He and I were childhood friends from Sunday school. We weren’t that close in our childhood, but we knew each other quite well. When we grew up, we sought of parted ways because my dad left that church to help his friend establish his new church. So he went with us to the new church. Around 2010, I saw a friend request from him on Facebook. He looked so familiar so I accepted it and he started chatting me. That was when I remembered him. We started talking everyday. Free night calls was popular then too so we made good use of it. In less than three months, we started dating. It was a great relationship. It wasn’t perfect. We had our ups and downs and we still made it work.
After three years of being together, I gave birth to our first child; a boy. We didn’t plan for it. But he was happy when I told him the news. At that time, he had just gotten a job as an IT guy in a private company and he was quite comfortable. His parents welcomed me and didn’t judge us for having a child when we weren’t married although they were devout Christians. My mum was the problem. When my mum found out about my pregnancy, she was furious. She was a deaconess at church and she said I have brought disgrace to her. My dad was already late at that time. My boyfriend rented a chamber and hall self-contained and we moved in together. Two years after that, I gave birth to twins; a boy and a girl. I was working as a receptionist at that time and things were okay. But anytime I brought up the issue of marriage, he would brush it off and tell me he was planning to establish himself first for our kids. He would say he has done some investments and that they will mature soon for us to get married. He always had an answer to my question about marriage. My hands were full with the busyness and stress of raising three kids and working at the same time so the marriage issue was not a priority to me. I only brought it up once in a while.
When I realised he wasn’t going to marry me anytime soon but he was having unprotected sex with me often, I started taking pills because I didn’t want to get pregnant again. At least until after he makes it official. In our eighth year of dating, I got fed up. My mum was putting pressure on me to get married to him. My mum even visited us once and poured her heart out to him. Telling him to just do a simple ceremony so that we can be officially married. It wasn’t right that we would be living as a married couple when he hadn’t done anything at all to start marriage proceedings. I also started putting pressure on him, but it was the same. He didn’t care that much. So I turned my attention to his parents. They were on my side, they spoke to him. But they couldn’t do much since they were old and he was the one sending them money. In the end, I moved out of the house into my father’s house. It was my mother’s advice. I came home to stay with her and my younger sister. The kids also came with me and they were going to see their father on weekends. We hadn’t broken up. It was my way of making him see how serious I was about wanting to be married and not just being a baby mama.
We had dated for about nine years when I moved out of his rented apartment with the kids. He called a few times to make me come back. But it didn’t seem like he cared much. At a point, if I didn’t call to check up on him, he wouldn’t call or text at all. One time, I didn’t text him and he went two weeks without asking about me or the kids although he was sending them money monthly. If the kids didn’t call him that they were coming over the weekend, he wouldn’t call to check if they were. If they didn’t come he wouldn’t ask why they didn’t. After almost eleven years of this on and off relationship, he called me out of the blue one time and told me he was sorry. He had met someone at work five years ago and since I have been loyal to him all these years he couldn’t tell me because it will hurt me. He said they were marrying in a few weeks time and his wife-to-be forced him to call me. All these years, he has been frustrating me to break up with him. All these years I endured his indifference and ‘I don’t care’ attitude. He was acting that way to push me away and I thought I was doing something wrong so I kept trying harder for him.
I went to his parents crying on them and lamenting to them about what their son had done. Her mum shed some tears, but they told me they can’t force their son to marry me. He would marry whom he has chosen. But they promised that he would take care of the children. This is not fair. I am 38 years now. I have committed 11 years of my life to a relationship and this is my reward. At my age and with three kids, where am I going to start from? How do I even gather myself again to get over this pain and fall in love again? To say I am heartbroken is an understatement.