Relationships
He Married Me Because I Passed His Test. He Doesn’t Know I Cheated In The Exams
I remember a few weeks after I accepted Stanley’s proposal, Yaw came along. I didn’t know him from anywhere. He came to the shop one day and said he liked me. I looked at him and wondered what could give him the confidence to say that. I told him, “No, you can’t just like somebody like that. You just saw me. Do you even know my name?” He might have picked the discomfort in my voice so he said, “No, I didn’t mean to upset you. I couldn’t hold it. Immediately I saw you I felt this kind of warmth that could only be love. Sorry if that got you upset.” I told him it was ok and he asked me, “What about friendship? Won’t you be my friend?”
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I didn’t answer that. He bought what he could buy and left. He came again the next day and again the following day. Even when I wasn’t in the shop, he left a message for me. One day he called my phone. I was shocked at how he got my number. I asked, “Who gave you my number and why would you even bother to do that?” He tried explaining himself but nothing made sense to me. He went to the shop and lied to my mom that we were old friends who had lost contact so my mom gave him my number.
He persisted until I couldn’t hold it. I told Stanley about it. “There’s this guy pestering my life. Can you call him and tell him you’re my boyfriend so he should leave me alone?” Stanley laughed at me. He told me, “It hasn’t gotten to that. If you’re able to persist and maybe insult him, he would leave you alone.” One day he came to the shop with a new car. He pointed at it and said, “I have a new car and I want you to be the first woman to sit next to me. Don’t say no, please.” I shook my head in disbelief but the whole thing was funny. “Yaw, are you seriously doing this? What should I tell you for you to know that I’m not interested in you? I have a boyfriend. Isn’t that enough?”
He came to the shop consistently for one week so one day I told him, “Come in the evening when I’d closed. I will sit next to you so you take me home.” He came back to the shop around 6pm. I closed at 7pm but he waited until I closed the shop. I sat next to him and he drove off. He asked, “Where are we going?” I answered, “I live in Dansoman.” I thought the distance and traffic would put him off but this guy didn’t know how to give up.
He didn’t say much. We were quiet for a long while until I asked, “What do you do to be able to afford these cars?” He told me his parents had a company and he was the one managing it. I responded, “You’re very lucky to have parents like that. Apart from that, what else should I know about you?”
He talked about his upbringing and his parents and how they made their money. He talked about how he hated his elder sister because of the man she married. That brought a lengthy conversation. I didn’t understand why he should hate his sister. He called the man his sister married a gold digger and I told him men also love rich women. We got home safely and I called Stanley to tell him what happened. “Yaw gave me a ride home today. That guy doesn’t know how to give up on a girl.” He asked me not to do that again. I sensed jealousy in his voice so when Stanley called that evening, I didn’t pick up his call. I avoided him completely until he stopped coming to the shop.
I didn’t think of him until a year or so later I saw him on Facebook. I ignored him but a few days later, I saw his friends’ request and I accepted it. He sent me a message right after that and we talked. He asked about life and I told him, “I’m getting married very soon.” He asked, “To the same guy who blocked my chance?” I answered, “Yeah to the same guy.” I was lying. Stanley had not even proposed marriage. Our relationship was turbulent at that time. He had a temper and I lacked the patience to tolerate his temper so we were always fighting.
Even at that point that I was talking to Yaw, Stanley and I were not talking. We had fought a couple of days ago and none of us was ready to apologize. Yaw wanted to meet me and I said no. He persisted so I agreed to see him. We met in town and he took me to a restaurant. He was looking all grown up and was acting like a man who owns his space. We had a lot to eat and a lot to drink. He asked why I didn’t give him a chance to prove himself and I told him, “I had a guy. You didn’t come early enough.” He said, “But you could have left him for me?” I answered, “I didn’t know you enough. You came out of nowhere and you came just a couple of weeks after I’d said yes to him.”
He told me, “I have a confession. All the stories I told you about my family and the company and the cars were all lies. I didn’t own a car. It was for a friend. I was desperate to win and I thought those things would sway you. I don’t have rich parents and I was not a manager of any company. I’m sorry.” I screamed, “I knew it. You didn’t look like it. Maybe it was the reason I didn’t say yes.” It was funny so we laughed. I told him, “I also have a confession. I’m not getting married. Yeah, I’m still with Stanley but we are nowhere close to marriage.”
For some days, he filled up the space Stanley left. He called to check up on me and we went out again at another time. One day we ended up at his place and we had sex. I did it out of loneliness and out of emptiness. The man I loved wouldn’t stay to love me the way I deserved to be loved. I won’t say I enjoyed the shuperu but it was a perfect distraction from what I was going through with Stanley. After that, I did everything to stay away from Yaw. Stanley came back better and we were trying to mend. Yaw sent a message one day that he had travelled out of the country. “I wanted to say goodbye but you won’t pick up my calls. I’m sorry if I pushed you to do what you didn’t want to do.” I read the message with a regretful heart. I regretted the shuperu because Stanley was back and we were mending. I blocked Yaw and even blocked him on social media.
A year and a half later, I and Stanley got married.
Recently, we were having a conversation when our beginning came in. We were talking about how things started when he mentioned Yaw’s name. He said, “I have a confession. I knew Yaw.” I was like, “How? How did you know him?” He answered, “He was a friend of a friend. We sent him.” I leaned back and looked at him critically. “You sent him? For what?”
He narrated how the whole thing started and how it ended. Stanley wanted his friend to test me and see if I would lie about having a boyfriend. His friend wanted to do it but then he felt they were too close and I might pick a hint and get angry so they used Yaw who was a friend of Stanley’s friend. I hope I’m making sense. They used a faraway guy so I wouldn’t pick a hint of it. I asked him, “What for? What kind of boyish game is that?” He answered, “Yes we were boys but it was through that endeavour that convinced me that you could be trusted.”
I was stunned. I didn’t even know what to put forward as an argument knowing what I had done with Yaw. I screamed, “Really? Are you serious about that? I thought these things happen in movies. What if I agreed? What if I slept with him? This marriage wouldn’t have happened?” He answered, “All I know is you didn’t fall for the temptation. It was the reason why even when we fought, I kept coming back to you. I knew your loyalty and I knew we had a future together.”
“I’m angry and I wish I knew how to express this anger. You were not fair to me at all.”
“It’s over now. See what came out of it. We are married, ain’t we?”
I have unblocked Yaw. I have questions to ask him but I’m too ashamed to start knowing how it ended with him. “Why didn’t he confess the whole truth when we had the chance? Was he genuinely in love with me after chasing me up and down? Or it was just a ploy to finish off what he started? I’m very angry with my husband, his friend and everyone who played a part in the ploy.
I’m getting the impression that he married me because I didn’t fall for the trap. If that’s the case, then the foundation of this marriage is destroyed. I’m the one living with the guilt and I want to tell him the whole story to burst his bubble. Maybe, not to burst his bubble but to also avoid future troubles. Men talk. Someday, Yaw may tell his friend what happened and his friend would end up telling my husband. That’s my confusion now, whether to tell or not to tell.