I dated my wife for two years before we got married. We didn’t have it smooth from dating until the day we got married. We went through tough times trying to convince our respective parents to accept our relationship. The day she introduced me to her parent as the guy she wanted to marry, her father looked me straight in the eyes and said no, he won’t allow that to happen. He had no legitimate reasons apart from the fact that he didn’t like my tribe and I didn’t look like a man who could take good care of his daughter.
When it got to my turn to introduce her to my parent, it was my mother who screamed; “Over my dead body would I allow you to marry such a woman.” What was the reason for opposition? Like the father of my girlfriend, my mum also didn’t like the tribe of my wife. All through our dating life as partners, her dad never saw eye to eye with me and my mom never welcome my wife into our home.
When we finally got married in the church on the 14th April 2012, my mom didn’t attend the wedding and her dad also didn’t attend. We had to do it without them because they were bent on separating us.
We had a peaceful home and barely had anything to disagree on. Occasionally, either my mom or her dad would try to come in between us but we had a way of handling them without causing us any trouble.
I’m a salesperson. I handle the biggest territory in our company’s supply chain channels. Due to this, I travel a lot but most of my travels don’t take me away for more than three days. Yeah, occasionally my wife complained. Her complaints had nothing to do with my absence due to my incessant travels. She was concerned about the way I was always on the road and how sometimes I had to travel deep in the night.
She was right. I also had concerns about that but I had a home to run and I needed money to run the home so I had little option than to continue doing my job.
One Friday morning, as I was leaving home for work, I told my wife I had to travel to Cape Coast after work but I might not travel unless a call came through from Cape Coast that they needed the supplies urgently. In the afternoon, she called to ask if the call had come through and I said yes. I sent her a message around 6 pm that I’ve set off and she wished me a safe a journey.
About thirty minutes later after I’ve set off, my phone flickered, indicating I’ve had a Whatsapp message from my wife. I didn’t open the message. About three minutes later, another message came in from her, and then a call followed. I usually don’t pick calls while I’m driving so I found a safe spot and parked so I could call her back.
I opened the messages. The first message had two nude photos of herself with a message; “Hello dear, the way is clear now. I can’t wait to have you here,” and ended with the kiss smiley.
Immediately, my hands started shaking and my heart started beating very loud and out of rhythm. All of a sudden, my feet couldn’t support my weight and I had to lean on the car. I rushed to open the second message and it said; “Hello dear, don’t mind me. I’m only trying to pull your legs and show you what you’re missing while away.” The message also ended with the tears of joy smiley.
There and then I knew what was happening. The little voice in my head kept screaming at me; “Your wife is cheating. She’s cheating on you. Your wife is cheating.” I stood there for some minutes to calm myself down and regain my composure. I wanted to call her but I didn’t want to sound worried or disturbed. I wanted her to know that I believed what she said that it was a joke. I wanted an assurance in my voice when I spoke to her.
When I called her back, I smiled and said; “Do you think I wouldn’t know you were joking?” Then I forced myself to give out a loud laughter. I found calm and believe in her voice when she spoke. We both laughed at it and I hung up to continue my journey.
Yeah, I had the message and the nude that showed she was cheating but it wasn’t enough proof. I needed to find something solid to nail her.
That night she stayed on the phone with me throughout talking about things that were mostly unnecessary. She wanted to prove a point. Somehow, she wanted to prove to me that indeed, she didn’t invite anyone over that’s why she was able to talk to me all night. I could sense her desperation to prove a point.
When I got home from the trip, I woke up at dawn to read her messages but her password was changed. That heightened my suspicion and the need to work hard to find out who the man was.
For the next six months, I tried all the avenues of how to catch a cheating wife but none yielded a result. I told her I was traveling but then hang around the house in the night to see if a man would walk into the house or if she would leave the house to see someone. She was always in the house and no one walked in and she didn’t walk out.
It became frustrating for me and I could barely enjoy my marriage because of these suspicions and CID jobs. I decided to let everything go so I could concentrate on building my relationship with her.
My mother’s senior sister died and we had to attend the funeral in my hometown. For obvious reasons, she didn’t attend the funeral and I had to go alone. When I got to my hometown on Friday evening, I called her phone, she didn’t pick. Later in the night, she called to tell me she was sleeping and that she had developed a severe headache when she woke up. She asked me to take care as she wanted to continue with her sleep.
I said my good night and hung up the phone. But something didn’t feel right. I didn’t know what that was but I could feel it. All of a sudden I wasn’t happy and felt like I’ve lost something very dear to me. I started battling with my thought but there was nothing I could lay hands on as the reason for my feeling.
It was close to 10pm when I decided to drive back home to check on her if really she was sleeping as she said. I know, I still hadn’t overcome my suspicion of her. It was hard to let go of my conviction that the woman I married was cheating on me.
Just about three hours later, I was at the doorstep of my house and my car parked a little bit far from home so the sound of the car’s engine would not wake her up.
The hall light was on. The TV was on too. I turned the knob slowly and it was locked. I inserted my key and opened the door. There he was. A gentleman. He was wearing only a boxer short and holding the tv remote in his hand. The shock in his eyes when he saw me satisfied my spirit. It was like a victory of some sort to me.
I asked him; “where is my wife?” I had to repeat the question three times before he pointed the remote at the bedroom indicating where my wife was. I walked there and truly, she was sleeping. Naked. Her pant was on the floor closed to a used condom and the trouser of the gentleman. I screamed her name and she jerked off from her sleep. You can imagine the horror in her eyes when she saw me.
She started looking around—I guessed she was looking for the gentleman so I said; “I left him at the hall. I would be surprised if he’s still there.” She started pleading profusely and asking me to forgive her and spare her life. I told her, “I don’t have the strength to destroy a life I didn’t create. I’m only happy that my investigation paid off after several months.”
My calm that night surprised me. It was as though it didn’t hurt to find your wife in your matrimonial bed with another man. But then, I remembered how I felt the day I got the nude photos and I was glad I didn’t allow myself to go through that pain again.
I walked away from the bedroom. I couldn’t see the gentleman when I got to the hall—well, that was expected. I went to where I parked the car and drove away to a friend’s house. For the next one week or so, I stayed with my friend and didn’t pick any call from her. We met again when we started our divorce processes.
Story by P. Osei, Kumasi, Ghana.