There’s an Update to this story. If you want to read what happened after this, Kindly follow this link 

I dated my husband for 10 years before we got married. Our relationship started when we were in SHS. We were both each other’s first love. Our love held us strong until we completed tertiary school. We got married two years after tertiary school. He is a good man, soft-spoken, and very generous. We had two beautiful boys in the early stages of our marriage.

We all know thorns are to roses as problems are to marriages. My perfect husband started changing in a very subtle way. He hid his phone from me. He even went to the bathroom with his phone tucked under his armpit. I noticed what he was doing but it didn’t bother me that much. I asked myself, “Is he cheating?” Then I answered my own question, “No, He is not the cheating type. There’s nothing to worry about.”

After a while, he started coming home very late from work. If I asked him why he would give me a reason that wouldn’t add up. Again, I never thought he would cheat on me so I made nothing out of it.

And then our finances took a dive and crashed. His business started collapsing. Nothing he did work. He made so many losses that he couldn’t pay his suppliers. Debtors rang his phone day and night. We could barely afford to feed our family. We all relied on my salary which wasn’t enough to sustain us. I took a loan for him so he could buy some goods. He bought the goods and made only losses. We borrowed from our friends and family until they grew tired of us and started shutting their doors in our faces. I was constantly on my knees praying for divine intervention. I attended many prayer meetings and followed every direction the prophets gave me. Nothing worked. For two and a half years we drowned in poor finances. By the time I received my salary, loan deductions took about half of it and we would have to survive on whatever was left.

My husband is not a lazy man so he didn’t sit on his butt waiting around for things to get better. He did any job at all he could get his hands on but he couldn’t earn anything from them. He started using his certificate to search for a job but no one would employ him. My last resort was my mother. I was at an age where I should be taking care of her but she ended up helping me out. I borrowed from her and never paid back. One day I called her, “Mama, I need another loan. Can you help?” She said, “If things are that bad then come to my shop. It’s time we had a conversation.”

I went to see her. We had a lengthy talk about my problems.  She said, “It’s unfortunate what you are going through but all is not lost. We need to start looking into things spiritually.” I told her about my encounter with prophets, and the countless times I fasted and prayed. I told her, “None of it worked. It’s like God can’t hear me.”

She said, “That’s not what I meant. There are other spiritual people we can reach out to. Let me tell you this story.” She went on telling me a story of my childhood.

My mom had three children – me and my two brothers. The first son fell ill and died six months later. Not long after, my surviving brother and I also fell ill. We were on admission at the hospital but the doctors couldn’t do much. My mom looked on helplessly as life slipped out of my brother. After his death, my mother decided that she wouldn’t wait and watch me join my brothers. She asked that we are discharged and she took me to our hometown. She consulted the chief priest and he gave me concoctions to drink. Then he bathed me with some herbs. I recovered completely. He warned my mother never to allow me to eat crabs.

My mom asked me that day, “Did you eat crabs?” I shook my head. She went on to say, “The priest cast spiritual protection on you. That’s why you never get sick. We should go to our hometown to enquire about your financial problems from him too. He may have the answers.”

I shook my head, “No I won’t do that. I am a Christian. I will not bow to lesser gods and deities when I serve the Almighty God.” My mother held my hand and said “We are not going to bow down to anything. We are just going to look for answers.” I agreed and we set off for our hometown that very day.

We arrived late in the night so we waited until morning before going to see the priest. I was scared to go into the shrine but my mother held my hand and dragged me along with her. The priest asked the purpose of our visit. My mother narrated my ordeal to him. He looked at me and asked, “Are you a Saturday born?” I shook my head. He asked, “Who is Kwabena?” I said, “That’s my husband.” Then he asked again, “You said you’re not Ama so who is Ama?” I said, “The only Ama in our family is my grandmother.”

He recited some incantations and then looked sternly at me. He said, “There is a woman in your husband’s life. The spirit in their family does not allow them to marry or be in committed relationships. Any man who gets involved with them suffers misfortunes; death, sickness, bad luck, and financial loss. Go and speak to your husband. He should end his affair with that woman or else your family will wallow in poverty till death. If he denies any affair, bring him here, the gods do not lie.”

What he said came as a shock to me but I tried to hold myself together. We thanked the priest and left.

When I got home I sat my husband down and narrated the whole encounter with the priest to him. A part of me hoped he would laugh it off and say it’s a lie. That he is not involved with any other woman. That was just me in denial but my husband admitted the affair. It started before we got married. We were having problems and we broke up for about a month. That was when he got involved with her. When we got back together he couldn’t break up with her. He married me and kept her on the side. She didn’t even know that my husband had gotten married. Not only had he been lying to me, but he’d also been lying to her as well.

READ ALSO: My Husband Wants Me To Repeat The Sins I Committed With My Ex-Boyfriend

His confession shredded my heart. I cried like I had been physically beaten. He knelt down and apologized over and over and over again. We concluded that he had to break up with her. He called her on the phone. I could hear her voice on the other end of the phone crying, insulting, and cursing my husband when my husband told her that he got married. I felt her pain as much as I felt mine. The man we both loved and trusted betrayed us.

The following weekend after he broke up with her, the girl showed up at our house with her family. She said, “I couldn’t believe it. I had to come and see for myself that indeed was married.” She was inconsolable. Her family did their best to comfort her. They told my husband to compensate her for wasting her time. My husband apologized to her the way he did to me. He tried to give her an amount of money but she rejected it; “I don’t want your money. When things got hard for you, I gave you money. You didn’t even pay back. You and I are not done.”

Months after their break up, our finances began to soar. We paid off our debts and my husband’s business started recovering very well.

He sponsored me to further my education. We completed our building project. He bought himself a new car. We transferred our children to one of the best schools in town. Life was good again. He became the loving man I fell in love with and we added two more children to our family.

I went back to my hometown to thank the Chief Priest for his help and he blessed me. That should be the end of it?

Wrong.

The worse was about to begin.

TO BE CONTINUED

—Leila

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