I Gave My Husband A Shop To Manage And He ‘Shopped’ The Ladies There

My husband resigned from work, saying he had an opportunity to travel to Canada where a job and accommodation were assured. As to how he came by that opportunity, he didn’t tell me. He told me when he had only a few weeks left before leaving the country. He sold personal items to pay for the trip; he sold his car cheaply and a few other things. He was happy and asked me to pray for him.

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The day he was leaving, we held hands and I prayed for him and wished him a safe journey. The kids, two of them, didn’t really understand what was happening, but they joined the prayers and we all bid him goodbye.

Two days later, I had a call from him: “The one taking us to Canada brought us to Côte d’Ivoire and left us here. He said he’s bringing more people from Nigeria to join us before we go.” I said, “Hmmm, I’m not feeling well about this. So how long are you going to be there?” He answered, “He assured us it would be a few days.”

One month later, my husband was still stuck in Côte d’Ivoire. According to him, some of the people had already returned to Ghana. I asked him to come home too, but he said he still had some trust left that it was going to work. It took him six months to finally agree to come back home. By then, they hadn’t been able to reach the connection man for over a month.

He was ashamed to have been scammed on such a large scale. He asked where he was going to start again in life. I assured him all was not lost and that he should come home. He had used his life’s savings to travel to Canada, but he didn’t even see the airplane.

Finding another job became very hard for him, so I suggested he manage a shop my mother left to me and my sister. My sister didn’t have any interest in the shop, so I was the only one investing in it. We had two shop attendants who were stealing and mismanaging the shop. He didn’t want to. It took me weeks to finally convince him to do it. “You’re not the one going to sell. You’re going to manage the ladies so we make a profit from the shop.”

For the first time in many years, we made a huge profit in the first month he worked there. I said, “Let’s sack these girls. So they were making this much money from the shop and sitting on it?” He didn’t agree with me. He said he was going to manage them and ensure they didn’t steal again.

Three months later, one of the girls left the shop without telling anyone. According to my husband, she stopped going to work and didn’t pick anyone’s calls. So we had to employ another lady. The other lady who remained had been giving my husband a lot of problems, so I suggested we sack her and bring in a new one. My husband agreed. When he told the lady she had been sacked, she called me.

I enumerated everything my husband had told me she had done, but she denied everything. She said, “Madam, there’s so much happening that I can’t say. I was working. I worked my heart out, but your husband had a problem with me because of one thing.” When I asked what that was, she said she wouldn’t say but that I shouldn’t sack her.

My intuition kicked in, so I played it calmly with her until she finally told me, “He wanted to sleep with me and I didn’t agree. That was when the hatred started.” I asked, “So you mean the other girl allowed it, that’s why he didn’t hate her?”

She narrated the whole story and even told me the girl disappeared because she was pregnant. My heart sank. I asked my husband about it, and he denied everything. He said, “She’s bitter we are sacking her; that’s why she’s leveling all those accusations. Me? How can I stoop that low?”

We ended up sacking the lady anyway and employed two new staff. I went to the shop often, sometimes with the kids, and stayed until closing. It was affecting the kids, so I withdrew a little but not totally. I passed by there once in a while.

I went to the shop one day and one of the girls wasn’t around. It was the second time that week she wasn’t there. When I asked my husband, he said the girl was on leave. “Leave? Since when did you start giving them leave?” He said the girl had asked for it to go and attend to her sick mom. I had the lady’s number, so I called her. She told me she had stopped the work and wasn’t on any leave.

I asked the other lady questions, and she revealed the girl left because she was pregnant. I screamed, “Another pregnancy?”

I had a lengthy conversation with this lady, and she told me everything: how my husband stayed behind with the other lady after closing and sometimes left with her in the same car. She said, “The pregnancy is his; the girl confessed to me.”

I started digging into the first lady who had left. She had already delivered, and the child was four months old. I checked his phone and read messages. The new pregnant lady had sent long voice notes demanding money. She didn’t mention the pregnancy, but it was obvious. I chatted with her using my husband’s phone, asking about the pregnancy and how the child was doing. She asked, “When are you coming again to visit us?”

I went to the shop one late evening and changed the locks. When he got there the next morning and called to ask why, I told him, “Don’t come home again because I’m changing the locks to the door too. Go and stay with those girls you impregnated.”

He thought it was a joke, but that day he slept outside. He came in the morning asking what had come over me. I said, “You have the audacity to ask me that question? You, who have been impregnating ladies left and right?” He denied knowledge of them until I called his parents and told them I was divorcing him. He confessed to his parents that the children from those ladies were indeed his, but he didn’t know what came over him.

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I said, “What came over him should remain with him because I’m done with the marriage.”

Three months ago, we finalized the divorce. He’s still not working, and he better not work again in his life because once he does, he’s going to pay for everything child support, even if it’s for a pin. If he’s man enough to have many children, he should be man enough to cater for all of them.

—Gina

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