I was seven months pregnant when, one early morning, a woman in her fifties, a gentleman, and a young girl entered our house looking for my husband. I offered them chairs to sit on, but the woman replied, “We are not in the mood for chairs. Call your brother; he has visitors.”

My husband had stepped out to get something, so they waited until he returned. I was inside when he came back. I heard the woman’s voice shouting and stepped out. The woman was talking about pregnancy while pointing at the girl she came with. “You looked in the face of God and impregnated a girl this age? Don’t you have shame? Don’t you have any respect for yourself?”

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I listened to what was going on. The woman pointed at me and said, “Look at what your brother has done to a little girl I brought from the village to live with me.”

At this point, my heart was falling apart. My tummy suddenly became overly turgid. My husband stood there speechless. I said, “Mom, please, I’m not his sister. I’m his wife.” I then looked at my husband and calmly pleaded, “Please tell her it’s a lie. You didn’t do such a thing.” The girl retorted, “I will curse him if he denies it. I didn’t know he was married. He said you were his sister.”

I went back inside with tears in my eyes. The woman shouted, “Get ready to marry her and add to your wife. Her family is coming tomorrow,” and then stormed out of our house. My husband stood there like a tree. He said, “I don’t even know what to say. It happened only once. I’m sorry, but I don’t believe the pregnancy is mine. Trust me, I will get to the bottom of this.”

The girl’s family also came to our house and caused a scene. They asked my husband to pay a certain amount. My husband said he was not going to pay until it was proven that the child was indeed his. Later, he met the family secretly and suggested abortion. They nearly beat him to death. They said the girl would give birth for him, so he should be ready to be a father.

All that while, I was thinking of what to do. I called my mom and told her everything. I said, “I’m coming home. The pain and shame are too much. I can’t stay.” She responded, “It’s one of those things. Support your husband. If he says it’s not him, then it’s not him. Why are you leaving your marriage because of a girl?”

My dad didn’t offer any meaningful support. He also said we should resolve our problem. I knew there was no place for me to go if I left the marriage. The next few months until labor were very tough for me. I was sleepless most of the time. I visited the hospital more often than normal. While I fought for my health, I also fought my husband for bringing shame and pain to our home.

I gave birth, and the child died three days later. I was inconsolable. I blamed my husband for the death of the baby. “You see what you’ve done? Are you happy now? Go and be with your girl and leave me alone.” I packed my things and went home to my parents. They pushed me to go back home, and I did. I returned with malice. My heart burned anytime I saw my husband. All he said was sorry, but I had been through a lot to forgive him.

He said he was going to spend a lot to prove to the family that he didn’t impregnate the girl, but when the girl gave birth, my husband and his family went to accept the child without my knowledge. I said, “What happened to what you said? Oh, you’ve accepted responsibility?”

He didn’t have answers and wasn’t ready to fight, so he stepped out.

He could talk to the girl on the phone while I was there. I could hear him talking and laughing as if he was not the one who denied the pregnancy. He lied that he was visiting home, only to visit the girl and her family. When we hadn’t eaten, he would send money to the girl and her family. So one day, I took off my ring, determined to walk away from the marriage. I knew the only way out was for him to also catch me cheating, so I found myself a man.

I didn’t love him at first. I was using him for vengeance. But as time went on, I began loving him because of his consistency. I hadn’t slept with my husband for weeks, but I opened up to this man every day with love and tenderness. He felt like something new. My heart felt different in his arms. One day, I confessed that I was married but divorced, yet to sign the divorce papers. He was shocked. “Why didn’t you tell me? So where is your husband? What did you do to him that he’s leaving you?”

The relationship was only five months old, but from then on, it wasn’t the same again. This man told me he wasn’t ready for drama, so I should resolve my house issues before we could be together. I was fighting to be with him, not knowing I was pregnant. By the time I realized, I was two months gone. Intimacy between my husband and me had been far and few, but he claimed the pregnancy and sang hallelujah.

Sometimes I wanted to call the man and tell him we had a pregnancy to raise, but I knew he would ask me to get rid of it, so I kept it to myself and allowed my husband to be the father of what he knew nothing about.

I gave birth to a girl. The secret was killing me. I needed someone to talk to, so I called my brother abroad and unloaded everything on him. He said, “Wow! Why didn’t you tell me earlier that all this was going on?” I answered, “I was scared. I thought you would listen and later tell everyone.”

He asked what I was going to do, and I told him I didn’t know. He said, “You’ll come here and stay for a while to figure things out.”

My daughter was almost five years old when I left her with my husband and traveled abroad. He brought his mother in to help take care of the girl while I was away. I promised him he would join me soon. I called every day and spoke to my daughter while planning how to bring her to me. Two years later, my daughter joined me. My brother asked, “So what happens to your husband?” I responded, “Divorce. That’s what I’m thinking about.” He told me, “Then do it. Don’t waste his time. Do it quickly.”

The day I told him I was no longer interested in the marriage, he acted like a man possessed. “Oh, now you’re divorcing me because you’re abroad? That’s fine, but bring my daughter to me.”

His confidence and ignorance made me cry that day. I asked him, “The child you had with that girl, is he mine?” He answered, “What kind of stupid question is that?” I replied, “If that one is not mine, then this one is also not yours. When you went out to have one, I also did the same.”

If I had been close to him that day, he would have done something foolish to me. He called me crazy and poured all the insults in his belly on me. He thought I was just being vindictive, saying that to hurt him. He kept shouting, “You better bring my daughter, or else you will know no peace in this world.”

When my parents met his family for the divorce, he said he was not going to accept divorce until he saw his daughter in Ghana. So the following year, when my brother was going to Ghana, he went with my daughter so they could do a DNA test. To be honest, I was afraid that my daughter would be his and I wouldn’t have her again.

The DNA returned a 99.999% negative probability. My brother said my husband nearly collapsed when they opened the results at the facility. My brother asked him if he wanted to do it again in another facility to confirm, but he didn’t say anything and walked away.

The marriage is over. He had his son, and I also had my daughter. The only pain for me was the fact that I wasn’t there when he got the results. I wanted to be there, look into his eyes, and see the same pain I experienced when the girl and her guardian stormed our house that day. My brother described everything that happened but couldn’t capture that pain the way I would have loved to see it.

Marriage Through the Eyes of Millennials and Gen-Z

When I read the story about the woman narrating why she didn’t leave her husband after her husband cheated, it brought all these memories back to me. Men cheat and all they say is sorry, thinking sorry heals everything. A woman does it, and she has her whole life to give as a sign of apology. Aurora, when you’re ready to leave, cheat on him too. He might die and be buried, but who said you didn’t die when he cheated?

—Judith

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