My fiancée is in Europe and I am in Ghana, but I see her frequently because of my profession, and despite the ups and downs that have caused us to lose hope, we have always been there for each other. We’ve all experienced long-distance relationships and their challenges.
I went to see her in Europe in August after she informed me she was pregnant. We were overjoyed and pleased since we had always wanted to have a family, but in the blink of an eye, my entire world was about to come crashing down.
When my fiancée’s parents found out she was pregnant, they advised her to get an abortion. She declined multiple times, but their reasoning was that she should work now that she had a job and help them finish their house-building project in Ghana. They also asked her to keep assisting them financially. At the time, she was 23 years old, pregnant, and still living with her parents.
They requested she stay and not rent, but rather pay them some type of home rent each month and contribute to bills. However, once we realized she was pregnant, she quietly moved into her own apartment. Because my fiancée declined to have the baby aborted, we talked to various elders about talking to her parents and convincing them that we are ready to keep the baby and establish a family.
Her parents agreed on the condition that before she gave birth, we do a minor marriage ritual to maintain the family’s honour. I performed the “knocking” as they requested since I was completely committed to her from the start. We were simply waiting for her to finish school so we could married, which she did this August.
However, we subsequently discovered that they accepted the knocking things simply to save face for their family members in GH. Their true purpose was to plot how to sell my child’s paternity to another guy so that he could obtain legal paperwork to reside in Europe in exchange for money for their own selfish gain. This would imply that my child bears the person’s name and that the fellow is responsible for representing my child as the father everywhere in Europe as far as he signs as the father whether it be at school, hospital or elsewhere.
Unfortunately for me, my work permit has barred me from returning to Europe because my firm is relocating its headquarters. I pleaded and begged, but they will not allow us to marry or allow me to sign as the father because if I do, I will be granted permanent residency and permission. But this is the same person I’ve been with for three years, and both families know about it, so don’t I get to be with my future family?
My fiancée is just 4 months old and unwell, and her family doesn’t seem to care; all they want is someone to sign in place of the father so that they can collect the money. Currently, this entire document is dealing with troubles with her parents, and the stress they are putting us through is slowly killing her. I’m not sure why they’ve become so bitter; they’ve known my family for almost 20 years, and every time I visited, I brought them costly presents, and they treated me like one of their own. They were proud to announce me as their future in-law to everyone who came by, and they even cooked and dined with me with excitement and happiness whenever I visited.
Everything was well until she became pregnant, and her parents were the worst and did the most. This is something I could never have anticipated. I’m at a loss for what to do now; if I should enable them to sell my paternity of the kid so that my girlfriend may have peace of mind about giving birth while still getting my child back but without the right to be a father in Europe. Or do I refuse to allow them to do so and instead push my lady to come and give birth in Ghana so that I may sign as the father and move away with my new family somewhere without her father’s permission? What are our options?
Source: Broken pen
