FEATURE: Divorce among Ghanaians in the Diaspora

-I went through one.

The institution of marriage is under assault among the Ghanaians in the Diaspora. Marriages are being ravaged by divorce and the consequences have sometimes been deadly. The main sources of conflicts in Diaspora marriages are:

Promiscuity and Infidelity

- Sexual promiscuity is a Ghanaian trademark especially among the men. There is a saying that “an old flame is always easy to rekindle.” So for the Ghanaian man, if he has ever dated a woman, regardless of whether the woman is now married, anytime they meet a sexual tryst is bound to happen. I was in Ghana recently. I happened to meet friends of my younger brother, all professionals. Within this circle of ten friends, six were sleeping with married women. The amazing thing was that all the six married women were living overseas. The relationships dated back to their high school days. Anytime these women were on visits to Ghana, they slept with these men. These are women very active in their churches overseas. The women are secretly sending money and gifts to these boyfriends. On my recent trip, a married lady I knew here in the States gave me a package to deliver to a gentleman in Accra. While there to deliver the package, a call came in from the US from the lady. It was then I realized that was her boyfriend and not a brother as I had thought. I attended a funeral recently in the States upon my return, I saw this woman with her husband. If only he knew what I know.

The women are not the only culprits. The Ghanaian men in the Diaspora are even worse.

Regardless of their marital status, they always have concubines in Ghana. They secretly send money and gifts to these girl friends in Ghana. The net outcome of this promiscuity is the spread of sexually transmitted disease even among married couples. Some years back in New York, a married woman was working as a live-in nurse’s aide taking care of a patient. What she did not know was that this man was HIV positive. The patient seduced the woman with cash and they started having an affair. She contracted the disease, gave it to her husband. Both of them are dead now.

During my recent trip to Ghana, I also found out about another prominent lawyer who died of AIDS in Ghana a couple of years ago. The deceased attorney was still sleeping with his married former girlfriend, another Diaspora woman. The married woman, a USA resident took the HIV test when she heard that her boyfriend had died of AIDS in Ghana. She tested positive and she has also infected her husband. I am not sure she told her husband the true story. She told friends that she got it from a blood transfusion. She does not have the full blown AIDS yet, neither is the husband. They have been infected for sometime now.

Every day you hear stories of married Ghanaian men caught in sexual trysts with married Ghanaian women. Sometime ago, a married pastor suffered a fatal heart attack in Canada while having sex with a girl friend. The Ghanaian societies in the Diaspora have become breeding grounds for extra marital affairs. The so-called chiefs, society presidents and ordinary members have all been caught in various compromising situations. In fact some have been caught red-handed with their pants down. You can never change the Ghanaian.

Churches

- The church as an institution plays a part in the high incidence of divorce among Ghanaians in the Diaspora. Con men turned pastors using false apocalyptic prophesies are sending mostly women in droves to these so called born again churches.

The problem arises when the man attends a different church. Instead of God First, it’s now Pastor First. A typical week for such families is like this. The woman spends all her free time at the church. She goes to bible studies, prayer meeting, choir practice, women’s fellowship meetings and Sunday service. So for four days in a week, the husband does not see the wife. He goes to work early in the morning, while she is asleep. When he comes back from work, she is also gone to work. When she comes home, she rushes to go to church in the evening. The weekends are even worse, instead of spending quality time with the family, the typical so called born-again Ghanaian Christian woman goes to women’s fellowship meeting and then choir practice. She does not come home until about 11:00 PM. Then on Sunday, she goes to church and spends all day there. Most Ghanaian churches in the Diaspora are notorious for their long services.

One Diaspora church in the States is so notorious for long services that its name is synonymous with long service. Sunday church service lasts for five hours. Don’t tell me it’s the Holy Spirit that leads a Pastor to hold court for good five hours. This is poor time management, pure and simple. Do these Pastors realize the havoc the churches are wreaking on families? Christmas and church anniversary services are even worse. They spend all day at the church. Meanwhile the non-attending husband is left home alone having returned from his Catholic Mass more than five hours ago. When the women return home, the phone rings and the gossips start. Did you see what Ms. X was wearing today at church? They stay on the phone for hours. A bad marriage is any marriage where one partner can stay on the phone or the internet at home for one hour or more while the other partner is there and left with nobody to talk to. It’s happening all across the globe among married Ghanaian men and women.

Sex/Making Love

One thing I’ve noticed about women who spend all their time at the church is that their marriages are devoid of sexual intimacy. They are always tired or they’re fasting. They always have a revival, a retreat or a convention going on. Each occasion is marked with fasting. So you can touch her. Once the revival is over, she is tired. So instead of making love, many couples are just having sex. The bible is clear about the role of intimacy in a married relationship. In 1 Corinthians 7:4-5, the bible says,

“The husband should not deprive his wife of sexual intimacy, which is her right as a married woman, nor should the wife deprive her husband. The wife gives authority over her body to her husband, and the husband also gives authority over his body to his wife. So do not deprive each other of sexual relations. The only exception to this rule would be the agreement of both husband and wife to refrain from sexual intimacy for a limited time, so they can give themselves more completely to prayer. Afterward they should come together again so that Satan won't be able to tempt them because of their lack of self-control.: (1 Cor 7:4 New Living Translation) So if you’re just having sex, then your marriage may be on the rocks. Couples in vibrant married relationships should have passionate intimacy at least twice a week.

Money

Another source of conflict is how money is handled in the house. Almost every Ghanaian in the Diaspora has a project going on back home. The danger is that such projects become secret projects- one partner not knowing what the other partner is doing.

Trouble arises when one partner finds out the other has been siphoning off money from their account to finance the project. To make matters worse some people use their boyfriends/girlfriends back home in Ghana as the project managers. They end up losing all the money when it turns out their Ghanaian lover is spending the money on his/her own project. So they grieve in secrecy, for fear that the partner might find out about the ordeal. Couples keep secret accounts and are always sending money to Ghana without the other’s knowledge.

These are the signs of bad marriages.

1) Does your wife or husband go to Ghana, every year? Before and after the trip, is he/she making a lot of calls to Ghana from his/her cell phone away from home? Does he/she call his/her so called friends in Ghana using the home phone only when the other partner is not around? These are the telltale signs that he/she is hiding something from the other. He/she may be having an affair in Ghana.

2) How long does one partner stay on the phone or the internet when the other partner is at home? If you stay on the phone or the internet for an hour or more, you’re trying to avoid the other. Your marriage is on the rocks.

3) Is the church taking over your family life depriving you of sharing quality time with your partner? Be careful, otherwise you may return from church to an empty house. If your morning church service is not ended by 12:30 PM, it’s time to find a new church. A church service should not last more than 1 ½ hours.

4) Are you just having sex in your marriage? If you’re just having sex but not making love, your marriage may be on the rocks. Make sure your partner is well satisfied at home sexually. Regardless of your age and how long you’ve been married, making passionate love at least thrice a week should be the norm in your marriage. Do not give another partner any pretext to engage in extra marital relationship. The outcome may be fatal.

5) Is your relationship of the room mate type? Husband and wife sleeping in separate rooms? Even monkeys groom one another. There are good reasons why you should sleep together. If you share the same bed, your partner will be the first to notice if there any changes to your body. Your partner will be the first to spot a growth on your body. It may be cancerous. When it’s caught early, you stand a good chance of full recovery. Sometime ago, in the US, a couple slept in different rooms. Every night while the husband slept, the husband’s friend was coming over and having good time with the wife. This went on for years until they divorced. The wife and the husband’s friend eventually married.

The warning signs are all over the place. Take steps to save the relationship.

My Story

In my case the signs were all over the place, but I missed them and it was too late. We slept in our separate rooms. We made love may be twice a month. She claimed she was always tired. She was a stay at home mom and active member of her Ghanaian church. All this time, she carried on an affair with her secondary school boyfriend back home in Ghana. I never knew it. They were having good time every time she went to Ghana. We divorced and I moved to another state. The relationship with her secondary school boyfriend faltered after our divorce. The promises fell through.

My ex-wife never recovered.

Meanwhile, she suffered a stroke, moved back to Ghana and died. She virtually destroyed the lives of our three children. Guess who supported her financially the three years she spent in Ghana before her death? Yeah, I did. By the time she died, she had squandered all her savings and the money she got out of the divorce. She bought two cars for the boyfriend from her divorce proceeds. It came to light during her funeral when her family fought the boyfriend to reclaim the cars. She was buying plane tickets for him to visit her while we were still married and after the divorce. The boyfriend is still married to his wife in Ghana. So my advice to all Ghanaians in the Diaspora, both men and women is that these extra-marital affairs are not worth a dime. A bird in hand is worth more than two in the bush.

Open Challenge to Pastors

I challenge all the many pastors in the Diaspora to read this piece as a sermon one Sunday morning in their church and ask the congregation to stand up if any one is guilty of just one of the five issues noted above. I bet you, the entire congregation will stand up. It tells you how pervasive these issues are. Don’t let your marriage become a victim. The time to save it is now. I’m writing from experience.