I Don’t Know What This Is But It Never Felt Like A Marriage

I got married three years ago, but my husband and I never lived under the same roof. He was in Kumasi, while I lived in Accra. We agreed to that arrangement because of work. Sometimes I visited him. Other times he made the trip. By and by, we got pregnant.......➡️CONTINUE READING THE FULL ARTICLES HERE.

After the pregnancy, his visits stopped. Whenever I asked, he would complain about money. Even after I gave birth, he didn’t visit us. He said he was broke.

When the baby was three months old, we started talking about naming the child. My husband told me, “You know I am down right now. Send me some money to organize the baby’s naming ceremony.”

I told him, “I don’t have anything to send you.”

Don’t get me wrong. I am not an unsupportive wife. I supported him financially throughout the marriage ceremony. I bought and paid for things the groom was supposed to cater to. He said he would refund me but he never did.

When I got pregnant, he didn’t contribute a dime to antenatal care. His excuse was, “I am still repaying the loans I took for the wedding.”

I didn’t talk. I planned and executed the naming ceremony for our baby. He showed up with one of his relatives in tow. They sat through the ceremony with a big frown on my husband’s face the entire time. As if I had forced him to be there. I wasn’t pleased with his attitude but I didn’t make a fuss about it.

When our son turned one, my family started questioning the state of our marriage. “Why are you living here while your husband is somewhere else? We don’t even see his presence in your life. Is this a marriage?”

They encouraged me to rent out my room in Accra and go live with him in Kumasi. I did. By then, he had stopped working and was relying on his friends for support. I was also new to the area. I had yet to get a job or start a business to sustain myself. In the meantime, I fell on my siblings for financial assistance.

Oh, I forgot to mention that my husband lived in a family house with his father, siblings, and his father’s newly wedded wife. That’s where I joined them with the baby.

Those people made my life miserable. Anyone who has ever lived with a spouse in a family house knows just how chaotic the experience can be.

His siblings would bring other women home to him right in my presence. The kind of conversations they had with these women would give you the impression that I didn’t exist. Or they simply didn’t acknowledge me as his wife.

My husband played along. Sometimes he would run off with these women and wouldn’t return home until an entire week had passed. “Where did you go?” I would ask. He would shrug, “Nowhere, I have just been around.” On his bad days, he would just ignore me.

One day when I confronted him about the girls and the way his siblings treated me, he blew up.

“Who are you to talk about what my siblings do? Do you even think you’re a woman? You named the child yourself, remember? Wait till I get money. I’ll name him properly. You’re a foolish woman,” he screamed.

After the tantrums, he disappeared for three days.

I stayed in our room crying the entire time he was gone. His siblings walked by our window and laughed at me. Their mockery only worsened my pain.

I tried to speak to his father about the torments I was enduring but all he said was, “I’ll speak to you shortly.” That “shortly” never came.

I broke down. I asked God why an orphan like me had to go through all of this. I had nowhere to go but I gathered courage and packed my things. I included everything we acquired together over the five years we dated and the two years we’ve been married.

I sold our TV, mattress, and laptop, and then I used the money to rent a small place and applied for a teaching job. By the time I had relocated and started working, my husband still wasn’t back from wherever he went.

I was there one day when he called and demanded I return everything I took from his room. “Return what? I sold everything. Your son and I are surviving on that money.”

My family reached out to him. They just wanted to understand whatever was going on. He refused to show up. He told them he didn’t have any family to accompany him to the meeting. Meanwhile, he lived in a house full of relatives. That disrespect was enough for my family to withdraw from the matter.

Now, at the end of each month, he sends GHS 200 for our child. On our son’s second birthday, he sent GHS 500.

Recently, he sent me a voice note saying he was coming to retrieve his schnapps from my family (a traditional way of ending a marriage).

He says when he makes money, he doesn’t want me, a miserable woman, to enjoy any part of it.

According to him, I haven’t contributed anything toward our son’s upkeep. Meanwhile, I pay all the bills including school fees. The GHS 200 he sends barely covers wipes and diapers.

I have put up with so much because of this marriage. Sometimes he got physically abusive. If I am not treating those wounds, I would be treating infections he gave me in my lady parts. Now that I have gotten tired and left, he is asking for his schnapps. He should come for it. I am here waiting for him.

Now he wants to come for schnapp. It’s still here, waiting.

What at all was my offence in this marriage? Was I too submissive? Or is it because I took on the role of the provider while he roamed around chasing other women?

God in heaven knows that I gave this marriage everything it needs to survive. But if my husband wants out, so be it. God himself will make a way for us. I may have lost so much to this man but I will never lose hope. I have found a renewed purpose in all this, to take good care of myself and the beautiful son he blessed me with. May God be my help.

– Keziah