Drunken Confession Shatters Wedding Dreams

We met at a church event. I found her captivating, and she described me as “attractive.” About a month into our acquaintance, I took a chance and she agreed to be with me. We were two recent university graduates, unemployed and broke, but we had our future ahead of us.

Then I received a job offer in Accra.

I relocated from Kumasi to Accra to begin my new job. Everything seemed great; we were in constant contact, calling each other daily. Eventually, she landed a job in Kumasi, coincidentally working alongside a former classmate of mine. I jokingly told her that my friend would keep her safe from being taken away from me.

A few months later, my friend started raising concerns: “Akwasi, I’m not sure about Dorothy’s behavior lately. It seems like there’s something going on between her and one of the senior guys at her office.”

I had no reason to doubt my friend, but I decided to tread carefully. When I confronted her about it, she denied any wrongdoing: “There’s nothing happening between me and him. He’s married. What would I want with a married man?”

After two years together and several visits, we were ready to take our relationship to the next level. We set our wedding date for April this year, but the church didn’t approve it due to scheduling conflicts. We then chose August 2020, aligning it with her birthday.

In March, everything changed. Mid-March brought a directive for her to work from home due to the COVID-19 pandemic. I continued working until the president announced a lockdown. That Friday night, she agreed to come to Accra to stay with me until the lockdown ended. By early Sunday morning, she was with me—my quarantine partner.

We cooked, cleaned, and enjoyed each other’s company. After a lovely meal, we settled in for some movies. That’s when she pulled out a bottle of wine from her bag. She asked, “Have you ever been drunk?” I replied, “Yeah, but it’s been a long time.” She explained, “A friend gave me this wine for my birthday, but I didn’t drink it then. I’m ready to try it now and see what it feels like to be drunk.”

We each poured a glass and continued watching the movie. She poured herself another glass, and soon we had nearly finished the bottle. That’s when her behavior changed. She became chatty, got up from the sofa, took my hand, and asked us to dance, even though there was no music. I held her waist, and she collapsed onto the sofa, laughing uncontrollably. I told her, “You’re drunk.”

She picked up the bottle and read the label. “Why would Martin buy me this wine knowing it has a high alcohol content?” Martin was the name of the guy my friend had mentioned.

I tried to ask her more questions, and she answered while laughing. She revealed that she had gone out with Martin on her birthday, that he took her to a hotel, and they had sex. When I asked how many times they had been intimate, she replied, “I haven’t been counting.” She recounted an incident when Martin’s wife called her to insult her and described how caring Martin was, mentioning how he gave her money even before she asked.

I recorded everything on my phone.

My heart was racing with anger. It took all my strength to refrain from lashing out at her. I was trembling with rage, ready to confront her, but she lay there innocently, spilling secrets.

When she finally fell asleep, I stayed awake, waiting for morning to ask her more questions. At one point, she started throwing up. I watched her, and she eventually slept again, not waking until around 10 a.m. the next day. I had cried all night and even called my friend to share what had happened. He said, “I knew it, but you didn’t believe me.”

When she woke up, she had many questions, but I didn’t answer any. She asked, “Is everything okay?” I simply played the recording for her. At some point, she stopped watching and said, “You took advantage of me. Because I was drunk, you made me say things that aren’t true.” My anger flared, and I rushed at her, grabbing her neck, but my conscience stopped me.

She insisted that what she said in the video wasn’t true. “I was drunk and said a lot of nonsense, but you’re believing it because you already had suspicions.” I was furious, but deep down, I just wanted her to confess so we could address it. Yet, she maintained that her words in the video were lies.

In just two days, we managed to unravel what we had built over two years.

Due to the lockdown, she couldn’t return to Kumasi, but I realized that staying with her could lead to something worse, so I packed a few of my things and left the apartment. Now, I’m staying with a friend who also thinks her statements in the video might be false because she wasn’t in her right mind. I asked him, “How much did she pay you to defend her?” 

—Akwasi