I met Akua in 2009 when I was in SHS. My brother was the one who brought her into our lives. He was absolutely smitten with her. Which was understandable considering that she is one intelligent, and beautiful woman. She had a pure and kind heart. That’s one of the first things I got to know about her. To this day, I have never come across a kind and generous person like Akua. I remember when she gave me pocket money whenever I was going to school. Sometimes she paid for my transportation and bought me food when I visited her.
On my birthdays, she spoiled me and went all out to make me happy. Even my brother couldn’t match her efforts. I wasn’t the only one she spoiled. My parents and other siblings were also spoiled by her occasionally. I can’t even talk about the endless things she did for my brother. Her dad passed away at a young age, and her mother lives in the USA. The plan was for her to go and live with her mum after school but when she met my brother her plans changed. She sacrificed going to live with her mother, just so she could stay here in Ghana with Kwame. I thought her mother would resent my brother for this but no, she loved him. Whenever she came to the country, she would bring me, my brother, and my mother gifts.
Akua and I often had long chats about the future and she always advised and encouraged me to aim for greatness. She helped me prepare for my first job interview, and I got the job. She was like an older sister I never had. Everyone in my family loved her because of the kind of person she was. So imagine our happiness when she and Kwame walked down the aisle in 2015. They were the perfect couple. Everyone expected them to have a good marriage. But that wasn’t the case. Akua is an introvert who found it difficult to make friends. So she didn’t have anyone to talk to when Kwame started misbehaving. I was younger than her but I also became her confidante.
Every time Kwame did something terrible she would call me, “Mabel, guess what your brother has done this time,” and then she would tell me all about it. At first, it was difficult to believe her because Kwame is my brother and I never thought he was the kind of man who would treat a woman badly. And I also believed that my brother loved her so much that he wouldn’t mess things up. So I just couldn’t wrap my mind around their problems. I wasn’t in their marriage, but I knew everything that went on courtesy of Akua.
One time she called me crying, “Mabel, Kwame has started coming home late from work. Why is he treating me like this? What did I ever do to him?” I didn’t know what I said to her that day but I tried my best to console her. Her family was far away and I was the closest thing to a little sister she had so she trusted me. When I told her to calm down, she calmed down. When I told her I would talk to Kwame, she believed me. So that was our routine. Something bad would happen and she’d call me crying and I’d do my best to comfort her. While all this was going on, they were struggling to conceive.
I was there another time when Akua called me crying again, “Kwame is cheating on me. I found evidence that he is doing it.” I admit that at that point I started losing my patience with her. I started getting annoyed with her constant complaints. I felt that she didn’t need to tell me every bad thing going on in their marriage. I even told myself that she was a drama queen who cries at the slightest inconvenience. “Kwame is my brother, I know that he is a good person. Maybe the reason all these problems are happening in their marriage is that Akua is a bad wife. After all, she is the one who is always complaining about him, and in my experience, people who always complain are the problem.” I convinced myself.
I remember the last time we spoke, clearly like it was yesterday. Akua called me crying again, “Mabel, you won’t believe what just happened. I caught Kwame red-handed with another woman. What am I going to do now?” That day I told her, “Akua, calm down. Kwame is a man and cheating is what men do.” Before I could finish my speech, the call disconnected. And she never spoke to me again. Looking back now, I understand that my response was not the best. She was hurting, and I should have been more empathetic. I shouldn’t have filed her pain under the statistics of how men behave. It was not right. I didn’t know it then but now I know.
Anyway, to cut a long story short, Akua eventually left my brother. My family and I didn’t care when she filed for a divorce. We felt it was a good thing that she was leaving because she couldn’t get pregnant after three years of marriage. “She should go. Kwame can always find another woman.” We said.
A year after their divorce, I got married. That was when I experienced the same thing Kwame put Akua through. Everything she used to call me crying about, my husband is doing to me. I have been married for three years now, and I haven’t conceived. It feels like karma. Because of this, I am always angry and depressed. I used to think that Akua was dramatic, but now I understand that when a man does something hurtful to you, you won’t react by smiling and laughing. I used to be so happy and full of life, but now I am anything but happy. My inlaws have been giving me a hard time. Recently, I even heard them talking about finding another wife for my husband.
While I am experiencing my karma, Kwame is also experiencing his. He keeps looking for Akua in all the women he meets, and there’s no woman like her. Sure, he has dated more beautiful women but they don’t possess the kind of heart she does. They don’t love him the way she did and those women certainly don’t care for us the way she and her family did. Women walk in and out of his life so now I know that my brother is the problem. And he doesn’t have any kids so he could also be the problem in that department as well. One thing I noticed was that things started going bad for him after the divorce. He lost his job first, and then a lot of bad things followed. I felt it was a spiritual problem so I started praying about it.
One day, a friend invited me to a church service. At the service, the pastor told me, “I see that you are struggling with a lot of things in your life. Let me tell you why. You and your brother caused a certain woman a lot of pain in the past. Find that woman and apologize to her, and everything will be fine.” When he said that I knew it was Akua. Now the problem is that I can’t find her. I have searched all over social media to no avail. All I know is that she is in the USA. So I am praying, and hoping that this story reaches her and she can forgive me and my brother. Akua, this is Mabel. If you see this, I am begging for your forgiveness. Forgive me and Kwame for all the wrongs we did against you. I didn’t know how you felt until I went through it. I am so sorry for minimizing your hurt and judging you unfairly. I have learned my lesson. If you can reach me on my Facebook account I would love to talk to you.
I hope my story teaches women here who have brothers to be kind to their brothers’ wives. A wife is the one who really knows her husband and sees all the parts of him that his relatives would never see. People think my husband is a saint because that’s the image he projects to the world and his family, but I am the one who knows the hell he can unleash. Let’s just be kind, and treat people the way we would like to be treated.
