me to make a wish, I made a silent wish, “God you know I tried. I wanted to but no one is ready to fall in love with me the way I want it to be. This new year of my life, I draw the curtains down on everything love. I give up. I surrender. I fold up. I will try to find happiness within myself and find happiness in my kids. Maybe that’s all the love you gave me. Chasing happiness on the outside brings nothing but sorrow. I will stick to this. I will stick to what you’ve already provided because it’s sufficient unto me.”

I blew the candles. They clapped. They were so happy it made me feel guilty for not being happy as they were. They sang the happy birthday song. They asked how old I am. I responded, “I’m forty-happy years old now.” They laughed more. I laughed more. I went to bed with a new day born in me. 

I’m writing this from Johannesburg, in a hotel called Northcliff. We are here for a week. I said ‘we’ because I’m with a man. A new man. My husband. We got married three years ago. I was forty-six. He was fifty years old. 

Months after my forty-fourth birthday, I went to a funeral where I didn’t know anybody there. The only one I knew was the friend I was going with. I hadn’t been to Kwahu before so when she said there was a funeral there and wanted me to escort her, I gleefully accepted. While she was busy meeting people, I was seated next to a man who looked so quiet and pensive. He had to fold his legs to make a way for me each time I wanted to leave my sitting place. I thought I was disturbing him so each time I had to pass, I said sorry. The third time, he raised up his head and looked at me. I apologized to him again. He didn’t say a word. When I came back he said, “You’re not going anywhere again because I’m not going to fold my legs for you again.” I smiled and for the first time, he smiled too. 

We talked. He took my number. It took him two weeks to call back. By that time I’d forgotten I’d given my number to someone like him. He had to introduce himself all over again. He said, “The man who folded his legs for you at the funeral.” I laughed. He laughed, “You remember now?” He asked. I answered, “How can I ever forget.”

We met at a bar. I watched the way he drank that night and told myself, “NO. I can’t. Hmmm never.” I decided not to meet him again but then I asked a question that changed everything. “Do you drink this much each day?” He said, “Sometimes more than that.” I screamed, “Really?” He asked, ”Is that too much?” I said, “Yeah, it’s too much.” He said, “That’s my only friend and there’s nothing like too much friendship.” He opened up to me that day about his wife and how she died. “I started drinking the day she died.” That is the summary. He has two children he hadn’t seen for over a year because they lived with his senior sister abroad. “I’m alone and lonely. What more can I do?”

So I didn’t leave as I promised but decided to stay and help him. One day he told me, “Do you know I haven’t drunk anything for the last two months? You said you don’t like it. I don’t want to do what you don’t like so I’ve stopped. I stopped for you. What else don’t you like?”

I said, “Now, what don’t you like?” He said, “I like everything about you.” 

That was the proposal. He didn’t say anything else. If a man can stop drinking for you, he can do more for you so we hit it right from there. A year later we got married because we realized it was becoming difficult for us to stay apart. 

READ ALSO: Who Gets Back Together Again With A Man Like My Ex?

Couples our age don’t look for things young couples look for. Young couples start from the beginning but we are starting from the end. The end where we both have our kids and have decided not to give birth again, where we’ve lived through marriage before so know what it takes to be in marriage. We come with our experiences and know what we want for the rest of our remaining lives. We want to just live and be happy. Learn new things along the way that makes us happy. Travel where our money can carry us. See new places and fall in love with new things. 

Today, this man has become everything I wanted when I was younger. A partner. A friend. A listener to my boring stories and the one I wake up with to face the new rising sun. Days ago he asked me, “What new do you want to learn?” I said, “Dancing!” He asked, “You know you don’t qualify for Di Asa right? So what do you need dancing for?” I laughed. I said, “I don’t know. I saw people learning dancing on TV yesterday. Maybe that’s why dancing came to mind.”

Maybe not. Maybe dancing came to mind because it’s what my heart needs. For someone who has gone through my kind of pain, my kind of worries, and has been unhappy for so many years, it’s dancing that can make my heart whole again. There are patches to heal. There are memories to forget. There are things I saw that need to be unseen. When I dance. When I throw my hands in the air and twist my legs and shake my waist, I would be able to shake those bad memories off and bring in memories that make my heart cheer. 

–Sophie

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