Physical attraction, check. Personality, check. No wedding ring, check. This is how I was ogling and assessing Malachi when he was helping me set up a new account in one of the top banks in Accra. As I watched him work, my thoughts were; “How did I get assigned to the finest man on earth? He ticks my boxes at first glance, and now I’m curious to see what I will find if I delve deeper.” I had just met him but his personality radiated safety and warmth. And the one thing I wanted desperately to know was if he had a girlfriend. As to the question of if he liked me, I knew he did. I know the difference between customer service niceness and when a man likes a woman kind of niceness. And his reaction to me was the latter not the former. By the time I left the bank, I was sure we were going to get together, and just then he asked, “Will it be okay if I keep your number and call you sometime?” I smiled, nodded, and said yes. What can I say? Our meeting was divinely arranged.

We got talking after that transaction. I found out he was an intern at the bank and I told him I had just completed high school. Our friendship effortlessly transitioned into a relationship, and the next thing I realized, we were celebrating our five-year anniversary. During the entire five years we dated, he never introduced me to his family. I knew them from afar and occasionally run into them but we were not officially introduced. In the course of our relationship, I attended a teacher training college. It happened that after I completed school I became pregnant. Malachi took the news better than I expected him to. That was the time he took me home to greet his parents.

His father was very receptive and warm. His mother on the other hand was somewhat cold and indifferent toward me. It appeared to me that my pregnancy had interfered with whatever plans she had for her son. And she did not even attempt to hide her dislike for me, even after Malachi and I got married. When I gave birth, I had been posted to work in a different region. And along the line, my accumulated salary was paid. My mother then advised me to buy a piece of land with the money so it wouldn’t go to waste. When my mother-in-law found out about it, she only had unkind things to say. Most of her comments didn’t make sense but it made me realize that my relationship with her was just going to get worse.

As time went on, the woman made it a point to cut me off from important family activities and insult me at the least chance she got. Meanwhile, her son was not working at the time. I was the one who bore all the expenses related to the upkeep of our child. Things were bad for him but I believed in him and prayed for things to get better for us. Upon all this, I would still go and visit my mother-in-law at home to help her around the house. And this woman treated my son as if he was a burden to her. I just didn’t know what else I could do to win her over. In all these, Malachi couldn’t see what was going on. I tried to bring his attention to it but he always sided with his mother. Sometimes he got abusive toward me in his mother’s defence. He believed everything his mother told him about me without confirming my side of the story. I didn’t know how much of a mama’s boy he was until I became a part of their family.

I even resolved to leave the marriage, but I thought of my son and decide to hold on a little longer. I thank God that I had my mother on my side. She supported me and helped me take care of my son when I decided to go back to school and further my education. After I was done with school, my husband told me; “I don’t think we should raise money to pay for yet another rent. My dad has a self-contained apartment in the estate he rents out to students as a hostel. The building is not in a good shape but we can use our rent money to renovate the self-contained apartment and move in there. That way we will save money on future rent up to the time we build our own place.”

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I agreed with my husband’s plan and used all my savings for the renovation. By then he had just started working and baby number two was in the picture. After we moved into the apartment, we saw that the condition of the rest of the apartments on the compound was worse than it appeared. All my father-in-law cared about was taking rent. He never bothered to fix anything that got spoilt. He kept that attitude until the place was close to ruins. Considering my fragile position in their family, I decided to mind my business. It was my husband who brought up the issue of renovations with his father. His father told him there was nothing wrong with the place so he didn’t see any point in renovating it.

Malachi told him, “If it’s about money, I can secure a loan for us to use. When the place is in better shape, we will increase the rent and repay the loan.” I wasn’t there when the conversation happened so I don’t know what else was said. I was there minding my business when Malachi’s sister called to insult me. Amidst her insults she said; “You are a horrible person. You give my brother bad advice. You are the one who is pushing him to take over my father’s estate.” Her accusations left me confused and dumbfounded. After her, their mother called to serve me her own hot plate of insults. For the first time ever, my husband stood up for me. He told them they had no right to involve me in their family squabbles.

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I am so angry at their behaviour that I have decided that I want nothing to do with them anymore. The good thing is that this has opened my husband’s eyes to the nature of his family. He has stopped choosing their sides and abusing me because of them. It has strengthened our bond. I recognize him once again as the man I fell in love with that first day at the bank. He still went for the loan he proposed to his father but he used it to buy a plot of land for us to build on. I am just happy that in the end, God turned his family’s attempt at malice to my good. And I pray that things improve in our marriage as we go along

–Hannah

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