When I first met Kojo I had a crush on him. It was his dedication towards the things of God that appealed to me. By then, I was in my first year at the university and had a boyfriend. This boyfriend of mine was someone I started dating right after I completed SHS. He was a good man. One of the best even. But they say God always takes the good ones first. Sadly, this statement was true in his case. He passed away while I was still in school......See Full Story>>.....See Full Story>>
Months after his passing, Kojo started crawling his way into my life. His presence provided me with the comfort I needed to get through my grief. I want to believe that’s why I didn’t scrutinize him properly before accepting him as a friend. Soon enough the friendship developed into something more. It didn’t take long before we started dating.
At that age, I didn’t know what I wanted in a man. All I knew was, he was a good man. This worked for me until it didn’t. I started seeing certain things that made me lose interest in him. When I realized this, I tried to leave him but he was like a leech. No matter how I shook him off, he held on tightly and never let go. In the end, his persistence and commitment to the relationship made me stay.
As soon as I completed my national service, Kojo started talking about marriage. “I don’t want us to wait too long and live a life of sin,” he said, “I love you and you love me. We both know we want to be together. What else do we need before we get married? So let’s just do it.” I wasn’t ready for that big jump. I didn’t think he was either.
Although he had been working for years, he had nothing to show for it. Yet he swore he had what it took to be a husband. He spoke about the topic morning, afternoon, and evening. When the pressure became too much for me I said, “Fine, I will marry you.” I still wasn’t sure he is the one I want to spend the rest of my life with. But I knew he was a good man. “He is not one to cheat or take away my peace of mind. He is not a bad choice,” I said as I convinced myself I was not making a mistake.
At the time we were getting married, I had just gotten a job and only earned a month’s salary. I didn’t have anything to contribute toward the ceremony. It was all him. When I say that, I don’t even mean the money was his. He took loans to pay for everything. Although it wasn’t a good start for us financially, he had a plan to make it work.
We were also blessed to receive a lot of cash gifts from our friends and family. We used that money to settle most of his debts. The only ones we couldn’t pay were the loans he took from the bank. His salary was deducted every month to pay for it. He complained, “After the deductions, I am left with only something small. I can’t even depend on it for myself.” As a supportive wife, I stepped in to share the burden.
I take care of our basic needs in the house with my salary. I buy food, groceries, toiletries, and whatever our apartment needs to be our home. The agreement was that I would do this while he paid off the loans and work on our building project.
The apartment he got us to live in is far from my workplace. Because of this, I spend close to GHC1000 cedis on transportation. I earn around GHC6000 cedis a month. When I deduct the cost of getting to work and the money I use for the house, I put the rest away in a secret savings account. He doesn’t know how much I earn. That’s what enables me to save. I chose to keep it a secret from him when I realized that every money I let my husband know about, he finds a way to take it from me.
Now this is the problem. For the building project, he took a loan to purchase the land. He also took a loan to dig the foundation. Now he says wants to travel abroad for greener pastures. He took another loan for that too. He started his travel process recently. The deductions are now a lot. By the time he receives what is left of his salary, he has a little less or more than GHC1000 cedis to depend on.
He is not able to survive solely on that. I am the one he comes running to for a loan when he goes broke. Loans he doesn’t pay back. Sometimes I feel I married a man who is literally taking everything I work for. This is eating into my savings. I have been working for three years but I have only saved GHC20,000. All because of my husband’s spending habits.
Now, he is asking me to take a loan for him to complete his travel processing. He wants GHC40,000. I feel like if I don’t help him, it will seem I didn’t support him when he needed me to. But if I do, I will have to forfeit my dream of saving for a car for myself. Mind you, if I take the loan, I still have to take care of the house and pay off the loan. This is something my strength cannot do. That’s why I need advice. Should I put all my eggs in this basket called a husband? Or I should refuse to help him and live my life?