Dear Ewurama,
I do not know whether to be thankful to you or to be angry at you, for dragging me to go and see my husband in the throes of passion with another woman. I must admit that it was not a pleasant experience to see the man who had taken sacred vows with me to be doing such a shameful thing.
For months, I had observed some changes in his general demeanor and activities. He had begun to spend way too much time on his phone, sometimes doing so deep into the night.
He would come home later than usual and either lie or get offended, whenever I asked him about it. His mood swings during that time were worse than a pregnant woman who had been denied her cravings for the day.
It was even more confusing when around the same time, he would do everything that any good husband and father would do for his family.
The children and I lacked nothing; in fact, there was an increase in our daily provisions if anything at all. Therefore, I did not hasten to draw any conclusions, to avoid poking a sleeping lion.
You and I have witnessed how people cheat in relationships, causing those unions to end prematurely. Do you recall when Auntie Naomi’s boyfriend of eight years started cheating on her; how she blamed the other woman of entrancing him?
Those were the days when she became a staunch Christian, attending all of the prayer meetings which were organized in the neighborhood. After the ‘battle of forces’, the other woman’s magic might have been too strong, as she got the ring leaving Auntie Naomi to cry herself into madness.
In another instance, I heard about a husband-to-be who brought his ex-girlfriend to his bed on the eve of his wedding day. The wife-to-be got wind of this but went ahead to marry him anyway.
The wife left after three years of trying to change a chronic cheater, who had no plans of changing to save his life. Some years ago, if I had heard something like this, I would vow never to allow myself to become a statistic of such ‘stinking relationships’. I harbored thoughts similar to your presumption that people cheat because they are purely evil.
I will not be the one to say you are wrong in your thoughts, but I also reflect that as far as human beings are different, there could be reasons (good or bad) why people cheat. My husband was certain that his affection for me was dead; that is why he sought the feelings of passion and belonging in the arms of another woman.
His mistake was his ignorance of the fact that love or the feeling that makes people act googly-eyed, especially in the early stages of a relationship, usually diminishes with time. Many of the couples who have been together for decades do not exist because they are still in love.
They persist on mutual respect and shared interests that would be too costly to let go of. Likewise, there are ways and means for couples to revive their love so that they do not lose themselves and their affection.
I know of a marriage that ended because the woman had cheated. Her reason was that she had never loved her husband and was very frustrated in her marriage.
She had to ‘settle’ for him, because she had feared that she might end up alone and she had also been anxious to escape the pressure from her family.
Eventually, she met the man she would have loved to marry and that was when their tryst began.
Her husband left after she got caught.
To answer your question of whether I would leave my marriage or not, the answer is No; I am not leaving my husband, not now anyway.
He reacted badly because we had grown apart from each other emotionally. I was aware of this problem. The only difference between us is that I chose not to do anything about it; be it negative or positive.
Now, I am making a conscious decision to try to work things out with him, in rekindling our love for each other, by spending quality time together as husband and wife – and not just parents.
I read something somewhere that said, “Be careful what you tolerate in a relationship, as you are teaching your partner how to treat you.”
This is true, but I also reason that we all deserve second chances, especially so, when the offending party is willing to accept his or her faults and work on himself or herself.
Believe me when I tell you that, if this had been a situation where he had refused to accept the error of his ways or to change, I would not have hesitated to kick him to the curb, when my tolerance level inevitably would have worn out.
I have observed the immediate reaction of people who disagree with what Sarkodie and Efya say in their song “Saara”. The contention is that, how could anyone forgive a partner who has cheated and worse, continues to be in that relationship? Interestingly, these arguments are mostly from my single friends, like you.
Ewuraa, this is my choice and I would entreat you to respect it. Thank you, however, for looking out for me.
Love……..
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The writer, Akosua Asor Amponsah, works with Citi FM/Citi TV. She enjoys fiction and relationship writing.
