I met Kojo through a mutual friend. He was coming to my school to offer the same course so my friend gave him my number so I could guide him. The day he met me he expressed interest in me. I felt he had probably seen my photos and was just crushing on me so I let him down easily. However, I helped him with a few course materials and some tips to help him study.
After Kojo settled in we kept in touch. While I was only interested in being his friend, he kept expressing romantic interest in me. I always turned him down but he wouldn’t take no for an answer. At a point, I felt like he was just enjoying the thrill of the chase. Because every time I turned him down, he came back more determined than ever to win my affection. One day I got tired and told him, “Kojo, you need to stop with this love interest thing. I am still recovering from a relationship that drained me emotionally and psychologically. I am not ready for another one.” He just looked at me for a minute and said, “I know I’m a cat and you’re a tigress, you can easily devour me but please give me a chance to love you, and you won’t regret it”.
Somehow that statement got to me. It made me feel like I was writing him off without giving him a fighting chance. All this back and forth happened in October 2020. And from that moment I softened my heart toward him and we became friends. Instead of dismissing him, I made sure I returned whatever energy he invested in me. As I put in the work and matched his efforts, I started developing feelings for him. And in January 2021, I accepted his proposal.
I don’t know how to love in tots or bits and pieces. I feel very deeply so usually, I plunge myself into the deep end of love. One might ask if it is safe to love in this manner. My answer is, “No, it is not.” This way of loving someone is why I almost took my own life when my previous relationship ended. Did I learn from the experience? Yes, but the lesson didn’t change me. I love hard and I love with everything I have and that’s just who I am. So that’s how I loved Kojo to the point where anyone who saw us together knew that I was crazy about him. A friend of mine who was older than me became concerned at the rate at which things were going between us.
She told me, “Slow down. I don’t think this guy will take you anywhere. From the look of things he won’t marry you.” I heard her advice but I was too far gone to do anything about it. This made her dislike Kojo so she always gave him attitude. One day he complained to me, “I don’t think your friend likes me very much. She is always rude to me.” I told him, “Don’t worry, she won’t be a problem anymore.” And then I went ahead and cut my friend off without any hesitation.
It’s been a year and eight months now since we started dating and all I have to say is, “Being with Kojo is one of the most regrettable decisions I’ve ever made in my life.” Our troubles started when I realized that a particular number kept calling Kojo. She called at odd times and I saw the chats he had with her. The girl is called Yaa. Apart from her, he was also flirting with Precious, Priscilla, Petra, Adwoa, Dennisa, Sheilla, and a few others. I wasn’t ready to leave him so I managed to convince him to cut them off but he always went back to one of them whenever we had an argument.
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While he was going back and forth between these girls, Yaa was a constant. He never dropped her. That was what piqued my curiosity. “What is so special about this girl?” I wondered. So I stole her number from his phone. Before I contacted her I asked him about his relationship with her. He told me, “She is my ex-girlfriend from SHS. Right now we are just friends.” His answer didn’t add up and I knew he was lying so I shouldn’t have wasted my time trying to find out the truth. I should have just walked away for my sanity’s sake but I stayed.
As I said, I was too far gone to see reason. I thought if I gave him time, he would come around. But that didn’t work. All he did was cheat on me with this Yaa lady and then lie straight to my face. I became bitter because of everything he was doing. My anger became so severe that one day during an argument, I took a knife and cut him. It was easy for me to do that because I self-harm whenever I am in emotional pain. So cutting and blood doesn’t scare me. Nonetheless, when I saw him bleeding I regretted my actions, apologized to him, and patched him up. Later, we sat down and worked out our differences.
I knew Kojo isn’t the guy for me but I just couldn’t let him go, despite all the lies he told me. I asked God for signs so many times and he gave me those signs through dreams and Kojo’s actions. Even my late mom’s friend who’s a prophetess told me that Kojo was seeing someone in his hometown called Yaa. That was when I mustered the courage and texted Yaa asking about her relationship with Kojo. She told me he was her boyfriend. From the way she spoke, they have been together for a very long time. She didn’t even know that I was involved with him. I wasn’t surprised but I was still very hurt.
He has drained me financially, emotionally, psychologically, and even spiritually. I used to be on fire for God but slowly I drifted away because of my insistence on being with Kojo. Our one-year, eight months relationship was just a lie. It hurts me so badly that I don’t want to have anything to do with love again. Because of Kojo, I drove away financially capable men who could afford to pay my fees and take good care of me. I want to curse him but I’m holding myself back. I know karma is real so I will just let Karma deal with him.
The painful part about all this is that he has never admitted that he did anything wrong, let alone apologize. I know our relationship is over but where do I start? I isolated everyone in my life because of him. I fought with my brother and cut off all my friends, just because they didn’t think he was right for me. Now, whose shoulder will I lean on for comfort? I don’t understand how he can hurt me this badly after telling me that he’s never met a generous and kindhearted lady like me before. How will I recover from this? What will I tell the people that knew about us?
—Abla
