I’m a Responsible Man Ready for Marriage but Women Run From Me Because of Where I Live

I am thirty-five years old, and I still live in my parents’ house.

That sentence alone has ended relationships for me. Not arguments. Not fights. Just that one fact, sitting quietly between me and a woman, eventually grows teeth and bites the relationship to death.

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I didn’t plan my life this way. I didn’t wake up one morning and decide that at thirty-five, I would still be answering, “Yes, I live with my parents,” with a mix of embarrassment and forced confidence. Life simply unfolded this way, and in Ghana, life has a way of doing that without asking for your consent.

I have a job. Not a glamorous one, not one that makes people whistle when they hear the salary, but a decent one. I earn enough to eat well, contribute at home, help my parents when they need it, and still have something small left at the end of the month. I float. I’m not drowning, but I’m not sailing either.

After school, I came back home. At first, it was temporary. Just until I got on my feet. Then my father fell ill briefly. Then my younger siblings needed support. Then rent prices started behaving like they were chasing dollars instead of cedis. Before I knew it, temporary had quietly turned into permanent.

My father’s house is big. Not mansion-big, but big enough. There are free rooms. Empty rooms that echo at night. Rooms that have held cousins, uncles, visitors from the village, and friends who needed a place to stay “for a short while.” No one ever questioned their presence. But when it’s me, suddenly it’s a character flaw.

The first woman I lost because of this hurt the most. I loved her genuinely. We connected deeply. We laughed easily. I thought I had finally found someone who saw me beyond surface things. Then one day she asked to visit. I hesitated, not because I was hiding anything, but because I knew what was coming.

She came anyway. She was polite. She greeted my parents respectfully. She smiled. She even ate the food my mother served. But after that day, something changed. She didn’t want to visit again. Her calls became shorter. Eventually, she told me the truth, “I’m not comfortable dating a man who still lives with his parents,” she said. “I can’t picture myself coming here all the time. It makes me feel like I’m dating a boy, not a man.”

I tried to explain. I talked about money. About responsibility. About how living with my parents didn’t mean I was irresponsible or dependent. She listened, nodded, and still walked away.

After her, I told myself I wouldn’t let it hurt me again. I met another lady. This one didn’t even last long enough for emotions to fully form. We were talking, laughing, almost there. Then she casually asked where I lived. I answered honestly. She didn’t argue. She didn’t insult me. She simply disappeared. No explanation. No closure. Just silence.

That silence was loud.

By then, I had already saved some money to move out. Not a fortune, but something. When I started looking at rent prices in Accra, my heart sank. One year advance. Two years in some places. Agency fees. Utility deposits. Suddenly, the money I had saved looked like a joke.

I asked myself hard questions. Should I really empty my entire savings just to prove adulthood? Should I struggle every month, stressing over rent, just to meet a social expectation, when I have a roof over my head and responsibilities already waiting for me at home? So I stayed.

Then I met Lucy. This one felt different. She was intelligent, grounded, and clear about what she wanted in life. We talked about marriage openly. About timelines. About values. For once, I allowed myself to imagine settling down. I told her everything upfront. I didn’t hide my living situation.

She listened. Then she said something that has been ringing in my ears ever since.

“I like you,” she said. “But we can’t start anything serious until you’re ready to leave your parents’ house and be a man.”

I told her I loved her. I told her I wanted to settle. I promised that once we got serious, I would move out. That I just needed time, planning, and stability. She shook her head.

“No,” she said. “You move out first. Then we get serious.”

That was the condition.

Since then, I’ve been torn in two. One part of me understands her. Independence is loudly equated with manhood. A man should have his own place. A man should not bring a woman into his parents’ home. Society repeats this so often that it starts to sound like law.

But another part of me feels deeply misunderstood.

I am not lazy. I am not irresponsible. I am not hiding behind my parents. I contribute to the house. I support my family. I plan carefully. I think long-term. I don’t want to rush into poverty just to look independent on the outside.

Does it really make economic sense to leave a house with free rooms, emotional support, and shared responsibilities, just to satisfy a label? Looking at how salaries crawl and rent runs, is it wisdom or pride to move out before you are ready?

I feel like a victim of timing. A victim of expectations that don’t consider context. Sometimes, I listen to the sounds of the house, my mother moving about, my father coughing softly, the familiar creaks of a place that has held my life together. I ask myself if love should really demand that I abandon this stability before it even begins.

Marriage Through the Eyes of Millennials and Gen-Z

I want to love and be loved. I want to marry. I want a home of my own one day. But I also want to make decisions that won’t break me financially just to prove a point. So I’m asking you, should I rent for love? Or you say I should let her go and wait for another woman who will understand my situation?

—Asabir

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