I have questions for today’s generation, and sometimes I wonder if things will ever change. Why has infidelity in relationships and marriages become so normal these days, and why do people treat loyalty like it no longer has value?

I once made a vow that I would never exceed five body counts before marriage. But now, standing at the fifth, I look back and see nothing but heartbreak, disappointment, and painful lessons that I never asked for but had to learn anyway.

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Maa Abena was my first partner, and she had big men sponsoring her life. They paid her rent, her tertiary fees, and for her personal needs. She even tried to lure me with money, giving me three times my salary every month just to keep me around while she juggled her sponsors. But I’d rather be alone than share the one I love, so I ended it. I walked away with my dignity, shoulder up and my chest out, because i was not about to be the man a woman caters for

Thes, my second partner, was the girl distance tore my inside out. Four years later, we met again by chance. By then, she was in another relationship, and I was on a nine-month break with my third partner. I thought maybe fate was giving us a second chance, that maybe the universe was saying we were meant to be. But she told me she was already with someone. Still, she came around often, spent weekends with me, and even stayed for two nights before her wedding. She didn’t set any boundaries and acted like we could pick up where we left off, but I couldn’t bring myself to touch another man’s woman. A week later, she sent me her wedding invitation. Her marriage was in a month’s time, and I really pitied the innocent husband because he doesn’t know the kind of heart he’s getting married to, the kind of woman who sleeps at her ex’s house days before saying “I do.”

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Akua, my third partner, was everything I prayed for. She was the kind of woman I wanted to build a future with, the one I could see myself growing old beside. But life hit us hard, and circumstances beyond our control pulled us apart like a cruel joke. While she was in school, I suspected her closeness with some doctors and male classmates. The way she talked about them and the time she spent with them – it all felt too familiar, too intimate. Still, deep down, I knew I wouldn’t have hesitated to make her my wife if things had been different.

Adwoa, the fourth one, told me she had been single for two years before we met. She painted herself as someone who was tired of games, ready for something real. Only for me to find out she had a man in Ashaiman, another in Takoradi, and one at Lapaz, and I even suspected something between her and her boss. When I confronted her, she begged me to trust her, to give her a chance to prove herself. And like a fool, I did. But the only change I saw was that she left the old ones and replaced them with four new men, all with firm phone locks and clever excuses about privacy and personal space.

Then Akosua, the fifth and current one. We had history that went back years. I had ended things before because I suspected her of cheating, but she returned later in tears, promising she had changed, that she had learnt her lesson and wouldn’t hurt me again. I wanted to believe her desperately, so I did. I gave her another chance because I thought people could change, that love could transform someone. But soon I discovered she was involved with two married men, a mechanic, a shop attendant, and me. How do I know? Because I believe in full transparency in relationships. In every relationship, I share my password and even add my partner’s fingerprint to my phone. I don’t believe in privacy when it comes to love because love without openness is like a house without walls, vulnerable and exposed.

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Now, I’m left confused and stuck in a situation I don’t know how to escape. The same woman who cheated doesn’t want me to go, won’t let me leave her life. The last time I went to her place to pick up my shirts, she locked the door and said she wouldn’t let me leave until we talked it through. Meanwhile, she has four other men in her life, four other relationships she’s maintaining while claiming she loves me.

So I ask, are there still women who believe love should be between one man and one woman? Where are the faithful ones? Where are those who still see loyalty as sacred?

I’ve seen men cheat on their wives and wives cheat on their husbands. The pattern keeps repeating, and the pain keeps growing. But I didn’t grow up in such a home. My mother never laid with another man, and my father, a man respected in our community, never betrayed anyone’s trust. So I ask again, with a heart that’s tired but still hopeful: Can we still find faithful partners in this generation? Can we still find people who love truly, wholly, and sincerely? Where are they, in Ghana or anywhere in the world?

—Matt

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