Amina’s Story: I have been abandoned by my heartless and ungrateful husband for being childless

I married my husband 4 years ago. I am from Tanzania and he is from Ghana. He works in the Middle East, while I live here in Tanzania. During our first year of marriage, we had an arrangement whereby he would visit 3 to 4 times a year. Our troubles started 2 years into our marriage when during his visits we would spend most of the time arguing and were barely on speaking terms.

Unlike me, he already had a son from his first marriage. Then 2 years into our marriage he revealed that he also had a daughter. The story he told me was that he wasn’t aware that he had fathered a daughter and that he only found out when the child contacted him. He told me he wasn’t sure whether he should accept the girl as his and asked for my advice. I told him that if he believed the child was his, then he should do the right thing and recognise her as his daughter. And so he did. I was ready and willing to love both his children as if they were my own. Sadly, my husband had other ideas.

He never let me meet the children even though he knew I wanted to and instead of me, he chose to send them both to live with his aunt in Ghana. To make matters worse, he won’t take me to meet his family until I bear him a child. It is now 2 years since we last saw each other.

Last year, I quit my job as a sales manager in a steel company, foolishly believing that I was going to join him in the Middle East, so we could start all over again. Now I find myself abandoned and jobless. He seems to not care at all about my predicament. He forgot how I sold a plot of land I owned to help him out when he faced hardship. He sent some of that money to his children in Ghana, even though I am not allowed to meet them.

Recently, I have been suffering from fibroids, which makes it difficult for me to find a job. I was so desperate for cash that I had to beg him for money for 3 months, before he bothered to send me any. And even then, the money wasn’t enough to cover my medical expenses. Now, whenever I ask him for his support, it ends up in a major argument.

In addition to all the headaches he has caused me to date, he accused me of cheating. Apparently, some people have told him that I am sleeping around and that I have caught a sexually transmitted disease. As if these allegations were not hurtful enough, he is convinced that I have had an abortion.

When I thought it couldn’t get any worse, His brother whom I have never met, started sending me insulting text messages. Obviously, his family has been told all these lies and they bought it. It makes no difference that I have never cheated on him. They have all made up their minds.

I am being made to feel bad about myself just because I am childless. It doesn’t matter that I didn’t choose to be childless. They just don’t understand and obviously they don’t want to understand.

I am now back living with my mother and I am still without a job. My plan for now is to start farming on a plot of land my father left us. After everything that has happened, I pray that God has a bigger dream for me.

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