I’m Losing My Daughter Because Of My Wife’s Deception

If there is one thing fatherhood has taught me, it is that the people who are supposed to stay sometimes don’t. And the ones who promise to stay sometimes change their minds when it matters most. I have come to learn this because of my daughter, Baaba.  She is six years old now, a little glow of sunshine who calls me Daddy Davi because, according to her, “it sounds nicer.” I always laugh when she says that. Children have a way of healing you without even knowing what they’re fixing.

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I didn’t have the best relationship with her mother, Maabena. In fact, the relationship died immediately after Baaba was born. We disagreed on everything; parenting, finances, family. It was like we were two people trying to love from different planets. When she was ready to move on with her life and marry another man, she dropped Baaba on me like a task she no longer wanted to do.“This is your child too. I’ve done my best for three years. It’s your turn now,” she said.

I will never forget that day. Baaba was barely three, holding a small pink school bag and clutching a teddy bear. She didn’t understand what was happening. She just kept looking between us, confused. I took her to my mother, who took to her instantly. My mother raised me alone after my father died, so she knows how to love with everything inside her.

But I visited Baaba every chance I got. I took her to playgrounds, bought her toys and sweets and dresses, braided her hair myself sometimes when my mother was tired, helped her with homework, and taught her to pray before she slept. She loved seeing me. Every time she heard my voice, I would hear her tiny feet hitting the floor as she ran toward the door. “Daddy Davi! You’ve come!” she would shout. Those were my healing moments.

Two years later, I met Louisa. Beautiful, soft-spoken, God-fearing or at least she looked it. She had that kind of gentleness that made you want to treat her like glass. I fell fast, I fell deep, and I fell believing that this was the woman God had finally sent to me after all the storms. From the very beginning, I told her about Baaba. I didn’t want secrets. I didn’t want drama. I didn’t want problems in my new chapter. Louisa smiled and said, “It’s okay. Once we are together, your child becomes my child too.”

I should have known that some sentences are easier said than lived.

When I took her home to meet my mother and Baaba, it was like a dream. Baaba bonded with her immediately. She kept sitting on Louisa’s lap, playing with her hair, asking her to draw butterflies for her. Louisa responded with warmth or at least that’s how it looked. She bought gifts, sweets, toys, small dresses. Every weekend she asked me, “Are you bringing Baaba? I want to see her.”

I was convinced I had found the perfect woman, someone who would love my daughter like her own. I started thanking God for restoring the joy I thought I had lost. Even during our two-year courtship, Baaba was always part of our plans. We promised each other we would bring her home as soon as we married.

Then we got married and everything changed. The first time I said, “It’s time to bring Baaba home,” Louisa smiled and said,
“We just started. Why don’t we wait a little while?”

I didn’t argue. Relationships require patience. So I waited. A year passed. When I brought it up again, she said,
“Why don’t we wait until we have our own child first? It will help Baaba bond easily if she comes to meet her sibling.”

It sounded reasonable. And because I wanted peace in my home, I agreed again. Then another year passed. And another. We’ve been married four years now, and there is no child. My heart aches, not because of the empty womb, but because of the empty promises. Every time I mention Baaba, Louisa finds a new excuse. A new delay. A new gentle, sweet-sounding reason to keep my daughter away.

But this last argument broke something inside me. I told her I couldn’t wait anymore. I needed my daughter. I was losing her because she was growing without me. And I couldn’t keep showing up at my mother’s house like a visitor. Louisa looked me straight in the eye and said, “It’s because you already have a child that’s why you’re not serious about giving me mine. If you bring Baaba in, you will forget me.”

Forget her? How? How do I forget the woman I moved heaven and earth for? How do I forget the woman I chose after heartbreak?
Forget the woman I prayed over? I was hurt. Deeply.Painfully. Because she didn’t see how much this was killing me, that Baaba had already been abandoned once and now she was being abandoned again. This time, by me., her father.

Baaba doesn’t know what’s happening. She still calls me every night and says, “Daddy, when will I sleep in your house? When will I come and stay with you and mommy? I want to watch cartoons on your  big TV.”

Each question slices me open like a knife. She doesn’t understand why the man who used to show up every weekend now comes once in a while. She doesn’t know why I hesitate when she asks if she can visit me. She doesn’t know I am choosing between the daughter who didn’t choose her pain and the wife who wants everything her way.

Louisa is sweet but beneath that sweetness is a cunningness I refused to see. She always gets what she wants. She knows how to twist her voice to make her selfishness sound like wisdom. But now I’m tired. I lie awake at night staring at the ceiling and asking myself: How long can a father wait to be a father? Why must I choose between marriage and my own child? Is this what love is supposed to look like?

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Baaba deserves better than this. I deserve better than this. But right now, I’m stuck, confused, hurting, and scared that if I force the issue, Louisa might treat Baaba with the same resentment she hides behind her polite smile. And I cannot bring my child into a home where she won’t be loved. So I am asking…

What am I supposed to do? Because right now, it feels like I’m losing my daughter and losing myself too.

—David

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