When I started dating Kobby, the word out there was that he was a womaniser. Friends warned me not to have anything to do with him. Some went to the extent of telling my parents to advise me against the idea of dating him.
I thought I was matured and didn’t need people to tell me who to love and who not to love. I was 23 and knew what I wanted. Kobby looked like the man for me and I didn’t want anyone to tell me otherwise.
But it wasn’t long before I started seeing signs of his infidelity. The other lady was called Suzy. They were Facebook friends before they took it out of Facebook.
They chatted every day on Messenger and I was monitoring their chat from Kobby’s PC. He logged into Facebook on his PC and forgot to log out. I only needed to share my Hotspot with the PC and was able to read all previous messages.
You could sense the love between them from the messages they exchanged. I acted swiftly.
I looked out for Suzy and warned her to stay away from my man. I told her, “I know Kobby has told you a lot of things. Forget about everything he has told you. I’m the woman in his life. If you don’t want any trouble, stay away from him.”
She was traumatised by the warning. Also, I enjoyed the fact that I’ve been able to instill fear into her.
Kobby came attacking me: “How could you do something this stupid? What sort of embarrassment is that? The next time you threaten a friend of mine again, you won’t have it easy with me.”
I was calm. I didn’t respond to him. I realised he was angry so replying him could cause a lot more havoc. Later that evening I told him: “If Suzy was your friend, I wouldn’t have warned her to stay away from you. I’ve read your messages and I know you’ve been lying to her. I wouldn’t like her to come between us, so I had to act fast.”
He was embarrassed when I told him I’ve been reading his messages. He tried explaining but I wasn’t ready for his explanations.
Suzy never appeared in the frame again. There was Adjoa and there was Matilda. There was Adobea and there was Felicity. All in a span of one year. Somehow, I found out and chased all of them away. They learned too late that Kobby was mine and I wasn’t going to give him away on the cheap like that.
Halfway through the second year of our relationship, Amina came along. Kobby denied on several occasions that he was dating Amina but I knew my gut and I knew when it was telling me the truth.
Again I found Amina and warned her to stay off my man. She asked, “Who is your man?” I responded, “Don’t pretend you don’t know that I’m the serious girlfriend of Kobby. We’ve been dating for almost two years and soon getting married. Don’t waste your time with him. There’s no way he’s going to marry a Muslim.”
She only smiled and said: “I thought you were coming to show me your ring. You’re just a girlfriend? And you have the gut to confront another girlfriend?” She then walked away and gave me this weird look as if I was a piece of used toilet roll.
“They all behave like this at first but in the end, they all leave.” I consoled myself.
Again, Kobby was angry, claiming I confronted someone he had nothing going on with. I knew he was lying and I knew I had to do all I could to push Amina away. “Very soon we’ll be married and all these would end.” I encouraged myself.
It became very obvious that Amina wasn’t going to go away. Several months later, I still had the hunch that my Kobby was seeing her but I needed evidence before I could strike.
So this is what I did…
I monitored how he unlocks the pattern on his phone. It wasn’t an easy pattern but anytime I get the chance to see him unlocking the phone, I watched with rapt attention. He did it so fast that it wasn’t easy to follow but I did and finally got it.
According to the messages between them, they have fought over the confrontation I had with Amina and Kobby had apologised. What killed me was when I read Kobby saying I was a witch tormenting his life and it has been over between me and him for a long time but it was me trying not to go away.
My feelings were hurt. I took screenshots of the messages and sent them to my phone. The next day I confronted Kobby:
“How were you able to go into my phone?”
“I have this evidence against you and all you could ask is how I got into your phone?”
He was quiet. I knew right then that he had nothing to say but I had to act. I did all I could to meet Amina one on one again to give her a piece of my mind.
I told her: “You stupid fool, you think I’ll sit down and watch while you take my…”
I didn’t complete my statement and the first slap landed on my left eye. My eyes got blurry. I screamed: “You have the gut to…” That statement also didn’t end and a blow landed on my lips. That was when I knew I was in trouble. I had to fight back.
Amina had the physical advantage—she was tall and plump with heavy hits. I knew I couldn’t match her so I had to look around for a weapon. My left eye was blurred so I couldn’t see well. Before I could find anything of worth to hit her with, she grabbed my hair and pulled it too hard that I landed on the floor.
Today, I’m very grateful to those who came to my rescue and separated the fight. Amina Sat on me and started throwing heavy punches and mostly aiming at my face. I was on the floor and fighting hard to block the blows from landing on my face. But the girl was stronger. Every hit went under my skin and I needed somewhere to run for cover.
By the time people gathered and separated us, I couldn’t see clearly and was bleeding from my lips. A gentleman whisked me off in a taxi and I went straight home.
I spent two days in a hospital but Kobby never showed up to even say hi. Amina was arrested and was later released on bail.
I was just a stupid child who didn’t know her worth and her place in a man’s life. I believed it was a woman’s duty to fight to keep her man. I could have died. I could have been maimed. Kobby wouldn’t have cared.
He called some weeks later telling me all sorts of lies just to cover up his shame but I didn’t give him an audience. The beatings did something to me I guess. I grew up that day knowing when to fight and when to run. I realised it was time to run from Kobby. So I did.
-Petra, Kasoa, Ghana
