DIARY OF A WOMAN DATING A MARRIED MAN

I heard a bang on my door and I was wondering who could be knocking on my door as early as that morning. Trying to get sleep off my eyes and feeling lazy to check who was at the door, I asked my niece to check who was there. It was my friend, Naa. She came to visit me. She needed money. Her eight months old child had been admitted at the hospital because he was sick.  Her husband could not afford to pay the bills and no family member was willing to help her. 

Naa has been married for five years to her longtime boyfriend who doesn't have a good job and earn as low as two hundred Ghana Cedi (GHC 200.00) a month. Naa has no job too. She's been jobless for four years. It baffles me how they are able to cater for their four children.  Well... she chose love over marrying someone who could take very good care of her.  Obviously, love is not putting food on their table. 

I have advised her to leave her husband. She, however, holds on to the “dabi dabi ebe ye yie” mantra and reminds me of the fact that things would not remain the same forever. And that one day, their lives would change for the better.

After Naa left that morning, I thought of her situation. Comparing her to myself, I thought, “No matter how bad her situation was, at least she's married”. Growing up, I had always dreamt of marrying a responsible rich man. Of course, he would be someone I love too. Love was not enough reason for me to marry a man. The man should be able to cater for himself, myself and the children we are likely to give birth to.

This thinking is perhaps the reason I am still single. At 32, I am a beautiful and an accomplished lecturer in one of the best universities in Ghana who has it all but no man to call a husband and no child to call me mum. I am a 32-year-old woman who is dating a married man.

Since I started dating Fred, I have questioned the essence of getting married. I was getting my much desired companionship and sexual pleasure with Fred. He is everything I need in a man. Talk about stature, he has it. He's disciplined, caring, lovable and any good thing you could ever find in a good man.

I met Fred one Thursday afternoon when I closed from lectures and was going back to my apartment. That was nine years ago. Three years after we met, he proposed to me but stated clearly that he had a wife. He told me how he became fond of me and wanted to be with me but he couldn't gather courage to tell most especially about his marriage until that Tuesday night.

I was not perturbed about the fact that he was married. After going through one terrible relationship, meeting Fred was good news. He was and still is awesome man and I could not think of saying no to him, regardless of the fact that he is married. Fred is not a saint. He has his inadequacies but he knows how to make up for them very well. 

Now I am in a dilemma.  My mum is putting so much pressure on me to get married. There's no lady in my family who has exceeded age 28 without getting married. Here I am at 32 and I have no intentions of getting married. 

My mum thought I was busy trying to earn a career and a good living for myself so she wasn't really bothering me with getting married. Now she's on my neck because all my female cousins are married. Even my younger siblings have gotten married too and even though they've given her grandchildren, she wants me to get married and give her grandchildren too.

My mum sees everything wrong with me having it all without a husband and children. What she doesn't know is that even though I am not married, I am happy with Fred. I never took my mum's pressure of me getting married seriously until recently.

Lately I have been thinking; thinking of starting all over again. Opening up and finding a man to get married to. Even though Fred doesn't want to let go of me, I want to let go of him and move on but it's a difficult thing for me to do. I need to move on and make a family but I am finding difficulty in doing so. I love Fred so much and I know he does too. Taking into consideration the terrible break ups I went through and how meeting Fred has changed my perception about men, I am finding it difficult to move on and let Fred go. 

To move on or to stay and tell my mother about Fred... only time will tell.