In Guinea, there are many men who live abroad, who marry, often leaving their wives behind. A situation that is not without consequences on the lives of couples. Some women in this situation spoke with Dialogue Migration.

“Distance kills love”, this assertion is controversial. But, as far as our interlocutor is concerned, she holds her ground.  She specifies “when you do not live with your spouse, even if you communicate regularly, there will always be a void in your relationship. He almost can’t understand what you’re going through,” shares our interlocutor who chose to remain anonymous.

Far from her husband, she explains “distance can lead to love dying little by little. And this, in all aspects. If you live with your children, they can grow up without knowing their dad. Because some husbands come just to get their wives pregnant and go back to where they were. It’s paradoxical.” Our interlocutor finds that this is a great failure in a marriage relationship. According to her, this distance plays a lot on the education of children who, she says, will love their mom more than their dad.

This is why, she continues, “getting married and leaving your wife and living elsewhere is a phenomenon that not only impacts the quality of the couple, but also greatly delays the education of children”.

Most men who emigrate leaving their wives behind have this argument “stay here I will go get money for us, so that we can accumulate financial resources to go forward,” testifies our interlocutor.

When questioned, this other woman whose husband decided to emigrate to Europe shares without declining her identity “I got married in 2016. After the celebration of the marriage, I spent only seven months with my husband and he went to Côte d’Ivoire. He left me with a one-month pregnancy. A few weeks later, he called me and told me he had arrived in England.”

According to our second interlocutor, when her husband left Guinea, there was a good understanding between her and her in-laws. But as soon as her husband arrived in the West, these sisters-in-law began to be jealous of her. As a result, her husband’s family pushed her to leave Conakry and settle in Labé, she says, for fear that she would engage in some undesirable practices in the capital.

The other aspect of the lives of the wives of migrants left behind, they often do not live alone. They are accommodated in the large husband’s family. It is rare for a married woman whose husband lives elsewhere to live alone. Knowing that in large families in Africa, the woman cannot stay alone. She is usually confined within the in-laws. Often in order to help the latter in the various household chores.

Therefore, living in this environment has a good share of hardships and so many troubles”, say most of our interlocutors. The husband’s family environment is frowned upon by wives, since there are some who love you and others who do not love you at all, who sometimes show jealousy.

Our first interlocutor returns to some realities “you know in Africa; it is the family of the man that always has the last word. They decide in the place of the man.” However, when it comes to women’s expenses, there are always calculations. Not to mention some unforeseen events that sometimes arise such as expenses related to family events. Without a source of income, it will be very difficult for the person to get by.

In the family of the husband, the difficulties are numerous, our interviewees share in the following terms “even if they see you with a beautiful boubou dress, they will automatically think that it is the money of their child (your husband) that you invest in your clothing, wasting their money.”

She continues: “As soon as you dress well, eat well or have a good phone, they are directly jealous, and they think you are wasting your husband’s money unnecessarily. They think your husband takes care of you more than they do. There are moms who are very jealous of their child’s wife. On the other hand, if your husband has sisters, in fact, it is another case of jealousy that does not remain without consequence.”

Our interlocutor advises: if you are married, you have to stay with your wife, whatever the situation, you will overcome it together. That is the most important thing.” She is convinced that getting married and leaving your wife behind does not contribute to the development of the couple. “It’s a backward type of life. Because no woman wants to live far from her husband,” she said.

The absence of the husband means that they do not have the heart to take care of themselves. “If you dress very well, some of your in-laws make stories about you by calling your husband to tell him that his wife is always well dressed, you have to call him out. In my case, as soon as my husband receives such calls, he directly contacts me and scolds me. This is what often causes arguments between us. So, it’s when I go to my sewing workshop that I dress or in ceremonies. I firmly believe that if we were together, he would have understood my lifestyle. One day, my husband called, I activated my camera for him to see that I was in a sewing workshop,” says this woman who has been living away from her husband for 7 years.

She wants to be philosophical: “Women are like a calabash, the more you wash it, the cleaner it becomes. That’s why it’s imperative to take care of yourself as a woman.”

“My husband left 7 years ago, I was supposed to join him, the process was underway. But my mother-in-law made it impossible for me to go; in the meantime, she was preparing a second wife for her child (my husband),” she shares and then adds, “such a situation hurts you terribly”.

In practice, women who do not live with their husbands face enormous difficulties. The man does not calculate the difficulties that the woman encounters in his absence on a daily basis.

Distant couples are always in conflict, many married women share that “it’s rare to be honest”. The other aspect is being able to have children for these couples not living together. “Women are able to bear a child only until a certain age, men have nothing to lose since they can even marry a 18-years old girl and still make babies”, they sadly share.