I Was Five Months Pregnant When My Husband’s Pregnant Side Chick Called

We met in a village square where I had gone to meet the director of an NGO I was working with. He told me his name was Francis and that he was in the village on an assignment. “It’s a work assignment,” he said. “I would be here for a while.”

He kept me company until the director called and said he was ready for me. We exchanged contacts and, less than a month later, our love story began.

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Because of him, I visited the village often, even when I wasn’t meeting the director. I spent weekends with him to get to know him more and also get close to the man I’d come to love.

He came home to meet my parents and told them he was ready to marry me. He hadn’t told me anything about marriage, plus our relationship was so young, a blooming flower in the sun. I didn’t know if it was going to thrive or wilt. I asked him, when we had left the presence of my parents, “Are you lying to them or do you mean what you said?”

He smiled. “If not, then what are we doing this for?” he asked me.

A couple of months later, I found out that I was pregnant. If he told me he didn’t want it, I would have understood him, but he said, “Let’s get married to make this shameless.” I answered, “There’s no shame in this; we are not teenagers.”

I was telling him he didn’t need to marry me to run away from shame, but he insisted marriage was all he wanted, so we did the knocking and before my belly announced what we were hiding from the world, we were already married. We had dated for only eleven months.

By the time my pregnancy was five months old or so, I had stopped visiting the village. He was the only one coming on weekends, or when he had off days. Sometimes he called in sick just to be with me.

Anytime he was with me, a number would call. He wouldn’t answer but would rather put the phone on silent or flight mode. I only observed but didn’t ask questions. He would go for a walk at night and, when I called him, it would be on call waiting. Not once. Not twice. I still didn’t make a fuss about it. My pregnancy was enough trouble for me.

One night while he was asleep, a call came through. I picked up. It was a lady. She wouldn’t wait for hello but started ranting: “You ignore my calls whenever you get home but still tell me you don’t have any woman there with you. Why are you not picking up my calls?”

I stepped out of the room before saying hello. “Please, this is the wife speaking. Who am I talking to?”

This question got her infuriated, so she started conjuring insults from the skies and asking me why I would pick up his boyfriend’s phone. I went back in, woke him up and gave him the phone. He looked at the name on the screen and probably the number of minutes the call had lasted, and looked at my face. “She’s still on the line. Talk to her,” I said.

The lady on the line was also pregnant. She needed him but he wouldn’t even pick up her calls. I could hear her screaming on the phone, but my husband lost his voice. He cut the call, made a confession, followed by an apology.

It seemed like my pregnancy had also taken away my anger, or the feeling of it. I didn’t react or fight. He should have left the next morning, but he stayed a week longer to talk and ask for forgiveness. I wasn’t feeling anything—anger, pain, regret—nothing.

The whole thing started getting to me after I delivered. I still wasn’t angry, but so many questions flooded my mind. I might have given him the impression that I’d forgiven him, but actually that wasn’t the truth.

When I delivered, he said he was seeking transfer to come live with me. I said no. When he came home and stayed longer than the weekend, I felt suffocated. I wanted him to leave. When he was not with me, I felt peaceful and free. It was like my soul didn’t want him near me. It should have been the opposite: that I would be worried when he was in the village because of the other lady. I didn’t care.

I opened up to my mom about the whole issue and she was like, “Ama, and you’re keeping this all to yourself? What’s wrong with you?”

I asked what I should do and she said, “If you’ve been alright for all this while, then there’s no problem. You can live with it.” I answered, “No, I haven’t been alright. I hate his presence. I wish he would go and not come back.”

She spoke to my dad about it and he also called me. He said, “You can’t live with a man you hate to see. If you can’t forgive and forget, tell him it’s over.”

I decided to go to the village and have that conversation with him. Having it with him in my space wasn’t a good idea. I thought he might break down and overstay trying to convince me to change my mind. So one early morning I set off with the baby to go and see him. While on the bus, I was conflicted. I asked myself if I was doing the right thing. I was scared I would leave the marriage and later regret it.

Even as I was entering his house, I was still not sure if I would be able to tell him that it was over. I knocked and a woman came out. She quivered out of fear when she saw me and that made me know who it was. “You’re Linda, right?”

She walked back in without saying a word. I followed. Her baby was on the sofa. I went inside and put my baby on the bed. I called my husband and told him I was in his house. He screamed, “What? Tell me you’re lying!” I answered, “Come, let’s talk.”

He called Linda to verify if indeed I was there. I was looking at her when she said yes. I didn’t know what he told her, but she started packing. I told her not to go anywhere because I was leaving very soon. “If the truth will mean anything to you, then stay and hear it,” I told her.

Francis drove in and quickly entered. I said, “I wasn’t sure if it was the right thing to do, but seeing what I had just seen, I was left with nothing but the conviction that it was the right time and moment to end this thing we call marriage. She lives with you. She doesn’t need to leave. I would rather leave.”

He didn’t say anything until the other lady walked out, and then he started begging me not to leave. I called my dad and told him what I’d found. He said, “End it and come home. You two need peace from different places.”

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He tried leaving with me, but when he heard I was telling my dad about it, he decided against going with me.

He married me to cover a shame only to bring that shame back in a different form. We are no longer married. Anytime I think about how everything went so fast just to crash, I blame myself. I should have listened to my intuition. It wasn’t love. Our marriage was an accident, but the sad thing is, I was the one in the driving seat and watched till it came crashing.

—Ama

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