My Husband Has a Secret Child and He Has No Idea I Know

My husband has a secret child. Currently the child is two years old but no one knows about it, not even his own family. I got to know about it months ago but I decided to keep quiet and observe. He’s suffering at the hands of that baby mama and I’m sitting here enjoying the drama without him knowing that I know about the storm going on in his life.

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He traveled to work in another town for only one month and yet was able to get a girlfriend. I remember when he was there, I asked to visit. I pleaded actually. The town he went to was a place I’d always wanted to visit but because I had no reason to go there, it only remained a dream.

I told him, “I haven’t been there before. I want to use this opportunity to see the town so I can say something when others are talking about it.” He flatly denied me the visit as if he had the visa to the town. He said, “What is in this town that you would allow pressure to push you to visit? It’s only one month. I sleep in a hotel. How do you visit?”

So I didn’t until he completed the work and returned. I didn’t suspect him of anything because he gave me no reason to suspect him. Even after the job was done, he would still visit the town under the pretext of checking up on the job they did there. I’m a peace-loving woman. If there’s nothing there, or if I don’t see anything there, I won’t force something to be there to cause myself a headache.

Since I discovered the truth about that illicit child, everything that happened years ago started to make sense. I kept having an *ahaa* moment as though today’s moment was an explanation to yesterday’s history. There was a time my husband got very restless. He couldn’t even eat his meals. He would stay on the phone for hours. When I asked questions, he told me it was an office issue.

It was either someone had stolen something and was being sacked or one of their bosses had been caught in illicit operations. I calculated back to those days and it fit perfectly when the lady was pregnant. I don’t know that fact but I can imagine my husband fighting with the lady to abort the pregnancy. That restlessness. The quick tenderness he developed towards me and the children all of a sudden had meaning. He was going through a lot.

How did I get to know about the child?

The lady sent a voice note to him on WhatsApp. She was shouting as if my husband was standing next to her, “How can you do that to your own child on his birthday? Do you think your children there are more important than him? He’s two and you couldn’t come to his birthday and you also didn’t send the money. Wait until I visit you and that your wife.”

I listened to that voice note over and over again, with a trembling heart, and then with a calm heart, and then with a racing heart. I was going through emotions while I listened. It wasn’t the only voice note. The lady’s English is not that good so she struggles with writing. She always prefers to send voice notes instead. I listened to three or four of them. They were all threats and fights about money or promises my husband didn’t keep.

I wanted to fight him. I wanted to call him a cheat and threaten divorce. I wanted to cause a huge family tsunami where our families would come together to solve the problem. I wanted to add to his trouble but I sat in my chair and thought about it for days and told myself, “If I cause a scene and the issue is settled, it will give him peace. No, I won’t give him that peace.”

The fact that he thinks I don’t know is the reason the lady can treat him the way she treats him. She uses the fact that I don’t know as a weapon. Whenever she needs money and my husband doesn’t send it, she tells him, “Wait, I’m coming there. Your wife will know about us today.”

I think it works so she uses it often. And I can also see how restless and unhappy he gets sometimes when the lady starts causing him problems. He could talk in his sleep. He would talk to me and call me “Efua,” meanwhile I’m not Efua. I don’t ask who Efua is. I just play along.

What I do these days is also cause him trouble. Previously he would tell me he doesn’t have money and I would be an understanding wife. These days, no. I demand it. I stand on my right as a wife and demand he does his duties. If I accept he doesn’t have it, he would send it to the other woman. Then it would be my loss. That woman doesn’t give him breathing space so it’s not with me that he’s going to get that space.

How long am I going to do that?

I don’t know. I think about it each day. I pray about it and ask God what I should do. I don’t have the answers. I don’t believe what I have currently is the right answer because if I follow the answers I have, I will leave this marriage and not look back.

All I’ve done in this marriage is be a good wife and a mother. I don’t demand when I know there’s none. I put my money on the line for the family. I support his dreams. I helped him pay fees for his master’s so we can both reap the benefit.

Marriage Through the Eyes of Millennials and Gen-Z

What reason does he have to have another woman? What reason does he have to have another child apart from the three that we already have? All he ought to do was be a good husband. The kind who brings resources home to build what we have. He’s out there spreading his resources abroad. No, I won’t give him that peace. For now and until further notice, I will help the other woman to cause him trouble until he confesses. If not, the play goes on.

—Emme

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