2 married men talk about why they removed their rings

My wife is the kind of woman who never gets satisfied with little. She’s never content with anything. Get her a bicycle today and she would be impressed for only today. The next day, she’ll be asking you for a car. Tell her you bought her a bicycle yesterday and she’ll say, “That was for yesterday. New days require new things.” She isn’t a bad woman. She knows how to keep a home and she knows how to be a mother to my kids. The one thing wrong with her was her penchant for buying things on credit.

If only she will be reasonable when it comes to spending, we’ll both have a happy life.

I wasn’t rich when we got married but I promised her that I will try to make her comfortable. She only had to support because she was also working as a teacher. I loved her. I did my best to get her the things she wanted when we were dating. When we got married, responsibilities became high so I told her, “We have a home to run now. Kids have to go to school and dinner has to be served. Let’s be frugal with what we have so we can give our kids a better life.”

It was in church when I saw her exchanging words with another woman. It was getting heated so I walked there and asked what was going on. The other lady said, “Your wife bought clothes on credit from me. It’s been over three months and she hadn’t paid anything. She keeps giving me excuses.” I asked how much and she mentioned the amount. I sent her mobile money right there to cut issues short.

One early morning, I was asleep when I heard a loud noise in front of the house, “Which people are fighting at this early hour of the day?” Then I heard my wife’s voice. I went out and she was arguing with another woman. She owes the woman money. That day I didn’t have much. I promised to pay her the next day and she understood and left. The next day, I paid her in full.

Early one Sunday morning before we get ready for church, I heard a knock on the door. I went out to see who was knocking. Immediately the person saw my face, she screamed, “Call that your lying wife for me. She thinks she can take me for a fool.” I asked her, “How much does she owe you?” She mentioned the amount. It was close to my full month’s salary. I pleaded with her to give me two days. I settled her.

After each encounter with those people she owes money, I call her and talked to her. “It’s not as though you don’t have the things you’re buying on credit. You have a lot of them already so why get more?” She answered, “When I look good, I look good for you. All the glory comes to you when they see me and say, “Look at Hubert’s wife going.” I’ve never hit a fly but that day I nearly hit her. “What nonsense? Have I told you I want glory? If you like walk around naked and I don’t care. Don’t you have sense? Does it not shame you when they come around attacking you?”

A friend said, “You end up paying for her so she’ll continue buying on credit and borrowing money from people. Stop it and allow them to deal with her. She’ll learn sense. Then the friend whispered this to me, “What if it’s a trick? Think about it. You always pay so what if she’s employing friends to pretend so they can get money from you?” I said to myself; “My wife is capable of some wrongs but to set me up this way, I doubt it. But I took the first advice though. I decided to stop paying.

I returned from work that day and met drama in front of the house. I greeted them and walked inside the room. Two hours later, she came. I asked her, “You didn’t cook anything?” A lady came to my office one afternoon telling me my wife has directed her to take some amount from me. I asked, ‘What did she buy?” She said, “She didn’t buy anything. She borrowed money from me.” I told her, “Then please go and collect your money. You didn’t meet me.”

Slowly, I was becoming the husband whose wife owes everybody.

One Thursday evening, things got out of hand. A woman came to our house and disgraced us in front of our children. That day I told my wife, “I’m not the only man married in this world.” I removed my ring in front of her. I continued, “If this is what makes you think I’m tied to your debts, please I’ve taken it off. The next time any person walks in here talking about you owing, this marriage is over and I mean it. What sort of embarrassment is that? What do you do with your salary? Who do you give your money to?”

For over three months I didn’t put my ring on and for over three months, nobody—and I repeat, nobody came around claiming to be a creditor. And to date, no one has ever come to me claiming my wife owes her. I can now breathe easily. Hopefully, no one ever comes around again.

—Hubert, Nigeria

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If Fafa Said yes to my proposal, she would have been the girl I married. I loved the girl to the moon and back but she never gave me her heart. She had a guy in her life and we all knew how irresponsible this guy was. She would cheat and Fafa will find out. She’ll be angry. Two days later, they’ll be back together as though nothing happened. I was always in the shadows praying they broke up so I could have my chance. Troubles came their way. Her boyfriend cheated on several occasions. At some point, he beat her but they never could fall apart.

We completed school and life took us to different places and threw us different sizes of lemon.

Two weeks to my wedding, I was at a bank when I felt a finger behind my ears. I turned to see who that was and guess what…It was Fafa. There she stood in all her glory. Beautiful than the last time I saw her and her skin tone felt like a baby born yesterday. It was in a bank so I couldn’t shout. I held her hand and pulled her outside; “Fafa! What the hell are you doing here?” She said, “I should ask you that question because this is where I live.” I told her, “My dad works here so I came to pay him a visit but I’ll be going back to Accra next four days.”

We exchanged contacts and the rest of my days in that town were spent with Fafa. I was either with her or talking to her on phone or was chatting with her on Whatsapp. I learned a lot about her but the most important question I needed an answer for was, “Who’s in your life now?” She said no one. From the way our conversations were going I knew I had a chance.

My wedding was in a few days but I was ready to fall for her all over again.

I proposed and she said I should give her some time to think about it. I wasn’t in a hurry. I went back to Accra, had my wedding and kept talking to her about the possibilities of us being together. One day she said, “Could you come over? Pretend you’re coming to visit your dad so I see you.”

The next weekend I was there. My new shiny ring was off my finger. She mustn’t know I’m married.

She said yes to me and it was a celebration. I spent three days there pretending I was with my dad but my dad saw me only once. I went there on some other days to see her. In my mind, I was like, “If only you said yes to me then, we wouldn’t have been here clothed in lies. For six months we kept it going. She didn’t suspect a thing so she kept giving it all away and started getting clingy. My marriage was new and I had to protect it by all means so I started building excuses around our relationship. I stopped going to see her, I cut down the number of times I was talking to her and started missing almost every call of hers.

One day she said, “I thought it was going to work out but the way things are going, I doubt we’ll even survive a year. You’re too busy and the distance between us is destroying everything.” Slowly, she understood the hopelessness of our relationship and drifted off without a drama. We were lovers for two years but saw each other not more than six times.

It wasn’t altogether my fault, we met each other at the wrong time.

—Martin, Ghana