I Can’t Marry His Daughter Because One Man From My Tribe Ruined Everything

I met her at the university. She looked like what I had been searching for, for a very long time. It wasn’t hard to approach her because we took the same core courses. Every day, I stopped glancing at her from afar and started saying hello. Different programs but the same level, so we found ourselves in the same general courses at least twice every weekend.

That was where it started. Just greetings at first. Then jokes. Then sitting together. Then everything else.

We fell in love slowly and then all at once. We talked about the future and agreed on one thing: this was leading to marriage. I have two kids. She has one. The kids gave us even more reason to want to make it work. We weren’t just building a love story for ourselves; we were building a home for them too.

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But love, as sweet as it is, doesn’t always make the path smooth.

Her father is the problem. He is Ashanti. I am Voltarian. He lives in the US, so our first conversation happened on the phone. The kind of tension that hits you when you are about to speak to your father-in-law for the first time it hit me hard. I was sweating profusely. Beads formed on my upper lip. My stomach was twitching in fear. What if he says no? What if he doesn’t like my voice and how shaky it will sound?

I introduced myself politely, told him my intentions, and waited for his response.

He said, “I don’t want my daughter marrying a Voltarian.”

I was quiet on the phone. My heart beat drastically. In this age and century? This issue? What could I say to change his mind? I mumbled, “We are different individuals. We are not marked by tribe.”

He was quiet on the phone so I continued ranting, “Please, please sir, I am willing to prove myself to you if that is what you want.” Did I know what it meant when I said it? No. But I knew I would go to the end of the ocean to bring a cup of water to my woman if she asked for it.

He said, “I’m coming to Ghana in December. We will talk when we meet.” Then we hung up.

I held onto that hope like a lifeline.

In December, he came down to Ghana. I dressed my best and said a lot of prayers on my way to meet him.

His eldest son and his wife were warm. They smiled at me, offered me water, asked if I needed anything while stealing glances at their father. They asked me questions like they were already accepting me.

But the father? He sat there with his arms folded. Like he was fighting me. Like I was an enemy who had walked into his camp. He listened to me but his face told me he had already made up his mind.

He said, “One of my daughters married a Voltarian. A Togolese man. And the treatment she got was absurd. I will not let it happen again.”

I begged him with my eyes. I begged him with my words. I said, “I am not that man. Please ask your wife. Ask your daughter. They know me. They can tell you who I am.”

He looked at me and said nothing for a long time. Then he said, “I will get back to you.” His time was limited so he traveled back to the US without giving me an answer.

The eldest son promised to talk to him. He said, “I will work on him. Give me time.”

I am still waiting.

Now I am thinking of involving his pastor. He is an elder at The Church of Pentecost. I am a presbyter at the Presbyterian Church of Ghana. We serve the same God. We believe in the same things. Maybe if a man of God talks to him, he will listen. Maybe he will see that tribe does not matter when two people love each other and want to build a home.

But I ask myself: Will I be wrong to involve his district pastor? Will he see it as me going behind his back? Will it make things worse?

We are in love. The peace we share, the way our children get along, the future we have planned it is all too beautiful to let go because of tribe. I am not giving up. I cannot give up. But I need to know if this step I want to take is the right one.

Desperate times call for desperate measures. Is this that kind of desperate?

Should I involve the pastor or will I be making a mistake?

— Abednego

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