When we started dating, I was a naive 17-year-old girl who believed everything he told me. He was 21 years and an auto mechanic apprentice. As I speak now, he has his own fitting shop with apprentices. I don’t have any regrets of being with him or having 3 children with him. What I am tired of is his personality and how controlling his family is. He is very calm and quiet and will always want peace to reign. He hates confrontation so much that if there is something we have to discuss, he will just tell us to solve it there and not talk about it again. He stays with me in a chamber and hall. The children also stay with us. It’s his family house and the washroom is on the compound of the house.
I have been staying with him for the past 10 years. It started when I got pregnant with the first child. He acknowledged he was the father and took some schnapps to my family to acknowledge that he has impregnated me. That is the only thing he has done. I have been talking to him to make it official and marry me but he doesn’t see my point. I feel like he sees me as his wife already. Everyone calls me his wife so he doesn’t see why we should make it official. My mother has also advised me to stay with him. After having 3 children with him, there is no way I should leave him for another woman to come into his life. Where will I even start from? He is very caring and he takes care of us very well.
As at now, I am learning catering and I’ll be done soon. I want to finish and work full time to support him although he hasn’t complained. His family house is such that we’re supposed to rotate the one who sweeps the compound and scrubs the toilet and bath. Unluckily for me, my man has three sisters. He is the only guy. We also share the house with about five cousins of his and they all stay in the house with their families. My man’s parents are both late. When it’s my turn to sweep the compound, I do it and scrub the bathroom with no complaints. My man has even been telling me that I am really doing well with it. I can say that I and one of his cousin’s wife do well with sweeping the compound and keeping the washroom clean. His sisters and cousins are supposed to help, but they stopped helping a long time ago.
We (the other wife and I ) used to complain a lot about this. We felt it wasn’t fair. There are two other wives who are supposed to help us. One of them doesn’t even work yet she doesn’t do anything. One day, we raised this concern and it became a major quarrel in the house. I was the one who went to talk to the eldest sister to ask her why it is just two of us who clean the washroom and compound but we’re many in the house. It is very frustrating to see how some of them leave the toilet messed up. Excuse my language. It’s so bad. Their children will go and mess up the place and just leave it. They don’t respect too. If you make the mistake of touching one of the children you’ll be branded a witch in the house.
So that day I mastered courage and told the woman that it wasn’t fair. She is in her 60s and the oldest in the house. As for her, I don’t expect her to even do anything, I just saw her as an elderly woman who will call a meeting and divide the work well so that it will ease the burden on some of us. She rather started insulting and using very harsh words on me. That day, she and her sisters formed a gang against me. Some of the cousins also came to join. They said it’s good that their brother has not married me and my days in the house are numbered.
One of them said he will never marry me as long as she is alive and he will only see me worthy enough for marriage if she the sister is dead. I was so hurt by this that I stopped greeting them. I stopped sweeping and cleaning the place. The other woman who was helping me had some serious quarrels with her husband and left to her father’s house. As I speak, she still hasn’t returned. There is no peace in the house. When I stopped sweeping, my man’s sisters came to our door one day to bang on the door and insult me. Thankfully, my man was there that day to witness what I have been telling him all along. He said I shouldn’t step out. He went out himself to go and talk to them and they went back to their side. But the whole day, they were going around saying ‘kansantwi’ and singing some songs to draw my attention.
I have told my man many times to rent and to be honest even though I want us to leave the house, rent is expensive and right now, after paying the children’s fees, we barely have much left for other things. We are lucky his father left him this chamber and hall. It’s his portion and we pay only light. Please how do I live with these sisters of his? He has told me to start greeting them again. Only one answers when I greet them. The others don’t mind me. Now that the other woman is not there, I am the one who sweeps the compound everyday. I’m not even bothered about the compound. It’s the bathroom and toilet that I’m bothered about. It’s not easy for me at all. Now his sisters have stopped their children from playing with mine. The third sister is pregnant with her sixth child. They’re all not married, but they have children with different men. Even with all this, they treat me like I have committed a crime. Please you people should advice me on how to handle them to not cause any further problems. I am really trying. It’s like they are forcing me to leave him. But after 16 years of dating, he is my husband and I’m not going anywhere. I keep having this feeling that his sisters have done something so he won’t marry me. With the way they’re acting, they know something.